UPDATE on the employee who took credit for his coworker’s project: ‘Apparently my coworker had presented my involvement as occasional support, not me doing significant parts of the work’

Author image for Olivia Arocena
Olivia Arocena • Writer and Editor
Sep 17, 2026 4:00 PM EDT

I was hooked on the first part, and I honestly never thought it would turn out this good for the objectively morally correct employee, but life seems to reward the good sometimes!

We should take his story as an example or a to-do list for when we find ourselves trapped in a situation like this- when somebody else takes credit for something we did, especially in the workplace or university, for example.

This never happened to me at work, but it happened to me repeatedly in school. People get really weird when they have to work as a team. In teams, we discover very valuable things about other people's characters and egos. Some people work without saying anything and add value to the team without getting their egos enmeshed in everything.

To me, the worst kind of partner to work with is someone who'll think every good idea is their own, even if they weren't even present when it came up, and those who won't accept criticism, even in the slightest. Sadly, the world is full of those people, and part of the work is learning how to elude conflict with them and, hopefully, integrate them in a way that doesn't trigger their wounded egos.

This employee already had a conflict with a personality like this, and managed to de-escalate it. So we should take a really close look at what he did. Part of the reason he succeeded was that he stopped defending himself emotionally, as commentators on his previous post told him, and limited himself to bringing concrete receipts of his work.

Luckily, this is a real blemish on the thief's employment history, and will likely evoke further management evaluation. At the same time, the other employee showed he can create and fix a project for a higher position. A win is a win!

Advertisement
  • Cheezburger Image 10664240896
    via Ambreen Hasan

    The uncredited employee finally celebrating his success

    Model representation

  • FINAL UPDATE: I had the meeting about my coworker taking credit for my work

    Thank you again to everyone who gave me advice on my previous updates. A lot of you told me to stop trying to defend myself emotionally and just bring the receipts, so that's exactly what I did. I
    via Gingeerbeauty
  • finally had the meeting with my manager!! I brought the messages. where my coworker thanked me for completing parts of the previous project, the file history showing my contributions
    via Gingeerbeauty
  • and the messages where he had originally promised. to mention my work. I was honestly terrified going into the meeting because I expected to have to defend every little thing, but once my manager actually saw everything
    via Gingeerbeauty
  • laid out chronologically, the conversation changed pretty quickly. She admitted she hadn't realized how much of the previous project I had actually completed, apparently my coworker
    via Gingeerbeauty
  • had presented my involvement as occasional support, not me doing significant parts of the work. We also discussed his current project, I showed her that I never refused to provide
    via Gingeerbeauty
  • information he genuinely needed. He had asked me to "quickly review" his work without giving me any official scope, and after what happened last time, I asked him to put the request in writing.
    via Gingeerbeauty
  • Cheezburger Image 10664241152
    via Vitaly Gariev

    The employee celebrating in front of his coworker

    Image depicted solely for explanatory purposes

  • My manager agreed that was reasonable, the biggest relief is that she made it clear I am not responsible for keeping his project on schedule, if he needs support from me going forward, the request has to go through her so
    via Gingeerbeauty
  • my own responsibilities and priorities are clear. She also said she wants to speak with him separately about how my work on the previous project was represented. I don't know. what will happen with that conversation, and I'm
    via Gingeerbeauty
  • probably never going to know everything that get said behind closed doors. I'm still frustrated that it took all of this just to prove I wasn't being bitter or uncooperative, especially after watching him get
    via Gingeerbeauty
  • promoted partly on work I contributed to. But for the first time since this started, I feel like I'm not carrying the problem anymore. I'm going to keep documenting everything and keep my interactions. with him professional. I'm
    via Gingeerbeauty
  • also going to pay close attention to how management handles things from here before deciding whether I actually want to stay on this team long term. And no, I'm definitely not doing his project for him again!
    via Gingeerbeauty
  • EDJardin Well done!! Expect your coworker to be bitter but that's not your problem.
    via EDJardin
  • banxy85 Well done for standing up for yourself. Tbh management response here was close to best case scenario so, assuming they follow through on what they've said, this sounds like a good place to work going forward
    via banxy85
  • Cheezburger Image 10664241408
    via Valery Tenevoy

    How bitter the coworker is going to be

    Licensed media provided as editorial context

Want More? Follow Us and Add Us as a Preferred Source on Google.

Tags

management workplace-stories toxic-workplace manager work workplace toxic-work-environment
Scroll Down For The Next Article