[belter]

Story time for the young kids in the room: Once upon a time, in my role as a technical consultant for hire at a large multinational corporation, I found myself tasked with a management board presentation. I was filling in for several project managers who were otherwise engaged due to urgent commitments.

My responsibility was to elucidate the difficulties stemming from the company's current internal systems integration architecture. I was to outline immediate measures for mitigating existing issues and offer a comprehensive plan for long-term resolution. With only a few days' notice, I prepared the required technical material, knowing well that the management board I was to address had a decidedly technical inclination.

As I delved into the presentation, I began to perceive an escalating sense of discomfort in the room. I quickly sought to discern whether the material was perhaps too tedious or excessively technical. Although the management board was known for its technical expertise, I couldn't immediately pinpoint the cause of the unrest. However, clarity struck in a sudden flash when a senior member of management hesitantly inquired, "Why are you using Mark's materials?" Mark, a pseudonym in this story, was the absent CTO who should have been present at the meeting.

After an instant of cognitive dissonance, the truth become clear...The CTO, who had engaged my services as a technical consultant, had been presenting my work to the management board for months, all the while assuming full authorship of the technical reports and presentations...

[ttr2021]

Dude, I had a colleague, senior to me, do the opposite. I had an idea that I struggled internally to get off the ground for months and months. I pretty much did all the research, found the contacts, got the architecture direction, sought feedback and buy in from multiple stakeholders - including him. Practically I was ignored.

After about 6 months, he's presenting this identical idea to our team!

Guess what, it was approved by upper management!!

Except, the lack of details he had in his super high level stuff lacked any insights, so I called him out in the next meeting and basically said have you seen this document I've been socialising for the last 6 months!?

He said it was 'different'..

[thumbuddy]

This is why stratagems like quiet quitting exist.

[ttr2021]

But didn't hesitate to go back and use all my notes, research and contacts to quickly backfill all his lack of details with my stuff!

[catchnear4321]

putting “your stuff” into an auditable system with login and timestamps will help a lot in such situations.

with some tools, you even get information on the top visitors to a given page. you know, like if someone needs to fill in their presentation at the last minute.

if someone uses your notes for the benefit of the company, this is fantastic! but you need to save your receipts. just in case you need them.

[ttr2021]

Agree with all of your points. I had everything documented in a business case format for management to consume with references to more technical topics, in a wiki.

So, anyway, I think things have sort of settled on this stuff a bit now.

I'm been recently made the tech lead on this initiative that I did all the research on and my manager have me kudos for the idea.

In fact we're pivoting on alot of other things at work because of it, with top level leadership support.

So pretty insane.. but anyway

[climb_stealth]

What happened afterwards? It's not quite clear from your writing whether the truth was clear just to you or to everyone involved :)

[belter]

CTO still at the company. I resigned both on moral grounds, but also because despite the nice hourly billing fee I was charging, I understood the relationship with the CTO, from them on would be ...Let's say...Toxic? :-))

[CapitalistCartr]

So what happened in that meeting? Did you tell them it wasn't "Mark's" material?

[belter]

I diplomatically decided not to press on, with the embarrassing subject, but clarified all materials were of my own authorship. I assumed most present understood between the lines, what was happening. I had no illusions of any outcome similar to the feelgood movie stories...These are normally politically well connected players :-) As I mentioned in another comment, CTO still with the company.

[ackbar03]

Those guys probably gave CTO a slap on the back and said "nice one Mark"

[picadores]

Its water-marked.. :D Punny humans.. but a watermark really would have been a solution.

[gardenhedge]

I'm confused. Isn't that what you were hired for?