Our boss took credit for our work!

I had a boss who was disliked by pretty much everyone who worked for him. Sadly this was not the only time I've experienced something like this, though this man was the most abrasive, rude, condescending, and insulting of all my managers. To put it mildly, he was not a nice person. To my surprise and dismay, however, everyone let him get away with his behavior. That is, everyone but me. When he said things about someone that were incorrect or when he was inaccurate in his facts, I would correct him. He didn't like this. People who are insecure and incompetent don’t like being called out.

His employees had a name for him. I won’t repeat it, and it was not repeated to him. Others could see his true colors, but they pretended those colors were beautiful. He received his position by being a good talker (not a doer), and brown nosing with upper management, as is most often the case with those in higher level positions these days. I can't understand why, but so few current upper-level managers of corporations are actually knowledgeable or even true leaders.

One day this boss asked a coworker and I to create a presentation for him with data on our performance in the department, adverse events we responded to, the outcome, etc. We were in the facilities department of a medical company and were key in keeping the place running appropriately to required standards. We were very careful in creating the presentation, ensuring to have the facts right and displaying the data appropriately. It took us the better part of two days on and off to create the presentation, which we emailed to him.

In an inter-department meeting a few days later, our boss was presenting and brought up our slides. His exact words were, “This is a presentation I created to illustrate…” I didn't hear much immediately after that as my coworker and I were too busy looking at each other and whispering, “he created?!”

A good leader gives his employees credit and publicly thanks to them during the presentation, they don't take credit for someone else's work. I would have been fine if he had said something to the effect of, “I asked so and so to pull this data for me.” There is nothing wrong with taking credit for his own idea, just not the work that he did not do.

This was just one of the many types of things he would do. I had planned to confront him and recommend a more appropriate approach of presenting a project and employee involvement, but not surprisingly, I and the other coworker were laid off a few days later. “Nothing personal”, they said, just part of a reduction in force, which were actually quite frequent at that company. We knew that was nonsense and it was very personal, but at least I left knowing that I did not give in to that oaf.

Has anyone else experienced something similar and in that case how did you respond?

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