Getting correctly credited for your work is a core part of being motivated in your career. Whether you like it or not, people are hardwired to be social, so others’ admiration, respect, and approval really do matter. Especially at the office where a good reputation and great results can mean getting a raise or a promotion in the future.

Something that many—if not most—of you have probably faced at some point in your life is having someone else swoop in and pretend that they’ve done all the hard work that you were responsible for. This is awful for morale. That’s exactly what happened to redditor u/ehtio, who went viral on the Petty Revenge online group after sharing how a colleague of his tried to claim credit for his code. However, this backfired spectacularly in public.

Scroll down for the full story. Bored Panda has reached out to the author of the story for further comment, and we’ll update the article as soon as we hear back from him.

Proper recognition for your efforts is essential for motivation in the workplace, as well as career advancement. It’s abysmal when this is missing

Image credits: Procreator Global UI UX Design Agency / Unsplash (not the actual photo)

One software engineer opened up about how their colleague tried to take credit for their work, only for the entire situation to backfire publicly

Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio / Pexels (not the actual photo)

Image credits: Vitaly Gariev / Unsplash (not the actual photo)

Image credits: ehtio

Taking credit for someone else’s work is awful for motivation and can have major knock-on effects for the team and company

Having someone else take credit for the hard work you’ve done and the ideas you’ve come up with can be incredibly demotivating. There you are, sacrificing much of your time and energy to get something done when someone else saunters in and gets all the glory without lifting a finger.

Not only is this unethical, it can have very real repercussions on your career. That colleague of yours who’s stealing credit for your work might get a raise or a promotion that should have gone to you. Not only does this mean less money and worse career prospects for you, but it also means losing out on all the social rewards, like praise, attention, and new connections, which are vital for advancement in many workplaces.

Colleagues, managers, and bosses who take credit for others’ work are only going to demotivate their teams. And demotivated employees might feel less driven to put in their best effort at work (what’s the point of working hard for no reward?) or they might start looking for new job opportunities elsewhere (what’s the point of staying at a company that doesn’t respect you?).

This, in turn, means less profit for the company due to worse results, as well as higher costs to train new employees to replace the dissatisfied staff who decide to leave. And that’s on top of the reputational damage the company might suffer as employees, inevitably, gossip about how awful the workplace culture and ‘leadership’ is. In short, having more transparency and honesty at work isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s also the smart business move to take.

As for the credit-stealers themselves, it’s a risky move: they can ruin their entire reputation if someone decides to speak up publicly or raise the issue with their higher-ups in private. Even if that doesn’t happen (yet), they’re turning their colleagues against them, which is only going to make any collaborative work harder and harder as more time elapses.

You and your colleague must get on the same page so that their unethical behavior doesn’t repeat

Image credits: Annie Spratt / Unsplash (not the actual photo)

Indeed suggests responding with tact and respect and avoiding conflict whenever someone takes credit for the work that you’ve done.

One of the most important things to do is to maintain your composure, which can help you maintain your professional relationships and act with grace. On the flip side, if you act in anger, you might find it difficult to react in a way that you won’t regret later.

Getting angry in situations that are unjust is natural. But ideally, you want to (appear to) be the bigger person and act ethically and professionally unlike the credit thief.

According to Indeed, there’s always the possibility that someone who’s taken credit for your work hasn’t done this intentionally. Accidents do happen sometimes. You need to consider things objectively before accusing someone. In other cases, the reputational damage done to you might be so negligible that it’s not worth the time or effort to get into a massive argument over it.

And, in fact, it might be better to set accusations aside for the moment and avoid escalating the situation before you have all the information that you need. Get a lay of the land first.

“If you determine that someone has taken credit for your work when they should not have, focus on communicating with them rather than making accusations. Consider meeting with them and asking about how they gave credit for the project or presentation. It can be helpful to understand their viewpoint before suggesting solutions or approaching a manager.”

Then, after speaking with the credit thief, you might suggest a few potential solutions to them. For instance, you might ask them to revise the credit on an important project, presentation, or report to include you. Essentially, you want them to understand that proper, transparent crediting is important to you so that they’ll be respectful in the future.

While crediting others is vital, you should also not devalue your own contribution to the project

Of course, if your colleague is unreceptive to your attempts at diplomacy, involve a manager or HR to mediate the conflict. It helps a lot if you’ve been keeping a record of all the work that you’ve done. When you have proof of your contributions, it’s easier to fight for that raise or promotion that might be on the line.

At the end of the day, your work doesn’t always speak for itself. From time to time, you need to be vocal about your contributions so that you’re crediting properly.

Everyone at work can contribute to a culture of transparency and sharing credit. The Harvard Business Review urges managers to ask their team members about the best ways to make sure all of their work is recognized.

That being said, there are some common sense limits to this. You shouldn’t go overboard and, for example, thank everyone who worked “on any little part of the project” because you’ll devalue your own contribution.

“Focus your recognition on the people who truly deserve it.”

Has anyone ever taken credit for your work, dear Pandas? How often has this happened? How did you tackle the issue? Why do you think some employees shamelessly steal credit in the first place? If you’d like to share your thoughts on this, feel free to do so in the comments below.

The author answered a few readers’ questions in the comments of his post

Here’s how some internet users reacted to the story. Many of them were fully on the software engineer’s side

Some people shared similar work stories of their own

A handful of people disagreed with the author’s approach. Here’s their perspective on what happened

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