One of my goals for the year was to make a presentation at mid year and again at end of year detailing the cost savings I’ve made over the previous 6 months. I liked this because saving the company money = job security.
I busted my ass on this presentation including staying until 10pm the night before just to polish it. Presentation went beautifully. boss and the other person on my level had some slides in there as well and they winged it good enough. Even got a glowing mid year review thanks, in no small part, to the presentation and the projects in it. I’d discover very quickly that I made a fatal omission.
I’d learn that the next day, my boss took that presentation, showed it to the executives, and parlayed that into a promotion and a raise. I got jack shit. Because he claimed both the presentation and the savings in it, it’s now my
word against his to try and use that for myself.
Lesson learned. Never leave your name off a presentation and don’t give anybody the .ppt file (or any raw file that you can use as leverage in negotiations). Always export to pdf and then distribute the deck.