There’s nothing more annoying than someone else taking credit for your hard work. And a 25-year-old has dished the dirt on TikTok of how she stopped her boss presenting her ideas as her own with a very clever tactic
Cristina Sevcenco (@cristinasevcenco), who has now had 3.7million views on her video, told the internet that she decided to attach watermarks (like the ones on copyrighted images) to every presentation she submitted after she saw her manager using her work without crediting her. Sneaky.
Gesturing to her laptop like she was in a pitch meeting, Cristina acted out her ‘manager presenting [her] ideas to higher management’. She then shot a deadpan look to the camera and clasped her hands together in a power pose as she wrote: ‘Me hiding my signature so every time someone downloads it, a watermark is added to it.’
In the caption, Cristina said of her boss’ reaction: ‘Watch me get urgent calls: “Cristina, there is a watermark on the ppt, could you please attach?”’ Which is probably quite likely to have been the outcome, let’s be honest.
Obviously, everybody online was absolutely living for Cristina’s genius master plan and immediately began demanding a tutorial and more context of what actually went down when her boss stole her project.
In a follow up video, Cristina explained that she was working as a brand manager for a dental health company when she saw her manager ‘happily presenting’ market research to senior managers that had taken her two weeks to gather.
According to her, her boss had changed absolutely none of the content in the presentation—except the name on the slides: ‘And that was the moment I started researching how to watermark a PowerPoint,’ she explained.
Giving her followers the tutorial they were desperately crying out for, Cristina explained watermarks are basically a layer underneath the background of each slide and that you need to ‘lock in the aspect ratio’ if you want to do it yourself. (Video below, because it is hard to explain).
Cristina went on to say she didn’t understand why the tactic wasn’t ‘common knowledge’ to those in the corporate world because multiple companies she’d worked for had been ‘very toxic’ and ‘it’s very common for people to actually steal your work.’
Concerningly, many TikTok users had stories of their own to share in the comments. ‘I did this before. I got fired for watermarking “their work”. Until I showed the creation date. Then I took my idea with me,’ wrote one person. Meanwhile, another user praised Cristina: ‘Women teaching women and I love it.’
After making the video, Cristina told BuzzFeed that she’d spoken to her manager about them taking credit for her work but that they ‘quickly brushed it off’. ‘I tried explaining to her,’ said Cristina. ‘It was never about promotions or bonuses, it was about their recognition and their pat on the back for me.’
In the days that followed their conversation, Cristina’s manager then took her to one side to talk to her about ‘how things work around here’. ‘My career definitely slowed down,’ she told Buzzfeed. ‘She didn’t give me as many projects anymore, [and] she was talking to everyone about how to perform better, [except] me. Later on, I found out they replaced me and I had 21 days to find another job.’
‘It doesn’t always have to be a competition,’ Cristina reflected of the unjust ordeal. ‘We can work together to grow. We don’t need to steal from each other. We can learn from each other and be better — create a better [workspace]...where everyone is supported and appreciated. But sometimes, I feel like that’s just a dream."
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