Hardworking marketer quits when their director steals credit for their work, leaving behind an HR report so the ex-company knows why they lost their all-star employee

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  • Woman looking at marketing reports and making a phone call to senior executives.
  • My old employer sent a glowing reference for me to a new company. They didn't know I had already sent HR a detailed account of why I was leaving.

    This happened about two years ago. I had been at a company for four years in a marketing role. The last year was genuinly difficult. My direct manager had a habit of
  • presenting my work as her own in senior meetings, blocking my visibility with leadership, and giving me consistently mediocre performance reviews
  • Marketing director making a presentation to senior executives about her team's work.
  • despite objective metrics that showed otherwise. I raised it with HR once, was told to work on my communication, and decided to start looking for other roles. When I
  • got a verbal offer from a new company, they asked for a reference and said they would be contacting my current employer.
  • Woman on the phone with a new company when they offer her the job.
  • Standard procedure. I told my manager I was leaving and she was warm about it, said she'd write me a great reference, said she was sad to see me go. I
  • thanked her and said I hoped we could leave things on good terms. What she didn't know was that the day before i handed in my notice, i
  • had sent a detailed written account to HR documenting the pattern of credit-taking, the performance review inconsistencies, and the
  • impact on my development. I included dates, examples, and the names of colleagues who had witnessed specific incidents. I sent it not
  • expecting anything to change for me, but because i had seen her do the same thing to a junior colleague who was leaving and i wanted
  • Marketing team gathered around a work presentation before showing their boss.
  • there to be a record. I copied myself on the email. She wrote me an excellent reference. I got the job. About six weeks
  • after i started my new role i got a message from a former colleague saying my manager had been put on a formal
  • performance improvement plan. I dont know exactly what happened, i wasn't there, but the timing was close enough to feel like cause and effect. I never replied
  • to let her know what i'd sent. She presumably still thinks we parted on good terms. We did, just not on equal ones.

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