▸ Column · Modern Gotham, corporate-tower edition: credit theft up the reporting chain
HARLEY QUINN replies.
Replied to by Harley Quinn, with a rebuttal from Batman.
The letter
For eight months my manager, Renata, has been walking my quarterly churn-reduction decks into the VP of Operations' office and presenting them like she dreamed them up. I only found out when a VP-level colleague congratulated HER at the all-hands for the brilliant framework I built alone, on my own time. When I brought it up privately, she told me to be flattered my ideas are getting airtime that high, and reminded me she's my reporting chain, so synthesizing the team's output upward is her right. I've quietly started watermarking drafts and keeping timestamped version histories in a personal folder, just in case. But I can't tell whether confronting her again, looping in HR, or going straight to the VP torches my career worse than the theft already has. Here's the thing: I genuinely love this job. I don't want out. I just want the work I pour fifty hours a week into to count as mine somewhere it matters.
Harley Quinn replies
Hiya cupcake. Lemme slide the doctor hat on over the jester hat. Renata didn't synthesize squat. She shoplifted your brain and told you to applaud the magic trick. Be flattered yer ideas are gettin' airtime that high? Oh honey, sit DOWN, 'cause we gotta talk about that sentence. That's the cubicle remix of but I only do it 'cause I love ya. Somebody takes the thing that's YOURS, then reframes the robbery as a gift you oughta send a thank-you card for. I lived that whole opera, puddin'. Used to build the bit at 3am and watch Mistah J stroll out for the bow. Took me way too long to learn this, so I'm tellin' ya for free: that secret little watermark folder? The fact you're tiptoein' around provin' you exist in your own job means she's already got you actin' like the guilty party. Quit that. Go to the VP who shook her hand, the one who got LIED to, and put your name back on your own kid. Skip HR, sweetie. HR's there to shield the company from YOU, not Renata from her karma. And keep the gig! The job ain't the wood chipper. She is.
— Harley Quinn
Batman weighs in
The clown is half right. The instinct, march upstairs and shout, is wrong. You move once. You move with proof. That folder she calls sneaking is not paranoia. It is your case file. Timestamps. Drafts. The witnesses from the all-hands. Build it until it cannot be denied. Then bring it to the VP, so her story does not survive contact with the record. Quinn wants you loud. Loud warns the target. Renata has rehearsed her version for eight months. Walk in empty and you become the bitter subordinate. Walk in with the file, and the fall is hers alone. Document everything. Strike once.
— Batman
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