
Ask HN: My team mate took credit for my work. What do I do - nuna
I refactored our code and made a library that improved our work. It wasn&#x27;t a big deal and I didn&#x27;t even mention except to share with my team mates. Our boss is non technical. In our team meeting he congratulated team mate on taking the initiative and creativity in making this library. I don&#x27;t think he was banking on boss mentioning it. I was so shocked all I can muster was &quot;You mean the library I made?&quot;. This has weighed on me a lot and I don&#x27;t feel like sharing anything anymore. I mentioned to the boss later that I made this, but I don&#x27;t think they really care or understand. What do I do?
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itamarst
There are two issues here:

1\. Is your boss misinformed/clueless/you're misunderstanding?

2\. Does your boss not care about you?

#1 can be cleared up, as others here say, by better communication and by
making sure your boss knows your accomplishments.

If answer to #2 is "boss doesn't care" you'll want to start thinking about new
job, or new team at least, because this is just a symptom of a deeper problem.

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phakding
I would go talk to both your team mate and your boss, in that order. I would
also be very cordial and professional. Learn why the teammate took the credit
or may be the boss is just mistaken. Find out the truth and then set the story
straight with the boss without bad mouthing the teammate.

If this happens again, then you can be little more direct.

It would also behoove you to mention your accomplishments in passing to your
boss during a casual chat in the morning while you are talking about weather
or current events. Bosses for most parts don't have all the minute details of
who is doing what.

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georgeam
Another thing that would be useful is for your version-control systems
(git/svn etc) to be able to say precisely who made which changes. That gives
you proof of who did which work. Even if your company/org does not use version
control, you can use it independently as an individual, and have a complete
development history of your own which documents your work. It would be harder
for someone to claim your work if you have a ton of incremental check-ins and
they don't.

~~~
nuna
I version control everything, but my boss is not technical so this all seems
like magic and you can make something simple a big deal easily.

~~~
ninjaa
Don't work under non-technical people who believe in hand-waving.

Even if they are well meaning and fair, eventually they will hit a
comprehension limit. At that point arbitration for any technical debate should
be escalated to a board of suitably qualified people, but they will be
unwilling or literally unable to do it. Eventually as a consequence bad
technical decisions will be made.

That's the best case scenario. In the worst case scenario you're already
undergoing, your boss has no clue who's the better dev or why in your team.

~~~
e19293001
Sounds like The Parable of the Two Programmers.

[http://www.bruceblinn.com/parable.html](http://www.bruceblinn.com/parable.html)

~~~
frnkshin
That's a horrible font choice

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pcunite
The feeling of being relevant and contributing is a very powerful force. Its
why people will take enhancers that help them win and place high in local 5K
run races. Like it even matters, but to them it is everything. Worth cheating
to get it they think. Something that has always helped me is knowing that
cheaters can't lead, they can only follow. He'll need to steal credit from
someone else to keep this "look" going.

So, for now ... I say to keep the peace - take it on the chin. Good learning
experience for you. You did not properly credit yourself and made the way for
this to happen. Note that you must be balanced in life too and not toot your
horn too loudly. Have balance, allow others to succeed and get credit too.
Maybe you saw the sample code on stack-overflow and refactored it. We all
learn from others anyway.

The real problem here is the pat on the back from the boss, not the code
itself which you saw as trivial anyway. Be aware of how this company operates.
However, don't stop contributing! That will cause you to die inside. Your
contributions are great and will help you to grow. So, no matter who gets the
credit, keep doing it so that you'll be better off when you leave this place.

~~~
slededit
"Visibility" is one of the major drivers of promotion in every organization.
They don't know your good if they can't see it.

If there are no mitigating circumstances here, like "actually we worked
together but I did _most_ of it". Then it should be a simple matter to talk to
the boss and get to the bottom of how it was misattributed. No accusations, no
assumptions but a fact finding mission. The goal here is to find out how it
happened so you can avoid it in the future, and as a secondary bonus it will
obviously alert your boss to the fact you are the real author.

If people are able to take credit for your work it indicates a larger problem
with your visibility in the organization and it should be dealt with swiftly
if you care about your career.

~~~
nuna
There wasn't collaboration other than plugging it into his code. It was not an
oversight it was very clear he claimed to have written it all.You are correct
though, partly my fault, why not mention it first myself, why wait for someone
else to.

~~~
slededit
One final suggestion, if when bringing this up you come off as emotional as
you do in your original post it won't be effective. Approach it as just a big
misunderstanding. There is nothing wrong with ensuring correct attribution to
work where its something big (which a library qualifies for).

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staunch
Chalk this event up to a lesson learned. Now go back to doing great stuff and,
from now on, make sure your boss is aware of it.

Also, this is an example of having a bad boss and is one of the reasons
technical people generally prefer working for other technical people.

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saluki
It could have been a simple misunderstanding and your boss crediting the wrong
person.

In the big picture these things don't matter a whole lot, I wouldn't take the
time to discuss it with your boss any further.

Maybe talk to your teammate and see if he was trying to take credit for it or
if it just happened to look that way.

Try to bring up more what you are working on and ideas you are executing on
with your team and boss in the future.

kudos are nice but very minor in the big scheme of things. You are all cogs in
a machine to your company and boss. So I wouldn't let it get you down and it's
not worth making waves over.

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ak39
If you can ascertain objectively that your boss doesn't care or understand
about your work, you can pretty much conclude that your environment is not
emotionally healthy for you. Leave if that is the case and if you can find
another gig elsewhere.

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anthonys
This happens almost everywhere unfortunately.

If you want to 'compete', the way to play the game is to promote yourself as
most of the time, no one else is going to. This is obviously what your
colleague is up to.

I used to get mad about the same thing happening to me and it happened a lot.
After talking to different people about ways to manage it, I decided to come
to terms with it because I wasn't that interested in the alternative (self-
promotion). Now I take comfort from the fact if they have to take credit for
it, they are obviously worried about something that I am not.

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JSeymourATL
> I refactored our code and made a library that improved our work. It wasn't a
> big deal ...

Significance, Contribution, Growth are core Human Needs.

Was this a big deal or NOT?

Can you quantify the improvement in your work?

Decide what you want -

Guy Kawasaki — 'If you don't toot your own horn, don't complain that there's
no music.'

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rasz
It sounds like your one liner made the boss appear misinformed/easy to
manipulate, in public. This never goes over well.

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macca321
who wrote the code that is inside the library?

the takeaway would be that you should promote yourself and your work
preemptively.

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linkpuff
Your boss may not be technical but did you try to get your teammate to explain
step by step how did he thought while making the library?

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skolemtotem
I suggest you try asking on Workplace.StackExchange, too, since the people
there have more experience answering this kind of question.

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raztogt21
Your teammate should said immediately that it was you who took the initiative
and creativity on that refactor.

