In this episode of the "Outrageous Workplace Stories" podcast, host Natalie Fisher shares a personal experience where her boss presented the onboarding process she had created as their own work. She walks listeners through the emotional reactions that typically arise—frustration, anger, or silence—and explains why each of those responses can be counter‑productive. Natalie then outlines a concrete three‑step, scripted approach for handling credit‑theft situations: (1) speak up in the moment with a brief, non‑confrontational statement that positions you as the subject‑matter expert; (2) address the issue privately with the person who took credit, seeking clarification and offering a collaborative perspective; and (3) close the conversation by reaffirming team values and requesting proper attribution moving forward. Throughout, she emphasizes a coaching mindset that treats these moments as opportunities to train the brain, maintain professionalism, and protect morale. The episode ends with a call‑to‑action to join the "Professionally Human" waitlist and access a 13‑video series that expands on these workplace strategies.
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Welcome to the Outrageous Workplace Stories series of the podcast. In these episodes, you'll see ways to handle even the toughest of workplace situations with power and impact while making humanity a priority. These stories shaped how I went from receptionist to HR manager in 4 short years without a degree, without the qualifications or experience that you would've thought I needed. This series is designed to help you turn everyday challenges into a win. For your next level, no matter where you're at right now. If staying grounded in your humanity and being true to who you are as a person is important to you, yet you also wanna get to your next level, you wanna earn more money, and you wanna create a professional life you're proud of, that is also at the top of your list. I'm here to tell you that you can do both, and this is where you start. Let's go.
13 outrageous work stories that you wouldn't believe happened. Or maybe you would believe this one. I've had several clients who've had it happen to them. So what do you do when someone blatantly steals your work? I had this happen to me. I'm going to tell you how I managed it. It was my job to create that new onboarding process, and I took the initiative. I ran with it. I made this amazing onboarding process. I was so proud of it. I had thought of every little tiny detail, and I had spent weeks mapping this out and making sure that it was perfect, and it was so thoughtful that the new person would feel so cared for and that nothing was missing. In the meeting, when HR was asked to present it, my boss stepped up and presented it as if it were hers. And I was sitting there not really sure what to do. I don't know if you've ever had that situation where you're sitting there, someone has blatantly presented your work as their own work and not credited you, not mentioned you, not acknowledged you at all. So there's options in that situation. It would be natural to feel very frustrated and angry and defensive. And the response from that, if you acted on those feelings, might be, hey, what are you doing? That's my work. Aren't you gonna let everyone know that I'm the one who did this? You're taking credit for my work. You might want to blatantly go out and say it. Or you might sit and stay quiet and think to yourself, okay, there's nothing I can do about this. She's my boss. If I say something, it's just gonna make me look bad. Everyone's gonna think I'm trying to make myself look good or puff up my own chest, and I can't do that. So I'm just gonna sit here and stay quiet. And then feel angry and resentful about it later, because of course you would. Why wouldn't you? That is just not a fun thing to experience. But there is a third option. The third option is you don't stay quiet. You don't get angry, you say something that can't be ignored. Here's what you say, and here's what I did. I stepped up and I said, hey, it's awesome that you're all so enthused about this because I was the one who originally did the research for all of this, so I'd be happy to go over and explain in any detail or give anyone any more information if you need it. And that put me in the mix, and people were like, "That's great," and then they were directing questions to me about it. That's step one. Step two is that you go to the person who did it, and in private, and address it. So I went to my boss afterwards, and I said, "Hey, I realized that you didn't mention me when you presented the new onboarding process, and I was wondering." Why that was. Was it intentional, or did you just forget, or what happened? Here's what she did. She deflected it and said, well, we have a same-team mentality around here, and it doesn't matter whose idea it was. The best ideas win, and you should know that. So step 1 is you agree. Second, you make your point. And third, you close it. Because you don't want to get into a debate about the same team being a good thing or a bad thing, or you agreeing or not agreeing. It's yes, same team is a great philosophy we have here, and I wholeheartedly support it. And I also think that credit should be given to the right individuals for both accuracy and morale. And I just want to make sure that moving forward, the right individuals are credited for their work. That way I'm not engaging in this debate I'm not saying, hey, you need to credit me, even though I might wanna say that. There's a coached version of each of us. And so when we get used to showing up with the coached version, we get much farther. We manage the situations so much more fluidly and better than if we either stay quiet because we don't know what to do, then we quietly seethe and get irritated and angry, and that in the end we're gonna end up wanting to leave and get a new job. Option number 3 is I'm going to Coach my brain to learn how to handle these situations in real time so that I can get the proper credit for my work. And I'm outwardly sharing something that is very impactful and very valid that will be very difficult for any reasonable person to ignore. So what to do when someone takes credit for your work? This is a 3-step process. So step 1, you don't have to stay quiet. You don't have to get angry and tell everybody the truth in the room. You simply say, "That's great that this is getting so much enthusiasm around it. I'd love to go over any details or answer any questions since I was the one who originally did all the research for this." Step two, you approach the person outside of the room. You don't do it publicly, and you say, "Hey, was there a reason you didn't include my name when you presented that? Because." You know that I've been working on this for two weeks. I'm sure you didn't do that on purpose. We assume the best of everybody, and we give them a chance to explain, to own up. We give them the benefit of the doubt, and then if they brush us off, like happened to me, we gently guide them back to what's important, and we don't debate them. We don't argue with them. There's always going to be something they say that we agree with. So in this case, I totally support the same team mentality wholeheartedly, and I also. I feel it's very important that individuals who have done the work get credited for it, both because of morale and for accuracy purposes. Thank you so much for watching. I'm telling 13 workplace stories that you wouldn't believe happened, although people are telling me this one particularly, it happens a lot. The moments in your career that get you paid, the moments that escalate you to where you wanna go, those moments Are the ones handled in between your performance reviews. They are how you manage your emotions. They are how you manage the words that come out of your mouth and the energy from which they come out of your mouth. The way that I handled this wasn't angry, and it stems from curiosity. Lots of situations like this happen with my one-on-one clients every single day, and I know that it's tough to have that reaction in the moment exactly how you want to have it. And that's what I specialize in—is helping you train your brain, give you the tools, the scripts, the information, the background to. Handle these situations with tact, diplomacy, impact, and not having to sit down and shut up and not say anything and be resentful, but also not causing a scene either. There's a balance. There's a way to do it. And you can bring me any workplace situation and I will help you manage it. I am really, really good at this. I will see you in the next video. If you would like to sign up for all 13 videos, you can do that in the link below. You can get them all right away. I will see you in the next video.
If you enjoyed that story and you gleaned something from it, if you wanna learn how to master your professional life while being both impactful yet deeply human, join the waitlist for Professionally Human. The link is in the show notes. I can't wait for you to see what I have in store.
