I’m 25F, working in marketing at a mid-sized company for 2 years. There’s this guy, let’s call him Dave (30M), who’s been there longer and is super charming with the bosses. Last quarter, I pitched an idea in a team brainstorm for a social media campaign targeting Gen Z nothing revolutionary, but it involved user-generated content with AR filters. I even mocked up a quick demo on my own time.
Meeting ends, no big deal. Then two weeks later, in a department-wide presentation, Dave rolls out the exact same idea, word for word, and claims it as his. Bosses love it, he gets the lead on the project, and boom promotion announcement last week. I was fuming but kept quiet at first.
Yesterday, in our weekly team huddle, boss asks for feedback on the campaign’s progress. I couldn’t hold it in. Said something like, "It’s great, but just to clarify, that was originally my concept from the brainstorm happy to collaborate if needed." Room went silent. Dave laughed it off like "ideas evolve," but later pulled me aside and said I embarrassed him and could cost him his raise.
Now HR wants to talk to me about "team harmony," and some colleagues think I should’ve gone private instead of public. But why should I let him steal credit? I worked hard for that. AITAH?
Wish you documented the idea the first time you discussed it to the team, including the tests you did. If you did, pretty sure if need be, you and him can compare who started what first.
NTA for speaking up about your idea being stolen.
INFO:
You said the first presentation was a “team brainstorm”, so where is your team in this whole drama?
Yeah there must be witnesses to back you up
And OP made this all like a movie drama so I’ll call it a made up post.
You get a chicken dinner.
thats what i was about to ask 🤔
LLMs aren’t great at details like this
but you just learned the hard way that charming guys like Dave never actually have their own ideas they just have better timing and louder voices
Info: So is everybody on your team denying you pitched the idea and backing the other guy? You said it was word for word so it’s not like there’s some room for interpretation.
That said, “strategy wise”, documenting it earlier or raising it privately/with HR first would’ve protected you better.
NTA.
From what I’m seeing, not once has he come to you to talk more about the idea and just ran with it. He arguably plagiarized your work. The upside is that you have a demo that you mocked up. With technology nowadays, everything has a date and timestamp, metadata, what have you, things to prove that your work predates his presentation.
If his raise is at risk, that is a burden caused by his actions.
NTA but now you need a back up from other coworkers who can confirm it was your idea.
Completely made up. He pitches it, gets the lead, and is promoted right away? Riiight
He also stole ops wife.