Slacker Method for Taking Credit.

Posted by Jacques - November 20, 2008

Simply ask the knowledge holder very politely. When you are rewarded for your deeds or when you’ve accomplished what you’ve set out to do, give credit to the person who helped you and ensure that they will be happy to serve as a future resource. You will save time, headache, and stress.

i.e. Ask your sister for her famous lasagna recipe and then make sure to tell everyone that she gave you lots of tips at the dinner party while she’s there.

i.e. A colleague comes up with a great solution to a problem you were having. Go ahead and take credit for it but let everyone know that you and your colleague were “brainstorming” and discovered this wonderful idea.

i.e. You don’t know how to fix a flat on your bike, simply ask your friend to show you and save the money on buying a book or trying to figure it out from the internet. Thank him immensely and compliment him on his knowledge of bikes.

Anything you like? Please share!

Slacker Method for Taking Out the Trash And Saving the Environment Ever since I was a kid, I’ve dreaded taking out...
Slacker Method for Christmas Gift Budgeting (revised) Since Christmas is almost here, I thought I’d share...
Slacker Method for Spreading the Joy Without Spreading Your Time I’ve been doing a lot of posts lately regarding the...
The Slacker Method for Building a Nest Egg Saving money for the future can be a tough thing....
Slackers Make Money Hanging Out At the Beach Another week has gone by, and the recession doesn’t seem...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

November 20, 2008 | In All Slacker Methods |

1 Comment »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

While I agree that what you say is the “right thing to do”, I learned a long time ago not to let things like this even get me to the point where I have to feel bothered by it. I once saw an email go out to my department of over 100 people giving praise to someone for something I did. A colleague of mine emailed me asking me for instruction on how to do something. I did not question her request; just sent her the information she asked for. When I read the email, I calmly walked over to chat with my colleague just to see what she was going to do about it and all she did was apologize (and she had the nerve to act surprised at that!). She could have just as easily turned around and did a ‘reply to all’ to give credit where credit was due. When I felt like I couldn’t shrug it off, I went to my Manager who was able to nip this one in the bud. The only person who really needs to know that I did the work is the person responsible for my yearly reviews and my raises. He made me see that at some point, if what I contributed was that important, people will be back and they will be coming to me because the person who took credit for the information I provided will not be able to answer any follow-up questions about it.
I ran into this situation several times over the next few years. But I am the type of person who believes in sharing my knowledge and while some people may have tried to use me as their stepping stone, it never stopped me from climbing the corporate ladder. And I did it full of self-confidence knowing my contributions that mattered most were seen by the people who gave me the promotions and raises.
So long as you do the right thing, there is no need to worry. Your efforts WILL be acknowledged and if they aren’t then maybe what you did, in the grand scheme of things, was really no big deal.

Comment by Passing by — December 31, 2008 #

The Slacker Method