credit

I'm back, and strangely, the urgency of everything I had waiting for me after vacation got me in the office yesterday morning bright, early, and motivated (despite getting home at around 2am the night before). Usually I'm not this on top of things and inevitably need a day or two (a week) to recover from my vacation ...

There were lots of meetings yesterday, and I've just come back from another one this morning. Usually meetings are hits or misses for me ... I find most productive, but I contribute all or nothing. I've long gotten over the need to speak for the sake of having said something, anything, so there are plenty of meetings I sit through silently nowadays. At other meetings, like the ones yesterday, I take the floor consistently (hopefully making intelligent comments).

I was silent in the meeting this morning, though. It started out as being just usual morning groggyness, but very quickly stemmed from my realization that someone else was getting credit for my work, and I wasn't sure what to say.

This morning was a wrapup meeting following a project that concluded while I was away. We were being congratulated on a job well done, and one senior person (not present) was acknowleged for having gone above and beyond his call of duty. In particular, Senior Guy was heralded for a series of meeting he held with individuals and groups throughout the month of February that significantly affected the success of the project.

I felt miffed because those meetings were my work. Senior Guy was just the spokesperson.

Back in late January, I met with Senior Guy and proposed that we give some presentations and consult with a few key people in another part of the company to bring our project to their attention and also to get their backing and support. I thought that this would help move our stuff along, and he would be perfect to represent us.

Despite being much more senior than me, both in age and in position, Senior Guy played coy at first, asking rhetorically why I didn't want to go talk to these people myself. With a little insistence (it didn't take much), he agreed to speak on the project's behalf. I then used my connections to set up the presentations and individual meetings he then had in February.

"He so personally went and met with all of these people!" someone said this morning, emphasizing how greatly Senior Guy cared and how what he did really brought about the project's success.

There was no mention of my role at all.

I do wonder if things would have been slightly different had Senior Guy been present. Getting the glowing praise in my presence, I wonder if he would have said something to acknowledge me.

Everyone remembers the actor in a blockbuster movie, but who remembers the name of the cameraman without whom there would have been no movie?