Dear Jeremy – your work issues solved

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/may/30/dear-jeremy-work-issues-solved

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My company is ripping off my ideas without giving me any credit or reward

Despite having a master’s degree from a top art school, industry experience and a portfolio of published (but mostly unpaid) work, my career is going nowhere. I am now in my late 20s and working on a zero-hours contract covering administration roles in a media organisation where I have been pitching ideas and expressing an interest in working in various editorial departments.

My ideas and pitches have been picked up and used but with no recognition or inclusion in the finished product for me.

Generally I pitch by email, which is then followed up by a meeting where I can elaborate. But I think I am shooting myself in the foot by giving away too much detail without any guarantees my work will be recognised.

How can I protect myself from being ripped off like this? Is it better to pitch the idea without giving away specifics? My experience is that the company seems capable of worming out of its responsibilities whichever way I do it.

There is no protection of intellectual property in the UK for ideas or concepts – only for the expression of those ideas or concepts. But who regulates these things? And how do I protect myself? (I have joined the Unite union.)

Jeremy says

Yours seems to be an all too familiar instance of pigeonholing – I’ve touched on it in previous columns. At its most pronounced, it happens when an individual first employed by a company in one position – usually a lowly one – wants to move to another more elevated one in the same organisation. Colleagues, superiors, even HR departments, having become accustomed over time to seeing such a person in one distinct role, find it almost impossible to imagine them in a different one. They will have been pigeonholed and it can be fearsomely difficult to escape.

Generations of able women, who started their careers as secretaries or personal assistants, have struggled to be seen as potential executives and have been forced to jump ship. Cruelly, ability doesn’t help. In fact, the better you are at being a PA, say, the more you cement your reputation as a PA and the more of a prison the pigeonhole becomes.

Although you have a master’s degree from a top art school, you are seen internally as a relatively lowly (and no doubt extremely competent) admin person. You probably hoped that by getting such a job in a media organisation you’d soon be able to spread into more creative roles. Unfortunately, it seldom works like that.

However, although pigeonholing may in part explain your company’s behaviour, it certainly doesn’t excuse it. You’re right: it has been ripping you off. And unfortunately, by allowing yourself to be ripped off so often, you’ve given them tacit permission to continue.

The time is undoubtedly overdue for you to assert yourself. But before you do so, with a carefully argued and documented case of the unrewarded and uncredited work you’ve contributed, be clear in your own mind of one thing. If you fail to be granted proper recognition and reward, you will leave the company and with it your pigeonhole. You have a good enough portfolio to be hired by another company, where you can start afresh.

Readers say

• Start taking advantage of them – contact lists, client lists. Build your portfolio and claim what’s rightfully yours – keep notes and emails. When you’re ready, leave – fully armed. luke mac

• The “credit thing” is a fact of working life that you need to swallow if you can bear it. However, you should ask for a meeting and point out the contributions you have made and then ask for a permanent job, mildly implying you will start looking elsewhere if you don’t get one. If you don’t get one, or get an equivocal answer, start looking elsewhere. Eques

• Does someone else take the credit, or is it that it isn’t acknowledged as your idea? If it’s the former, it’s office politics and you are at the bottom of the food chain – if you are in an organisation where people fight dirty and you do not, it might be best to find an opportunity more suited. If it’s the latter, it may be that you need to big yourself up a bit more. If you don’t claim credit where it is due, you can’t expect anyone to notice. salamandertome

I have just been promoted but a job in another firm is interesting me. Do I apply?

I am in my early 30s and have been with my current employer, a medium-sized private firm, for a year and a half in an administration role. I like working for the company and enjoy a good working relationship with my colleagues and line manager. After a positive appraisal and feedback from my manager, I recently accepted a promotion to a more senior administrative role with a pay rise, and was very pleased.

However, a job opportunity with a firm has now come up in its legal department and this is something I have always harboured an interest in. I haven’t got the professional legal background it wants, but as it is not a high-level role I am confident I have the relevant skills, already know the company, and could learn what I needed to on the job.

My worry is that if I apply for the role, especially as I do not have the relevant background, I may not be successful and could annoy my line manager and the people who have worked to put my promotion in place so recently, along with the new team that I have only just started working in.

Is this too good an opportunity to pass up if it is an area I am interested in, or should I commit to the new role I was happy to accept? The salaries of both are comparable so that is not a factor.

Jeremy says

I normally advise against deception. It’s seldom necessary, it often goes horribly wrong and it can leave the perpetrator feeling grubby. But in this instance you’d be entirely justified in applying for this job without revealing the fact to your existing company, and if that involves taking a day or two off as holiday, it’s worth it.

You should assume that without the professional legal background this new firm has stated as a requirement, your chances of landing the job are less than 50-50. And I can think of no more unfortunate start to your new position (at a company you have liked working for) than for it to be known that your first act on being promoted was to apply for another job – which you then failed to get.

Readers say

• If you’re interested in the new post apply for it. Very rarely do such roles present themselves precisely at the moment in time that you would wish. You seem to be implying that you’d tell your line manager you are applying – I can’t see much good coming from that. DeputyPeck

• You do owe some loyalty for at least a couple of years – then move on. TrueAndHonest

• If you do not have a legal background, how do you plan to develop your career beyond this one job? Should your application be successful, you may get stuck in a few years’ time. Aranzazu

Do you need advice on a work issue? For Jeremy’s and readers’ help, send a brief email to dear.jeremy@theguardian.com. Please note that he is unable to answer questions of a legal nature or to reply personally.