To be fuming with colleague who's taken the credit for my work?

[cabbagequeen]

But more importantly to ask for advice as to what to do about it without looking petty?

I work in the construction industry, I'm the second most senior female in the company but there are way more men above me and I struggle to get noticed as it is in such a male dominated environment. I spent all day on a piece of work, showed it to my colleague before I left who said it was really good and that we would sit down with top boss on Monday and run through it together. So after I left, he emailed the documents straight to our boss saying we'd worked on it together. Despite the fact he contributed literally nothing...

What should I do? I am fuming but can't think of a response that doesn't make me sound like I'm being unprofessional. But at the same time I don't want him passing off my work as his own.

want to put prawns in his desk drawer but that's clearly not professional

Honestly, whilst there are some great passive aggressive responses on here, realistically as I’ve said before the “top” boss is unlikely to be impressed with what he/she will see as tit for tat.

If there’s to be a meeting about it since you prepared the doc you will know a lot more and that will become obvious in the presentation. And just don’t show the fucker anything again!

Bright and breezy but extremely forthright.

Email boss, re-sending work. Add a message saying ‘Hi, boss, didn’t realise cf was sending you the work I did. If you want any clarification on how I came up with it, I’d love to discuss my ideas with you on Monday”. Cc to cf wanker and yes, tear him a new one when you see him and tell him never to try to take credit for your work again.

Reply to all. "Thanks Bob for taking the time this afternoon for reviewing this with me, really pleased with your response and that you agreed no amendments to my work were required. Looking forward to Monday when I can talk you both through it in greater detail. Many thanks and regards, Cabbage"

Don’t go passive aggressive. It does work in that environment. It’d make you look like a vengeful lil woman. You want to be strong and not to be less with. Little digs don’t work in that environment. Rip the plaster.

@Cherrysoup probably has it about right!

“Hi X, didn’t realise wanker was sending across the document I’d been working on before I’d had a chance to finish, please let me know if you have any questions or need to run through anything”

Professional and clear without being petty.

• doesn’t work.

Yes he cc'd me on the email.

Colleague claiming my work is more senior than me. I have done all the project work - design / reports etc but he is the face of the project as he is my senior.

"Thanks Bob for taking the time this afternoon for reviewing this with me, really pleased with your response and that you agreed no amendments to my work were required. Looking forward to Monday when I can talk you both through it in greater detail. Many thanks and regards, Cabbage"

Sorry but this comes across as very passive aggressive!

Sorry but this comes across as very passive aggressive!

Sorry but it depends on your industry and culture. After 20+ years in male-dominated IT it may be passive aggressive but it is the only way to survive, in the places I have worked. It is a suggestion, and it absolutely bloody works every time for me!!

Send another email around saying if anyone one wants to see further details to come to you as you have the originals on your system as you drew /typed whatever them as part of your vision for whatever it was for Bob the asshole to propose to.

As @BooFuckingHoo2 notes, management don't give a shit about about who did the work. I was told "it's not a pissing contest" when I complained about it. Just make sure the prick doesn't get the chance do it again.

Ah that changes things. It’s a grey area now, as your senior he can say that one of his team has x idea, but your ideas represent him too.

If you didn’t want him involved you should have bypassed him. I hate to say it, but it’s what a man would do. Once you emailed it to him looking for his approval, he gave it by forwarding it on. That was enough of a contribution to make it a ‘joint’ piece of work.

It isn't petty to do something about it at all.

Many years ago my very incompetent boss did it to me once. After that, I put footers on every document I created with my name and the file info and only ever sent them to her as a protected file.

@scoobyd2 as senior management in IT/engineering kind of environment you may think it “works” but it is always noted who starts complaining to the boss that “XYZ stole my homework” instead of going direct to source with their own work.

Bosses generally don’t have time to invigilate in office politics.

I would confront the colleague, if he is a bit senior but not so much senior to you that it would cost you your job. I would try not to be aggressive and angry but just honest and tell him to cut it out. I would say to him, it's hard enough for a woman in this work environment, so don't undermine my achievements. Keep it short, polite clear and sufficiently light that you can both move on from it. I wouldn't overtly go to the boss, but in the meeting I would use a lot of I's and me's and maybe turn to colleague at intervals and say 'what did you think about that idea?' etc

That happened to me once! Can't go into too much detail without being 'outing', but I was quite junior then; the other individual gave me a small amount of advice on my request; and then described the work (mostly mine) to other people as his, without mentioning me AT ALL. I did confront him, which I usually don't; and I still remember him looking at me in a baffled way, rather as though I was a chair that had suddenly complained about his sitting on it! In a way, it had a good outcome, as I felt forced to publish the work as quickly as possible under my name, and I did so successfully! I don't know what to advise you, but YANBU to be angry.

Do you trust your colleague and do you that the senior person he sent it to? I work in an environment where everything is highly collaborative bit one person's name needs to go on it in the end. If I have my name on it is a formality only I would always reference the major contributors/authors in any onward communications. If I wasn't sure how the senior would take it, I may do a protective "we" if I didn't want a junior in the firing line. In short - I can see circumstances when it might be ok to take some "credit"(or provide cover) for a colleague. But in general, you should always be credited.

I would think nothing of you clarifying that in person or most likely by email. Simple reply to all: "thank you for sending on my project.look forward to discussing on Monday".

@BooFuckingHoo2 also senior management in an IT kind of environment. I have a good reputation for delivery, we also have a lot of people ready to take credit where they think they can. You know your environment, I don't. I know my environment, you don't. Lets agree to disagree as we clearly are not in the same place (unless you are one of the people who regularly try to steal my or my peers work ) What works for you or me won't always work elsewhere.

Right so presumably you’re reporting to him on this project ? In which case all the advice about sailing in guns blazing is totally inappropriate.

Is it the kind of place where ingratiating yourself with this guy is a smart political strategy in the long run?

PS I think in my case, it was about seniority rather than gender. Though the two are sometimes related.

Leave it this time. When it comes to discussing it, it will be clear who did all the work.

In future use a protected copy, send directly to big boss, and cc in CF as the senior person

That's not petty.

I think you have to step up and make it known that it was your work.

Too late this time but next time could you put a light grey footer on with your name, date, ref code? Can’t usually be seen unless printed out......

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being passive aggressive in this case

“Thank you both very much for the positive feedback. I really appreciate it as I put in a lot of work on it”