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

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

Or he may be the clueless type who falls for bullshitting and likes his inferiors to dawn around him telling him he is wonderful most senior managers in my experience sadly

I also had this happen to me. I was a contractor writing configuration code for a company network/security system. I had to submit my code to a manager for approval, all he did was add his ID to the code and pass it on. He was praised for his efforts and I was told I was no longer needed and contract was terminated!
My last day I wrote a new config script that was obviously wrong (included the line "you are a wanker") and sent it to him just before I left.
Guess what happened?......

@wombat1a is right.
The senior on the project has signoff and is responsible for getting the work out ahead of deadline. If you'd done it and they had signed it off there is no reason why it shouldn't go out.

It would show better management skills to have said to you "please draft an email yourself to share with boss and c c me" - but who knows the boss might have asked your direct manager to keep a close eye on the project & themselves would be expecting the reassurance of knowing that your boss is on top of it.

Reply all -

Thank you so much for providing the feedback on my project and supporting the submission. I look forward to meeting with boss to discuss it's implementation.

“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.”

Er, that is completely different, OP. He’s your boss. He could’ve literally asked you to email it to him and had a meeting with the big boss and taken the credit for it.

Face of the project goes both ways - when it goes to shit because someone junior fucked up, the “face of the project” gets to shoulder the blame for the fuck up.

Your update completely changes the scenario from a colleague taking credit for your work to you showing the project manager a day’s worth of work for his feedback, him liking it and including you in a meeting to take it to the next step with the higher ups.

I once won a big funding bid for the charity i worked for which turned into an award winning piece of work. I did all the work myself.
I was told I couldn’t go to the awards ceremony as three pleases where taken up by the CEO, his deputy and his wife.
There picture ended up in the paper with him gushing about all the hard work he had done. The award sits behind his desk or it did before I left.
Luckily the people that matter know but it was still a kick in the teeth.

I have a colleague who does this at every opportunity if she gets the chance. She seems to have no shame in it at all. Her favourite trick is to listen in in on conversations, give an opinion and then try to give the impression to others that she has done the work. I actually moved offices to get away from her as it really wasn't doing me any favours.

It's not clear whether this person is your line manager but even if he is he still shouldn't be giving the impression that he is involved in work that he has had nothing to do with. I wouldn't necessarily complain but I would make it very clear to your boss who actually did the work and in future I wouldn't show your co-worker anything before your boss sees it unless you really have to.

I agree, I don't think this is a big deal. It's something you worked on for one day as part of a bigger project your colleague is managing. I don't think it was out of line for him to send it on to the boss.

Who asked you to do it in the first place?

Keep an eye to see if it's part of a wider trend, but I don't think this incident in isolation is a big deal. Presumably everything for the project is going to boss via colleague.

It depends on the relationship you have with your boss but I think it’s fine to say you were a bit surprised Dickface had emailed the work and suggested you’d both worked in it as you’d only showed it to him moments before he emailed it. Regardless of credit for the work, the fact he lied like that shows him up and it makes sense to call out someone I a senior position for lying.

If this idiot has been there a while and suddenly comes up with a great idea in which you are involved, it should be clear to any decent manager, where it has come from. Karma has a habit of appearing at the least expected time.

He's told big boss you worked on it together - well, presumably he briefed you, and was prepared to offer any guidance needed, so I think he's justified in saying that, TBF. He's also invited you to the meeting with big boss, where presumably you'll be able to demonstrate your knowledge of the project.

There's obviously a problem from your POV, but if you feel you're not getting enough credit for your work, this is probably something to raise with your line manager, first and foremost. The big boss literally doesn't care who does the work, as long as it's done, and done well.

@LittlePaintBox - that isn't true. If someone in my team is passing off work from their subordinates then I want to know. A typical email would be "X has done a very interesting report on Y, it looks great to me, let's all review on the meeting on Tuesday." - taking management accountability by "looks great to me" but leaving credit for the work where it belongs. I've seen it happen before, in each case the middle manager who tries to take credit is lazy and a bit stupid, while the action certainly shows they're a bad manager. Why wouldn't their boss want to know that to help with managing them out of the business?

@cabbage, if its in the document management system the versioning will show who's work it was if it needs to be known. Sometimes who does something becomes moot.

Put it down to experience (no consolation I know)