I've got a question. What's the best way to bring up instances where a co-worker has taken credit for your work? A little background. I am responsible for about 99% of my team's reports and presentations. I am the one who has to take the time to put all of these things together. Last week my boss, and his boss, visited a teammate while he gave presentations to his clients. One report, in particular, was illuminating and our regional manager was impressed. He wanted a copy of the report and how to pull it. My teammate called me the next day telling me that they had told him I had pulled it, and they'd get the info from me. So I gave him step by step instructions on how to pull said information. He said I'd get all of the credit. Normally I don't care who gets the credit, but this aggravates me. Found out last night there is a string of emails that went out giving this guy credit for developing this process. It was originally sent out to the team managers, and this guy even went so far as to reply with instructions. As I said, I don't really care who gets credit. I'll usually just laugh it off. However, this email went out to the region yet I was left off the chain of emails. Almost as if they did it intentionally. Long story short, I want to tactfully show this guy is a fraud. He has a history of doing things like this, and gets praise for work he doesn't do. What's the best way to go about it?

I wouldnt have show him how to do it. I would have sent it myself. If it were an email, It'd be from my email address with my signature line.

Since you are passed that, all i can advise is that you step up in the future and make it know these are your ideas.

lp01,.

As much as this is annoying, taking action like you are talking about will only make you stoop to his level and you sound like a professional who is taking the right path to success.

People like this will eventually show themselves as a fraud without you taking any action. It the meantime, keep on producing good work and let your professionalism and quality work shine through.

Best of luck.

Really, this just sounds like something that you should talk with your supervisor about.

I would just try and sit down in a closed meeting with your boss and tell him/her what happened and that you were unhappy about the situation.

Don't try to make it into a big thing of trying to show the other person up or try to make it a big public thing. See if you can't handle it professionally first.

That's the thing. I don't want to show this guy up in any way. We do work in a cooperative effort as a team. That's the reason I gave him the information in the first place. However, as author of the majority of the reports, presentation, and information that comes from our team, it sucks that this guy passes this work off as his own when the truth is that he doesn't even know how to use programs such as Excel or PowerPoint. The thing that gets me is that it appears that there was an effort to keep this from me. We get these emails daily with best practices that someone has developed. Usually from the bosses. This one failed to make it in my inbox though. Funny how that happens when people know the truth.

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it sucks that this guy passes this work off as his own when the truth is that he doesn't even know how to use programs such as Excel or PowerPoint.

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Trust me, if what you say is true, his taking credit will come back and bite him in the backside. All it will take is for someone to ask to to prepare another report and he won't know how.

Go to him.

Stare at him silently for about 10 seconds while sipping your coffee.

Repeat daily.

He will quit within the month.

very timely article from the front page of msn.com

http://msn.careerbuilder.com/Article/MSN-2021-Workplace-Issues-When-a-Co-Worker-Steals-an-Idea/?sc_extcmp=JS_2021_home1&SiteId=cbmsnhp42021&ArticleID=2021>1=23000&cbRecursionCnt=1&cbsid=a93f3d8e60ce4d42a376ae1b8cf33ee3-305891584-RR-4

[This message has been edited by m48xhp (edited 9/10/2009 8:55a).]

Can you screw up the data said report pulls?

So I gave him step by step instructions on how to pull said information. He said I'd get all of the credit
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1. stop being lazy and do it yourself
2. dog eat dog, my friend
3. if this person is so close to you, why did he take credit for your work?
4. naive people finish last in life

I've been told that you should keep a journal of your daily activities to keep record of the work that you do. Sure, this may seem tedious, but it will be a written record of your performance in the workplace. I try to document all I do with e-mails, memos, progress reports, journal entries, signature lines, etc. on all my projects. Most of the time I don't work on teams, but when I do, I would like to receive the credit when credit is do.

Plag94... I gave him the information to help foster the so-called teamwork that we work under. Secondly, I may have posted incorrectly before, but he didn't say I'd get all of the credit. I had already done the work. He said he, along with my boss, gave the credit to me. In the aftermath of everything he passed off work he did not do, or know how to do, as his own. I don't really care about the credit. The part that's frustrating is a.) he passed off someone else's work as his own (whether it's mine or someone else's), b.) through a chain of emails it appears that this was hidden from me because I never received it. My boss knows I did the work because he is the one that asked me to do this. He was copied on said emails and never forwarded it.

Oh well, it's over with. I've just got to move on from it. Explain to my supervisor, I will never share information with this guy again. I'm not here to further, or save his career. Lesson learned.

This:

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People like this will eventually show themselves as a fraud without you taking any action.

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And this:

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Really, this just sounds like something that you should talk with your supervisor about.

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I know it's nice to be noticed by higher management, but at the end of the day your direct supervisor has more influence on your career. You are also much less likely to come off negatively if you simply handle this one-on-one with your supervisor.

I've had this happen to be before. I was conveniently not invited to a meeting where a coworker pitched a bunch of my work as his own. Come Q/A time he couldn't answer a bunch of questions and someone in the meeting called me in to see if I had any ideas. Didn't take long for the truth to come out without having to make myself look like a whiner.