'It was nonsense': Entitled employee constantly takes credit for other's work, coworker gets revenge by making a fake presentation for her to present in front of boss

Author image for Isabella Penn
Isabella Penn
Nov 9, 2024 7:00 AM EST

There's always that one coworker who knows how to get away with taking credit for everyone else's hard work. You put in the effort, lose sleep over the details, and then they swoop in, ready to present it all like they thought of it themselves. This exact situation happened in one office until one clever employee decided to turn the tables. After watching his entitled coworker repeatedly swipe his projects and pass them off as her own, he put together a presentation just for her. Packed with confusing data points and meaningless buzzwords, the presentation was just convincing enough to look important…until you actually tried to explain it. And sure enough, the coworker snagged it and confidently presented it in front of their boss. The employee watched with quiet satisfaction as she stumbled through, each buzzword making less sense than the last. When the boss turned to him for clarification, he threw her under the bus, telling the boss she had no idea what she was talking about. Sweet, sweet office justice.

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    0 r/AITAH • 14 hr. ago PhotographerUSA My Coworker Is Obsessed With Taking Credit for My Work, So I Started Giving Her Exactly What She Wanted
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    There's this coworker in my office - let's call her Megan - who's built her whole career on taking credit for other people's work. She's the type who, if you so much as come up with a good idea in a team meeting, will start repeating
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    it loudly and then take it to the boss as "her concept." For months, she's been getting away with this, and since I'm not exactly confrontational, I figured I'd just keep my head down and let it go.
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    But it was getting out of control. Megan had gone from stealing ideas to outright taking my actual work and passing it off as her own. I'd create presentations, reports, and proposals, and somehow she'd end up presenting
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    - them to management with barely a word of credit thrown my way. My frustration hit a breaking point after our last project - I'd spent days on an analysis report, only to have her march into the boardroom and "summarize" it, taking full credit. And the worst
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    part? Management actually believed her. So, I decided to take a different approach. If she wanted to "steal" my work, I'd make sure it was work worth stealing. Here's what I did:
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    1. I created an elaborate, jargon-filled, 25-slide presentation about a fake process I called "Optimal Revenue Integration Strategy" (or ORIS for short). It looked impressive, sounded professional, and was absolutely meaningless.
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    Just buzzwords strung together. 2. I intentionally left the presentation open on my desktop during lunch, fully expecting her to see it. Sure enough, Megan swooped in, "borrowed" it, and set up a
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    meeting with our boss to showcase her "latest insights." 3. When the meeting happened, I sat quietly in the back, watching as she went through slide after slide, using words like "synergize" and "monetize"
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    like her life depended on it. The boss's face went from interested, to confused, to downright skeptical. 4. *Finally, he asked, "Can you explain what 'Optimal Revenue Integration Strategy' means in practice?" Megan's face
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    went pale as she stumbled over the buzzwords, trying to make sense of it. But it was nonsense. She couldn't explain it because it wasn't real. *
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    The boss turned to me, knowing I'd been working on the project too, and I just shrugged, saying I had "no idea what she was trying to convey." Megan was caught. The meeting ended abruptly, and she hasn't been able to steal my work since.
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    I'm now known as "the guy who actually understands the strategy" in the office, and she's been side- eyed by everyone ever since.
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    Western-Cupcake-6651 1d ago • I worked with one of these. I'm a lawyer. This person wasn't. So I wrote something analyzing a new regulation using legalese. This person tried to pass it off as hers but couldn't get through it. She was fired for the plagiarism, the lie, and the refusal to give up once caught. NTA. People who do this deserved to be fired.
    via u/Western-Cupcake-6651
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    Geminidoc11 • 14h ago • Love this, I had a childhood friend that was a dream thief. Every idea from college to clothes, cars friends trips she would steal it. I learned to strategically keep my mouth shut and only tell her filtered things I wanted her to know. I also kept my distance. Glad you figured her out and taught her a lesson.
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    through3home • 14h ago And then the whole office clapped.
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    lilmissscurvy • 1d ago See, that's what happens when you try to pass off someone else's work as your own-you end up looking like a fool.
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    хухуухух • 1d ago I mean this is more "petty revenge" material and you're NTA.
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    Cheezburger Image 10424597248
    via Unsplash (Getty Images)

    This image is for illustration only, and the subjects are models; the image does not depict the actual subjects of the story.


     

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terrible boss employee satisfying job presentation revenge work coworkers petty revenge entitled people karma prank workplace entitled payback entitled people employment
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