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May 9, 2006
Fine. Take it!
A certain co-worker of mine is a bit of a thief. Not of my possessions (except seriously, make your own damn request sheet copies), but of my credit. Sometimes it has to do with work, and sometimes it has to do with something I said, but it happens occasionally and it makes me insane. Generally we get along swimmingly – avoiding such topics as religion and politics having learned our lesson about that – and find one another rather hilarious, and it makes for a decently good time at work. It’s an unacceptable issue with me, this credit taking, but it’s one of those things you can’t do anything about without making yourself look like the asshole. Like when she gets a big laugh by ripping off something I just said. How do you respond to that? I roll my eyes, laugh along with “her” joke and try to enjoy the fact that we’re having fun in the office and not feeling miserable and depleted.
Oddly enough I care less about the work credit she steals than the jokes. It happens less often and usually has to do with research. Now when that occurs, I could say something like, “You guys, I totally found all of that yesterday,” but it would make me look like a jerk. Silent sufferer, that’s me. My office politics are impeccable as well, and this is a super-sensitive woman we’re talking about. She is deeply offended by everything.
But the jokes…I’m not a very funny person. I can’t tell stories very well, and I'm okay with laughing with (sometimes at) others. So when I manage to come up with something amusing and she repeats it right in front of me to someone else, I feel compelled to rush her and take her down and demand that she admit I told it first. There’s an inoffensive way to tell someone else’s joke. I’ve repeated friends’ jokes before, for sure - and never fail to follow up the telling with some kind of “my friend told me that back in college and it’s still funny” type of explanation. Not her, no. She basks in her filched glory as I silently stew away and try to just let it be.
The other day – this is going to sound way lame, but I swear it was funny – I composed a song about our systems crashing (because they did) to the tune of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” We sing a lot in our office, weirdly. But anyway, she and I started kind of swapping lines and were in tears with laughter until she related the song to someone else who in turn said to another “You have to hear this song that [credit thief] came up with." The statement went undisputed. And it all stopped being funny to me. I nearly made a lunge for the commendation I felt I was due (her lines didn’t even rhyme!), but alas…there’s just no way to go about it.
She's really rather witty on her own, so it confuses me when this happens. I assumed the nod to the originator was standard policy in these situations, but apparently not. In a way it's flattering, I suppose. After all, she knows where it came from, and it's a daring play to let a joke be attached to you. This is part of the reason why I don't try to be funny, generally - the possible flop is terrifying. But, still...let me have what's mine.
| By heidi | 2:43 PM