Yeah, this.
Well, that’s also ridiculous. Unless you disrupted the session or didn’t learn what you should have from it, there is no way it should be considered a performance issue.
It sounds like you may have been complaining a lot. Were you?
On a trip it’s important to remember that everyone is inconvenienced when they are away from home. Max and 2nd guy were also working the whole time, also hungry, also tired,also frustrated about the transportation and schedule mismatch. Everyone on the trip is responsible for his/her affect on the morale of the group. It is necessary to be gracious, suffer patiently, and meet your own needs whenever possible.
I forgot to say earlier that talking about work 24/7 on work travel is just bog standard. I’m surprised that they managed to work cars in at all. There is no down time on work travel, you are lucky to sleep.
It might be worthwhile to talk to psychiatrist about treating your anxiety. It sounds like it has reached a point that it’s interfering with day-to-day activities, especially work. And with a boss like that, even a usually calm person might need an aid to cope.
I also recommend fixing up your resume and getting it out there. Suggesting that someone’s job is on the line is a very serious thing to say, and likely to cause fear or even panic for the employee. Either your boss is helpfully giving you a quiet head’s up, or he’s an abusive @$$hole. Either way, the right answer is start quietly looking for other work.
Two things I’d like to ask to put this in perspective: How old are you? Do you by chance have a vision impairment?
I’ve been in similar situation. After-event dinners would be considered your own personal time, unless you are earning overtime by attending a work dinner. If not, declare “jet lag” to stay in the hotel, then just slip out to do your own thing. If spotted, e.g. by a coworker camping at the lobby bar, you can cover by saying you were heading out to find some pepto and TylenolPM and got a bit lost out there.
You don’t drive, by why don’t you Uber? Screw waiting for Max…
I think Uber’s having problems in Germany right now.
Or taxi. Or bus. Or hitchhike.
Did you let everyone know that you weren’t happy with the things you outlined in the OP? I can see why that wouldn’t go over very well. I’ve said what I think in previous posts, I’d suggest that that’s a fairly “standard” view of how things are thought of from an employer’s perspective. No, you shouldn’t have to try to pretend you like people at dinners outside work hours, but it’s required. This is where all that HR “speak” like “being a team player” comes from. You’re meant to (at least be seen to be) put work first and to suck up the unpleasant things that might be dumped on you from time to time (if it’s more than “from time to time” then it’s time to look for something else).
If it was your behaviour that has made the other IT people “write you off” (if they have, you might just be feeling vulnerable and over-stating things), you might try an approach like digs describes. Acknowledge the feedback (even if you don’t really agree with it), explain what drove you to do what you did, and tell them you’ll do better.
BPC, you said you have anxiety issues – are you currently working with a therapist?
I’m 24, seeing a therapist for depression but not really anxiety. I plan to bring it up in our next appointment.
And yeah, the senior coworkers have basically written me off. It’s not worth the time to point out that I did something wrong any more, and if they want to show someone a new system, they do it with the other junior coworker. The boss stuck his neck out for me to be allowed to go on this trip, apparently, it was really expensive, and now he has to report that I wasn’t a team player and shit went poorly. My contract runs out next year. I took it for granted that I’d get renewed. Shows what I know. Basically everyone who saw the facts on the ground agrees that I fucked up. Joy.
Thanks for the advice, everyone. Next time something like this happens, I’ll keep it in mind.
Did your boss say, specifically, what you did wrong? Not in general terms like “you’re not a team player” or “the other guys had some problems with you”, but concrete examples? Did you even ask?
Because that’s the number one rule of working in an organization: always be specific. If someone complains about you or accuses you of something, you have to find out exactly what their problem is, so that you can either challenge the accusation, or try to do better in the future. Generalities are fucking useless. How can you be a team player if your boss doesn’t tell you what precisely he thinks being a team player is?
Plenty of specifics were offered, and they were all quite accurate.
Are they things you can address? You took for granted that your contract would be renewed - it still can be, you’re just going to have to work for it. There’s time. The feedback you were given, figure out what you might do to address “whatever” and then tell them what you are going to do, and then do it. Don’t just give up and don’t just let one lousy trip wreck the future as well as the past. Can you ask the senior people who are disregarding you what you might do to redeem yourself? If they give you some positive steps to take, take them. Don’t just assume that the whole thing is over, or a waste of time.
I am working on addressing them. I’m not giving up. Still hurts like hell, though.
Oh, sure, it’s hard to deal with this sort of thing, but you’re young and it’ll fade into all of the other experience you’ll get over the years.
Is there someone at work who might mentor you? Is it something you could ask about?
Yeah. Those are exactly the people who have given up on me.
Operation “get back in their good books” starting soon. 
I had to travel on a job once, in 1996, for a now vanished IT training company. I’d fly out to a city for up to 2-3 days. I’d never flown commercially at all before this, and haven’t much since. I think of commercial flying the same way I do camping: You’re sitting around in dirty places a lot, with not a lot to do, eating strange and not always good food. What I learned:
A small overhead bin bag for clothes and toiletries, and a day pack that can fit under a seat. It’s amazing how small three days of work clothes actually are. The day pack has a laptop, power adapter, phone charger cord, ear buds or small headphones, two good magazines, two paperbacks of which at least one is a short story anthology, and a bag of trail mix and other compact snack foods like Lance’s Crackers. A small plastic container will prevent those from being crushed into bread crumbs. Werther’s butterscotch. Reisen chocolates. Even beef jerky. The only thing you should need to buy or get from the airline is potable liquids, although the airline meals I did get were generally reasonably edible. And yes, an extra toothbrush and a pair of underwear in the day pack.
I get ADD and have repressed anxiety on flights, so trying to work was generally out of the question. Short stories are great for flights.
The laptop has a selection of games, music, more ebooks, and three or four movies I’ve been meaning to get around and watching, or old favorites. If a job won’t allow that stuff on a work issued laptop, or if space is an issue, a 64GB SD card or thumb drive can hold all of that. Music and books can also be loaded onto a smart phone, provided our phone actually has a headphone jack for the music. If you’re forced to load games onto a thumb drive or SD card, look for “portable software” that can run from removable media.
And yes, you are your own ship when you are traveling like this, and as captain you have freedom of action within the limits of Company rules, just like a Cunard captain. “I’ll catch you back at the hotel” is fair, or at least find a reasonably comfortable chair or couch at the site and get out the day pack.
And I see you’re 24. You’re young and learning the ropes. It’s also possible your company is a bag of dicks, or the fellow you went with is a dick. Welcome to the working world, and get that resume out there.
I recently had to go into hospital, and I took my Playstation portable. I had my music on it, and also loaded an audiobook, and I got some of those UMD movies from the hock shop and I could of course also play games. It was pretty good to have all that “stuff” in a small device.
Possibly in anticipation of a cretin such as yourself floundering in with a stupid question like this, so that it can get the “fuck you” reply it deserves.
See, BPC? You do know how to plan ahead!
And you know how to get some brutal Cognitive Therapy for free.
Budgie, you remind me so much of myself at that age. I can think back and find a half dozen work projects that crashed and burned… all totally my fault. And I really don’t know why I didn’t get fired.
But I sucked it up, learned, and five years later ended up being in charge of a department (a “Creative Supervisor”, whatever the fück that is… the boss would give me a new title if he couldn’t give me a raise).
ETA: This advice applicable if you stay, or if you get the hell out of there asap.