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

Thanks all for the suggestions. I will say something to my colleague on Monday. Footers are an excellent idea too - all of our drawings have our initials on so can't be pinched but this was written information that we don't use a template for. I will from now on...

I'm just so cross that this guy (who is more senior than me but mainly because he's a man - I'm more qualified - but that's a whole other thread) would just completely lie about the origins of a piece of work just to make himself look good. He then gets the credit for mentoring me whereas I'm quite capable of doing the work myself but have to show it to him as that's the process.

I don't understand why you can't tell your boss directly who did the work.

If YOU (OP) tried to claim your male colleague's work as your own, you can be pretty darn sure he'd go straight to boss to put the record straight. Tell me that your colleague wouldn't do that.

I guess you can phrase it as (and I do mean cc this back to both) : "I'm so glad you and both liked so much what I produced. I worked very hard on it and the positive feedback from both of you is a great reward."

BooFuckingHoo2 I find your responses depressing, though predictable.

I appreciate senior management have a lot on their plate (I used to be one), but surely any senior manager worth their salt has the nous to realise when someone is a serial tale-teller/whinger, as opposed to somebody who has been shafted by a lick-spittle?

Don’t you want to know who are really the good producers in your department? When you are interviewing for promotions, etc, don’t you want to have a really good, accurate, knowledge of who is really good, and who is winging it/bullshitting/riding on others’ coat tails?

I have always found it pays dividends in ensuring your staff trust that you have a clear idea of what is going on in the department, and that efforts and innovation will be fairly rewarded. There’s nothing worse for morale than a general sense in a department that it’s the Billy Bullshitters -who talk a good game but deliver little - who get on, rather than those who are decent and put the work in to deliver.

Furthermore, I really don’t want anyone working for me in a position of trust, who would stoop so low as to pass someone else’s work off as their own. How could I trust them?

OP, I would nip this in the bud now. Make it clear to the weasel that you’ll be calling him out if he does it again, and don’t give him advance copies of anything in future.

Always put your name on your work!

And I didn't email the work to my colleague - I purposefully printed off hard copies, showed it to him and took it with me.

Colleague went online in the joint project filing after I had left to find the original documents so he could email them out.

I wish you luck, and sad to note how common this is.

Can you defer questions to him that he can't possibly answer?

Honestly, I find that meetings and talking to the team are a far better way to wheedle out the contributors from the bullshitters. It is MUCH more difficult to hide it face to face.

I’ve managed out managers who are clearly just winging it on the back of their team before and I note and appreciate those managers who credit their team for their work.

If a manager produced an impressive document I’d be asking how they came up with it/who contributed, if they didn’t already state. And if they claimed it was a solo effort I’d be asking why they’d spent so much time producing it instead of delegating and managing their team.

Jeez, I would leave this. It's something you worked on for ONE DAY! It's not exactly a "project", it's a small task. You would come across as a loon.

Fair enough, Boo, I found similar to you, that it became obvious pretty quickly who were the bullshitters and who were pulling their weight, mostly via one to one’s, meetings etc.

It always baffled me how this seemed to be a far from universal skill amongst senior management, though. In every organisation I worked for there were always some promoted way beyond their capabilities or level of actual contribution, seemingly on the back of cast-iron (misplaced) high confidence, and relentless and shameless self-promotion.

It always baffled me how this seemed to be a far from universal skill amongst senior management, though. In every organisation I worked for there were always some promoted way beyond their capabilities or level of actual contribution, seemingly on the back of cast-iron (misplaced) high confidence, and relentless and shameless self-promotion.

Oh I completely agree. Unfortunately it sometimes seems to be a mates and brown nosing game (especially amongst men). Sadly people (namely women) seem to come off even WORSE in those kind of situations when they are seen to be tittle tattling

Send an email to rogue colleague cc-ing big boss in, thanking him for recognising your work and running it up to big boss. Say how you really appreciate him in being so forward in promoting the work of a female colleague etc and that it shows how times have changed.

"Hi big boss. I didn't realise superviser was going to send this to you tonight. I haven't quite finished it. Happy to have feedback at this stage before I put the final touches together"

This shows complete ownership. No doubt it's your work. And without being passive aggressive etc

Reply all: Thank you for grabbing my work and sharing it with big boss. I'm pleased you felt my work was good enough to forward in it's current revision after you reviewed it for me.

Big boss - please let me know if you have any feedback?

*grabbing my work from the project drive

this is awful OP.. bloody awful... I hope you say something but appreciate it's awkward.. but your boss is DEPENDING on that...

I'd seriously consider reporting him... if you let him away with this behaviour, he'll do it again and again and again.... I'm fizzing for you OP.

Dear Boss,
cc-ing supervisor
Since giving a copy of 'document name' to 'supervisor' late this afternoon I have made a couple of amendments. Please find attached the latest/final draft. [Make a couple of tweaks, including adding footer.]
I look forward to answering your questions/talking this through/working with you next week.

I agree Boo. Fucking infuriating!

OP, I hope you pound this fucker into the ground.

Big boss may realise anyway. In my job the big boss had an overview of who was doing what anyway from the weekly meetings they had with supervisors. Also they could tell from the way the way reports were actually written as some people were better at it than others

Can you prove that you were the one who wrote the document? If so, I would have a word with colleague ASAP, and make it very clear that if he attempts to claim your work you are willing to call him out in front of the boss, and use the document history to prove it.

Also, get there early on Monday and add headers with your name all over it.

"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."

This may be the issue, he is the face of the project, you are the junior, you sound like you are working of bits of 'his' project and I'm not really sure that he done anything wrong here.

I regularly delegate out bits to my group (I am 2nd in charge of group) anything that is a 'me' project that someone else works on and then gets forwarded elsewhere has both my name the other persons name on it for a couple of reasons, one it is 'my' project so I want to make sure any issues that arise I know about them and secondly if one of my people has made a mistake they do not carry the can themselves that I am included so I can protect them. I will however make 100% sure that they are credited but I have to balance that against if there is a problem that I'm not also hanging them out alone hence they get full credit for their contributions when all is approved but not if there is an issue.

My principle is that if my people look good then I look good because I'm obviously managing them well, I don't have to be better than them at the work our group does because that's not my job, that's theirs, my job is to lead and manage it's not to do.

I agree with confronting your colleague directly about it, even if you do have to work with him going forward. So what, he should feel awkward. I wouldn't take him to one side though, I'd say it, lightly, in front of everyone and enjoy watching him squirm.

Hey CF, saw your email to BigBoss. Just wondered why you said that we worked on that together?

The correct email he should have sent was "Here is X, a really great bit of work from cabbage. Well done cabbage"

How well do you know the big boss? If it were me then I'd engineer a reason to talk to him and follow up with asking him how you ought to deal with the situation.

Hmm as someone said you worked on this for a day and he presented it as your work with his support.

I would chalk it up to experience as he is also helping you get the attention of the big boss