I'm just going to make an effort to get out of my office more and talk with people.

The stuff she said isn't that bad: talk to people more, learn everyone's names, and stay off my phone.
I have just been chilling in my office for a few months; I can do everything she commented on and try harder.

It's an admitted cliche, but, in an office environment, what you think is almost meaningless...what matters is what others think. Managing other people's perceptions is arguably as important as doing the actual work. IMO/

In my experience, employers don't go around telling their star employees, who are doing a great job and getting all their work done without any issues, that they aren't a good fit just because of some superficial thing like not being good at remembering names or failing to make idle chit-chat. Whether you're filtering things out in your description or interpretation of the conversation, or your boss is just bad at communicating what the real issues are, I can almost guarantee that making some transparent effort to go around awkwardly talking with people or drawing a ****ing seating chart is not going to magically fix everything. Your general personality has probably rubbed certain people the wrong way (shocking!), or there are people wondering why they're paying a full-time salary to someone who's only working 10% of the day, or maybe you're just not doing as great a job with the work you do as you think you are.

If you really care about this job, I'd recommend starting by treating it like a 40-hour-per-week obligation. If you find yourself with nothing to do, that's not a green light to just do nothing. Reach out to your boss or co-workers and ask what else you can help with. Show some curiosity about other aspects of the project that you're not directly responsible for. Gain and demonstrate some skills or knowledge that prove you'd be capable of performing at the next level instead of basically announcing to everyone that you're only there to do the absolute bare minimum required to collect your current paycheck. That's the attitude of a high-schooler at a fast food job, not someone pursuing a serious career in engineering. And realize that covering for a co-worker who's dealing with a family emergency isn't something to be whiny about or expect a medal for; it's an expected part of being a good team member. If you're giving off even subtle vibes that you're feeling inconvenienced by it or not properly appreciated for it, while people are already thinking you're spending too much time on your phone instead of working, that's not a good look.

I've told code3 a thousand times since I started there that they didn't need me or my position. I screwed up by not asking for more work to do though. I'm really going to try to get more involved. I have a lot of troubleshooting meetings coming up, and this is my strong suite, so I hope I can gain some favor back in the next few weeks.

As far as my personality rubbing people the wrong way, there is just one woman that doesn't really like me. She's the busy body type and sits two offices down from me. On Thursday last week I had gone to the bathroom and turned my lights out, as I was coming back to my desk I heard her say to someone else "she's gone already again" insinuating that I had left work early. I guess she thinks im leaving work early, but I'm not. I come in at 7:30 and leave at 4:30. I think she was the one who complained about me being on my phone.

Bitch must be intimidated

People in the workplace generally make an effort to be polite and cordial, even to people they dislike, so you may not always pick up on how well you are getting along with your colleagues.

M,

Have you been looking for other jobs?

Nope, but I guess I need to start :/ There isn't much in East Texas, so I'll have to look in Dallas.

I didn't plan on staying at this company for more than 2 years, but i didn't think I would be changing jobs this soon.

M,

Maybe you can fix this, but ung's post is right on the money. For whatever reasons, your boss has serious concerns about your performance.

I'll try to talk with her again and see if there are any specifics in regards to my performance. She came back to my office on Friday afternoon and I ask her if there was anything else specific I could work on and she didn't give me anything. I did take 3 days off this month for being sick, maybe that contributed. Before last week, she never showed any indication at all that she wasn't happy with my work and performance. I dunno, I haven't done much work, but the work I've done has been pretty good. Just two months ago I presented my work and plan that will save the company over $100k/year; she was all ecstatic about that.

Oh yeah, when that was getting a bunch of praise, she took credit for it. She made everyone think it was her idea and she told me to do the work for it. That pissed me off, but whatever, our group looked good.

M,

You've said you only have a couple hours of work to do every day. If that's true, it shouldn't be "pretty good" it should be ****ing amazing.

How much do you interact with your coworkers? How much do they interact with each other?

You should also prob move this discussion over to one of your OOT threads instead of cluttering up your log with it.

Saving the company $100k+/year seems ****ing amazing to me lol

I get what youre saying though. I was just being really really lazy and doing the bare minimum.

I couldn't tell you how much my co-workers are interacting because I've just been staying in my office playing on my phone. Apparently it's more than I've been doing.

Not discussing this in OOT because people don't know how to behave and I would just like some feedback and not a bunch of nasty insults.

I guess I just didn't see this job as a long term career and I don't really like the work so I was just taking advantage of not having much to do and collecting my paycheck.

The work isn't exciting and it's not really engineering.

While you're killing time on your phone, you might want to check out The Engineering Commons podcast. This link is to a specific episode about soft skills that engineers need.

Sun Log:

MLYLT,

404.25 grams is oddly specific, but I'm glad to see you weighing your food!

I went to the subway website and built my sandwhich then took 3/4 of the grams it gave me because that's all i ate of it.

I've been walking around talking to people and waving and smiling all day.....it's exhausting.

MLYLT,

Shouldn't you be doing work instead of walking around doing that?

Think of it as cardio.

Who was it?

I only have about 2hrs of actual work to do everyday. My boss wants me to talk to people more and build relationships.
Oh, and not be on my phone when I don't have work to do.

This old nosey bat that's in charge of ordering office supplies and doing other miscellaneous stuff. She got plenty of time to be walking by my office to see what I'm doing and watching what time I leave everyday.

What a bitch!

haha yeah, its probably pretty great if you're not overly sedentary. I think the idea of talking to people instead of actually working as kind of bazar and unproductive, but I don't know how the real world works and I guess its what you're supposed to be doing.

MLYLT, GJ on the calories and recent weight loss, cut back on replacing meals with ice cream/SBCB.