To be pissed off that someone else has got credit for my work

[treetops46]

So last week, I cancelled my days off and worked all hours on a presentation that I was leading with my boss today.

I wrote the entire presentation, developed the strategy, designed it - literally everything, because it had to be done so quickly and we are all busy so I just took it on the chin and made it happen.

There is a (wonderful and lovely) more junior team member who proofed the deck and is usually part of this team but was too busy to help last week. This week she is off sick so couldn't attend the presentation either.

We just did the presentation (my boss and me) and it went brilliantly. The clients said numerous times how much they loved the deck and the ideas, I was so happy that all my hard work had paid off.

Then straight after the presentation, boss messages me and more junior girl on our Teams chat saying 'brilliantly presented, TreeTops, and Junior Girl, they loved your deck!'

Now I know because I am quite senior that I should just try to let this go but it's annoyed me so so much!! I can handle not getting much praise for it, but to give credit to someone else entirely just really stings. Ugh.

I feel like I will be being really petty if I mention it, and doubt junior girl will really notice the message amid the mountain of stuff she'll have to catch up on when she gets back so probably won't correct him either. Gahhhhhhhh!!!!!!

OP, I think you ought to recognise the punctuation that says 'Treetops, and Junior Girl, they loved your deck'... "and Junior Girl" is an embedded clause.

Truly, none of her work contributed to the material you were able to create? Really? Honestly?

Women need to lift each other up, in the work place, not be uber destructively competitive. A little grace in sharing good feedback will be far more generative for your team and support your colleague who, through no fault of their own was ill and couldn't be the keyboard jockey for you, this time

@SoupDragon

I totally read it that he's congratulated the OP for the presenting and the Junior for making the slides. I think it's grasping at straws to try and make it that he's congratulating them both, it just doesn't read like that.

I agree, it does read like he's crediting Junior Girl for making the slides, but it reads like that because of one comma. Remove that comma and it reads like the opposite. Considering misplaced commas are basically the most common mistake in written English, it's reasonable to consider that he could have made a small mistake while typing quickly. In which case, what he actually said matters less than what he intended to say, in terms of how he's going to react to OP objecting.

The fact he included both in his praise suggests he values teamwork and if he intended to praise both for the slides, there is literally no way for OP to make "Don't praise the team, praise ME" sound good, no matter how she phrases it. She's made a great impression so far and the presentation will always be remembered as "hers" by anyone who saw it since she was the presenter. Why on earth flush all that down the toilet by seeming like you're too petty to let a junior team member be included in even a bit of the praise?

This is exactly how it should work, but as I explained she and everyone else was too busy to help so I had to do it alone. It's not ideal by any stretch but sometimes needs must

Oh no I realise that, I just mean that my senior leaders would be more annoyed if they found out that a senior manager had ended up working on slides than they would be impressed by the quality, no matter how great they are. They would see it (wrongly or rightly) as a failure of delegation or time management and be disgruntled that a senior person's valuable time was taken up by what's seen as more junior-level work.

So if I was in your shoes, I would be relieved that they hadn't realised what had happened and be quite happy for the junior team member to get the credit for the more junior-level work while I took the credit for the actual presentation and overseeing the work as a whole!

@bluedodecagon

I’m concerned by the number of so called professionals here who apparently “developed training” but apparently can’t read???? The OP worked on a project with a junior staff member and was thanked along with that junior staff member.

It’s nothing like your ex business partner taking credit for your work or someone stealing a document and putting their name on it and all these other ludicrous and unrelated scenarios.

If you can’t understand that, I’m not surprised that you’re judgment is poor enough that you keep getting taken advantage of.

But that’s what what happened.

The OP a was thanked for the PRESENTATION, not the production of the slides
Junior was thanked for the production of the slides when she never did them, just went over them for an hour or so.

Itnwouod make me wonder of my boss had any clue about what each person in the team does and has done.
The fact the presentation went extremely well, better than usual also says something about the effort the OP has put into it.

So yes saying thank to the team blablabla. If you do so, yu say thank you to the team in general. You didn’t name people and thank them for a specific action, esp not one they haven’t done!

@peachgreen exactly right. It’s a failure of management on the OP’s part but she seems unable to grasp it.

Advertising your failures to the boss is career suicide.

What's a deck ???

I’d be irritated but not sure I’d do anything, probably just fume quietly to myself. At least you like the junior, worse if he was praising someone you can’t stand!

Don’t know why people are objecting to deck. That’s what it is, a deck of slides that form part of the presentation, it’s not the actual presentation.

Infuriating as this is, I would let it go. Anything, however subtle you reply to correct it will be obvious and come across badly. I would cringe if someone corrected a chat to direct credit to themselves (even if deserved). It can only be someone else that does that for you. In this scenario if I knew you had done the work, I would chip in and say, something like 'kudos to treetops who cancelled leave and spent hours preparing this work, massively impressed'

If either a colleague of the junior does not step in to clarify I think you have to let it go.

This sort of stuff has happened to me a number of time over the years. In the future I think you have to find ways to make your work visible to seniors (so they see the process not just the result)

The word 'deck' is used in most industries who use PPT etc daily. So it's very ignorant to say that the OP's use of the term is cringey. The term 'presentation' reminds me of people who do one 'presentation' a year.

Anyway, the Junior person did proofread it, but didn't develop any content.

I'd also reply and say "I'm pleased it went well, thanks xxx for proofreading the deck for me"

Do you ever talk to your boss?
Why not actually say, verbally:

I was really offended. All Junior did was proof read it for 40 minutes, I dropped abc, didn't do def, took time out last week when I was supposed to be on holiday. I worked on it for over 50 hours. that presentation was all mine.

Why don't you just say it?

And as @picklemewalnuts says, I'd also says this

"And reply 'Thank you! I won't lie, I slightly begrudged cancelling my AL, but it was worth it in the end!'"

And it's not petty at all, it's taking credit where credit is due which is important for job security and career development.

It soundS like you are being recognised not only for a great piece of work but for collaborating with and bringing on a junior. You are winning at life here.

I think another reason to pipe up (in one of the "thanks I was really pleased...") is to set the scene for more junior team members that it is OK to stick up for yourself, and that doesn't make you "not a team player".

Women are still being overlooked and seen as pushy if they are assertive, so if you have the weight to pull it off and do it well, that sets a better example than "oh, it's so cringe, I'll just suck it up".

@Oblomov22

Do you ever talk to your boss? Why not actually say, verbally:

I was really offended. All Junior did was proof read it for 40 minutes, I dropped abc, didn't do def, took time out last week when I was supposed to be on holiday. I worked on it for over 50 hours. that presentation was all mine.

Why don't you just say it?

I could definitely do that but feel like it might make me look petty

@DingDongtheWitchisDrunk

The word 'deck' is used in most industries who use PPT etc daily. So it's very ignorant to say that the OP's use of the term is cringey. The term 'presentation' reminds me of people who do one 'presentation' a year.

Anyway, the Junior person did proofread it, but didn't develop any content.

I'd also reply and say "I'm pleased it went well, thanks xxx for proofreading the deck for me"

Thank you, I appreciate this 😊

I would reply fairly factually

Thanks, I’m thrilled the client liked it. It was worth the sacrifice - me cancelling AL and spending 50 hours writing it. Junior girl is also dedicated and very kindly proofread it whist she was ill.

Or something a bit more eloquent. But i wouldn’t let it go. People in other countries speak up for themselves. Don’t be too British about this.

@NorwegianCoastGard

Infuriating as this is, I would let it go. Anything, however subtle you reply to correct it will be obvious and come across badly. I would cringe if someone corrected a chat to direct credit to themselves (even if deserved). It can only be someone else that does that for you. In this scenario if I knew you had done the work, I would chip in and say, something like 'kudos to treetops who cancelled leave and spent hours preparing this work, massively impressed'

If either a colleague of the junior does not step in to clarify I think you have to let it go.

This sort of stuff has happened to me a number of time over the years. In the future I think you have to find ways to make your work visible to seniors (so they see the process not just the result)

These are my thoughts exactly. I really don't think I can say anything

I agree that his punctuation might have let him down here, and he's used commas to shoehorn her into the thanks rather than meaning to give her credit for the writing. So I'd bear that in mind and think something along the lines of 'thanks, very pleased to hear it went down well, and thanks to Junior Girl for proofreading it all' is the way to go.

@peachgreen

This is exactly how it should work, but as I explained she and everyone else was too busy to help so I had to do it alone. It's not ideal by any stretch but sometimes needs must

Oh no I realise that, I just mean that my senior leaders would be more annoyed if they found out that a senior manager had ended up working on slides than they would be impressed by the quality, no matter how great they are. They would see it (wrongly or rightly) as a failure of delegation or time management and be disgruntled that a senior person's valuable time was taken up by what's seen as more junior-level work.

So if I was in your shoes, I would be relieved that they hadn't realised what had happened and be quite happy for the junior team member to get the credit for the more junior-level work while I took the credit for the actual presentation and overseeing the work as a whole!

This is absolutely not what happened. How peculiar.

If you wanted to you could send a reply to both thanking him for his positive feedback and saying you're really pleased that it went down so well with the client as it made it worthwhile cancelling your leave last week to work on the deck. Then end with something simple like - Junior Girl, hope you're feeling better soon. So not overtly pointing it out but getting in that you not only worked on it but cancelled leave to do so, and seemimg gracious for his praise and genuinely pleased the client loved it.

@Pyrfwondering

OP, I think you ought to recognise the punctuation that says 'Treetops, and Junior Girl, they loved your deck'... "and Junior Girl" is an embedded clause.

Truly, none of her work contributed to the material you were able to create? Really? Honestly?

Women need to lift each other up, in the work place, not be uber destructively competitive. A little grace in sharing good feedback will be far more generative for your team and support your colleague who, through no fault of their own was ill and couldn't be the keyboard jockey for you, this time

Truly and honestly. I am the last person to deny anyone credit, but she was no whatsoever involved in this except for proofreading it for typos.

If she were here, she would absolutely grumpy and say she had nothing to do with it, but she isn't.

I realise this all sounds very petty, I'm probably just exhausted on the back on a long and tough week.

I don't think the OP is the slightest bit petty to be miffed that having cancelled her leave, spent 50 hours working on something, someone is sharing a commendation for the result.

I think a clarification whilst rescheduling your leave is the way to go.

@DingDongtheWitchisDrunk

The word 'deck' is used in most industries who use PPT etc daily. So it's very ignorant to say that the OP's use of the term is cringey. The term 'presentation' reminds me of people who do one 'presentation' a year.

Anyway, the Junior person did proofread it, but didn't develop any content.

I'd also reply and say "I'm pleased it went well, thanks xxx for proofreading the deck for me"

Yes, we call them 'decks' at work - the OP's usage is perfectly standard.

I probably wouldn't say anything.

I would mention something about being glad to be able to take your AL now - assuming that you can.

Junior girl is your junior, so surely you can allow her to be noticed. Your boss is probably trying to encourage her by mentioning her and others will understand this context too.

Don't send any pointed emails or play any "long games" - life is too short!