At work we have a new guy who is very talented and smart. He has an MBA (while I only have my Associates at the moment) but we both work in the same position. My issue/pettiness stems from him not giving credit. For example, I taught him some tricks with Excel and how to move columns around to make vloolups work. When I heard him explaining it to our boss and how he "came up with a solution", he completely left me out and acted like he figured it out on his own. Similar thing happened when we received a call and had to direct it to the right person. I literally tell him who to forward it to but today he acts like he took the initiative and figured out who to send the call to. Now he does great work. Dont get me wrong. But he is very sly. If he feels he can get away with explaining a solution to a problem as if he thought of it all by himself, he will. Meanwhile, I always include what others did and use "we" a lot. Because of the Excel problem "he fixed" for example, some people sent more Excel stuff his way and he complained to me that he's not an Excel master. I jokingly said "yeah that'd be me". People send me enough other things to do that I'm glad he gets those requests now, but still... Am I just being petty?
Definitely. I learned that **** when I was 21 at my first taste of a career job... it wasn't rocket science cause I had barely started at community college.
If the bulk of your help to him is something that's highly googlable and call forwarding, I just think you need to relax, the guy isn't out to get you or anything.
but it also sounds like you don't really have the time to help him... since you get plenty of other requests. So let your direct superior know that you are being asked to help and that you'd be happy to, but you need to figure out what to prioritize and what might come out slower and so need input from your superior.
If its just 'attaboy' pat on the back credit, then yes, you're being petty. If this is a legit lack of credit for performance, then you should work on a solution. Solving phone routing issues and excel formulas do not seem like career altering events.
I do that **** to people all the time. I also have it done to me all the time. It happens in every job. If it bothers you that much, just walk up to him nicely and let him know you know he did what he did. What can he say?
It bothers you that he has a higher level of education than you. It bothers you that he is taking credit. He knows that he is taking credit and he is doing it believing it will help his career. Stop helping him. Problem solved.
