Hello all. Here's the situation I'm dealing with. I work for an academic research organisation but my job is entirely funded by a private client. In september I had a new colleague joining a team and proposed to the client a new research theme we'll be working on, to which they agreed. We agreed within the team that I'll be in charge of the first part of the project (a literature review) and deliver the report this december before I go on maternity leave, then he'll do a data analysis until may, then I'll be back. Those two parts are incorporated within the bigger project but they are unrelated (He'll do a database analysis while I do a literature analysis) and even though the bigger project is his and I'm happy to leave it to him, I'm clearly in charge of the first part. I'm supposed to send him a draft version of the report so that we proofread it, but I'm afraid he'll take my draft version and send it himself to the client, and take credit for my work. The reasons I'm afraid are:
- He's generally behaving patronisingly towards me, like he is in charge of me, telling me how I should structure the report (even though I'm as senior as he is, although he has more knowledge of that particular field), asking me to write minutes of the meetings we had (even though we are both senior researchers).
- We had a meeting with the client few weeks ago, during which we are supposed to update them on the progress of our work. Few days before he asked me update him on my progress. I told him and them he ask me to write it down so he can update the client. I replied to him that since I'm in charge of that part and be attending the meeting I'll update them myself. However during the meeting he started talking about the report I'm writing. I started speaking above him to talk about the report and he continued speaking above me even though I was trying to speak (biggest red flag IMO).
I know I might sound paranoid but in the past I've had my ideas and project proposal stolen, so I know to be wary and trust my gut feelings. And the fact that I'll be going on maternity leave soon makes me feel vulnerable. It is particularly important that I get credit for my work towards the client, as they are paying my salary through a convention and my boss consults with them for my yearly review and probably for the renewal of my contract, which will be decided soon after I come back from ML. I also know it's important to get proper credit towards my boss, as I've been in that team for only 18 months and since then I've mostly been in charge of finishing projects started (poorly) by my predecessor, so I've have not had much opportunity to prove to my boss my worth.
The question is: should I send the draft report to my team (colleague, managers and other seniors), even though my colleague might take the opportunity to send the report to the client himself and get credit for it (and I'll be gone on ML so I wouldn't really be able to deal with the situation).
OR send it directly to the clients myself directly, even though it might reflect badly on me to not do an internal proofreading before sending it.
I know my boss hasn't been present those last few months, so I don't think he'll have insightful feedback to add to the report.
Any idea?