Boss takes full credit for tech employee's presentation, employee goes to VP before boss's performance review: 'Guess who didn't get credit for strategic contributions?'

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Nov 12, 2025 8:00 AM EST

Everyone knows what it feels like for someone to take credit for your accomplishments. 

If this brings back memories of middle school group projects, don't worry. We've all been there. However, most of the time, we expect those students who never pulled their weight to mature out of these practices. Unfortunately, most folks like this tend not to learn. You will likely end up working with these types of people professionally, and yes, they might even be your superiors.

In this instance, we have an employee at a mid-sized tech company who happily shared a presentation he had been working on tirelessly to his boss, hoping to earn some validation ahead of his performance review. The very next morning, the entire team gathered for a large meeting, wherein the author's boss loaded his subordinate's presentation with no changes whatsoever. He then proceeded to deliver said presentation as if the work were his own. Yes, the boss's superiors were also present for this meeting.

Keep scrolling below to find out how the author ultimately advocated for himself to let the record show who was actually putting in the work around there!

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  • A mature businessman speaks at an office meeting in front of his male and female colleagues sitting at a table.
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  • Speaking of employees' performance, we cannot help but feel a sense of justice being served when the author's boss walked in for his annual review. By that point, the author had already pulled the VP aside to deliver materials for another project. When he had that one-on-one time with the VP, the author also took the opportunity to inform him just who exactly was behind that stellar presentation…

  • "My boss stole my work and I let him get roasted for it"

    so this happened a few months ago. i work in product for a mid sized tech company, nothing fancy.
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  • i was leading a small internal project that basically fixed a mess that'd been costing us $$ every month.
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  • spent weeks working late, cleaning up data, building reports, the whole deal. the day before the all-hands, my manager (let's call him steve) suddenly asks me to "send over a quick summary" of what i did.
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  • cool, i think he's just reviewing. turns out dude straight up presented my entire deck at the meeting....
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  • same slides, same words, didn't even change the file name. the kicker? he said "my team helped a bit." bro.
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  • helped a bit? i am the team. i didn't say anything right then, but a few weeks later our VP asked me for some follow up numbers.
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  • steve was on vacation, so i sent her the updated dashboard and casually mentioned "oh yeah, here's the model i built from that analysis i shared earlier." she goes "wait, you built that?" long story short, VP wasn't thrilled.
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  • next review cycle, guess who didn't get credit for "strategic contributions"? not me, not this time.
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  • what ive learnt is that document everything, keep receipts, and let management (like steve) h g themselves with their own powerpoint
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  • A mature businessman speaks at an office meeting in front of his male and female colleagues sitting at a table.
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    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • OP Fantastic-Nerve7068 haha that's actually smart, kinda like digital watermarking your own stuff. i wish i did that too tbh. my boss straight up lifted my doc, changed the title slide and called it his "new framework" next time i'm sneaking my name somewhere subtle too lol
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  • chaosmetroid Everything I built, even code. I hide my name somewhere. Heck I even have disclaimer within everything what I have built and done. Even if is hidden. That way when someone say something. I can point out the proof of it. I ain't no dev/software engineer, but I make sure it's my work, my code if I made something.
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  • OP Fantastic-Nerve7068 thanks! ill def do this next time
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  • chaosmetroid If is a power point / document. Put your name and disclaimer on the corner of the pages. As WHITE text. That way it's not visible but you know it's there and he can't say anything if you point it out.
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  • OP Fantastic-Nerve7068 lol that's hilarious, I swear some of them don't even try to hide it. mine once literally left my initials on a slide he presented
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  • SarcasticServal ohh I had one of those bosses. She left her questions in the comments on the slides and forgot to delete/hide them when presenting,
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  • OP Fantastic-Nerve7068 bro that's actually genius Imao pure petty justice and smart as hell at the same time respect
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  • Rein_Carnated I build my excel sheets with an expiration date. A tiny hidden formula that checks today's date and if it is past a certain point, it messes up the formulas by calculating random stuff into them. One time, I had a client that refused to pay me because "we are not 100% happy with this, we won't use it" so I said sure, a few months later they called me scrambling asking me to fix it because it's not working anymore. "Oh? Why should I fix it? I thought you were not going to use it?" T
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  • OP Fantastic-Nerve7068 Imao yeah def a Rob move
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  • Pseudothink Steve sounds more like a "Rob" to me.
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  • OP Fantastic-Nerve7068 Imao that's gold, poetic justice right there. let em present the Al salad with confidence. I swear some of these managers deserve to bomb a few slides before they realize who's actually doing the real work
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  • Procctor I just made a presentation that looked okay on the surface but when you really dug into it, it was just Al slop and many parts made no sense at all. Won't steal my work again →
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  • OP Fantastic-Nerve7068 yeah totally get that, I wouldn't have minded if he just said "our team built it" but man straight up took credit like he'd been up all night doing it himself
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  • Hondo_Bogart As a manager I make sure that everyone's contribution is fully recognised. Though as a manager he has the right to say his team built it, but poor form if he made out that he did it himself.
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  • OP Fantastic-Nerve7068 Imao you're not wrong, man played the corporate game on easy mode. if it wasn't my project getting stolen I'd probably be impressed too
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  • Killathulu so, steve did nothing but steal your work for several months, whilst collecting a manager's salary, and didn't get fired? guy is a genius, I hope you took notes
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  • OP Fantastic-Nerve7068 nah i did get the credit lol. he just embarrassed himself trying to take the spotlight
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  • TurnkeyLurker >long story short, VP wasn't thrilled. next review cycle, guess who didn't get credit for "strategic contributions"? not me, not this time. So...you didn't get credit, but the boss somehow got roasted? | don't get how that works to your advantage.
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  • OP Fantastic-Nerve7068 bro that sounds exactly like this guy. same energy. zero effort, all talk, somehow always in the room when praise was being handed out.
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  • Department_Silver God your vp sounds like my old "boss" (Ipo iykyk) in the navy, all the work we would do he would run to the higher ups (chief) and tell him "yeah so I just did this and this) WITH US NEXT TO HIM he never did fucking anything, dude was a complete clown dick rider.
    via Fantastic-Nerve7068
  • A mature businessman speaks at an office meeting in front of his male and female colleagues sitting at a table.
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

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employment issues work stories toxic-workplace work coworkers Horrible Bosses bad bosses employment toxic-work-environment
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