Employee gets exposed for taking credit for coworker's software work after he is forced to admit he doesn't know how to fix a system bug: ‘He had no idea where to even begin’

Author image for Bar Mor Hazut
Bar Mor Hazut • Senior Editor
Mar 17, 2025 10:00 AM EDT

People who hate confrontation will do pretty much anything to avoid them. Even if they know they are being wronged, they know they should stand up for themselves, they would often rather keep quiet and suffer through the consequences than to do something about it. In the workplace, standing up to a coworker or a manager is even more challenging, because these are people you have to work with every day, and confronting them means you will have to keep seeing them afterward, and that can actually make your skin crawl.

When situations like these arise, you usually have three options. Either you do nothing, and suffer the outcome alone; you decide it's time to stand up for yourself, and ensure justice is served; or you wait for a secret third option, where a higher force steps in and does the dirty work for you, something we like to call karma.

Thankfully, when karma steps in and helps you with your problems, you don't have to do nothing about it, yet still get the outcome you hoped for. Which is exactly what happened for the employee in the story below.

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  • The coworker in this story kept taking credit for others' work. The employee who wrote this story is exactly the type of person who tries to avoid confrontation, so they never stand up for themselves. And when a coworker takes credit for their work, they don't say a word.

    This time, at least, they didn't have to, because karma did all the work for them. Keep scrolling to read how that went down.

  • 01
    Cheezburger Image 10480765440
    via DragonImages

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 02

    "My co-worker loves taking credit for other people’s work. Then he got exposed"

    I work as a software engineer and in my team we follow the usual process of writing code, reviewing it, testing it, and deploying it.
    via ehtio
  • 03
    One of my co-workers, Steve, had a habit of taking credit for other people's work in front of management. He isn't a bad developer, but he loves making it seem like he
    via ehtio
  • 04
    was doing more than he actually was. I'm quite introverted, so I don't usually speak up in meetings unless I have to. Calling someone out directly doesn't come
    via ehtio
  • 05
    naturally to me, so I usually just let things slide. During a big project, I spent days fixing a complicated bug. The problem ran deep, and the fix had to work
    via ehtio
  • 06
    across different parts of the code. If you hadn't actually worked on it, it was pretty hard to follow. After a lot of testing, I finally got it done.
    via ehtio
  • 07
    At the next team meeting, before I could even say a word, Steve jumped in and started explaining my fix as if it was his. He kept saying
    via ehtio
  • 08
    things like "We decided to... and "Our approach was to... making it sound like he was the person behind it. I was annoyed, but I kept quiet.
    via ehtio
  • 09
    The next day, another bug popped up in the same area of the code. Our manager turned to Steve and said, "Since you worked on this, can you patch it?"
    via ehtio
  • 10
    And that's when the fun started. Steve froze. The thing is, if you didn't actually write the fix, it wasn't easy to understand how it all fit
    via ehtio
  • 11
    together. He had no idea where to even begin. He tried stalling and even sent me a message asking if I could explain the logic of the code real quick. I told him that I
    via ehtio
  • 12
    was busy at the moment and that I will catch up with him later on. I didn't. After five hours of struggling, he finally admitted in the team chat and wrote something like
    via ehtio
  • 13
    "Actually, I didn't write this part, maybe OP can take a look?" I replied, "Of course, I'll check it."
    via ehtio
  • 14
    Ten minutes later, I had it fixed. Our manager came over and congratulated me. We were chatting for a bit and before heading off he made a
    via ehtio
  • 15
    deliberate comment about how great it was having someone who actually understands what we are working on. Steve didn't say a word f you Steve.
    via ehtio
  • 16
    render() { return React.Fragment <div className="py-5"> <div className="container"> <Title name="our" title= "product <div className="row"> <ProductConsumer> {(value) => { console.log(value) }} </ProductConsumer> </div> </div> </div> </React.Fragments
    via Antonio Batinić
  • 17
    InnocentlyInnocent OP needs to be able to stand up for himself. If there wasn't another bug, Steve would've gotten away with it unscathed.
    via InnocentlyInnocent
  • 18
    ehtio OP I know. It's just hard for me. I come from being. a pastry chef (almost 9 years) but I decided to study and became a software engineer. I guess I feel like an impostor sometimes.
    via ehtio
  • 19
    Intelligent_Bad6942 Dude you just proved yourself. You're no imposter. You got this.
    via Intelligent_Bad6942
  • 20
    island-breeze As a people pleaser myself, one cannot oversea the fact that you did stood up for yourself in the best way possible. You may be shy, but you're growing a back bone. Well done.
    via island-breeze
  • 21
    ehtio OP I hope so. The thing is that the older I get, the more I notice that happening to others too, and I cannot stand it so I try to do better to also help others. So that helps.
    via ehtio
  • 22
    CoderJoe1 Steve should leave people the credit they're due
    via CoderJoe1
  • 23
    Satori Namast3 Unfortunately faking it till you make it doesn't work with code. You either know or don't.
    via SatoriNamast3
  • 24
    CatlessBoyMom Steve really should be in sales. Taking credit for how well something is done, without actually doing it, is kinda their job description.
    via CatlessBoyMom
  • 25
    blueavole Start speaking up. I worked on that Steve, can you define your contribution so we aren't doubling up? No more of this we shik
    via blueavole

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workplace-stories employee manager petty-revenge-reddit job tales-from-the-workplace coworkers reddit story petty revenge overworked-employees workplace Reddit company coworker
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