In a meeting your idea is credited to someone else.
Take this situation apart. Each piece goes in one box: yours, or not yours. There is no third box, and almost nothing falls in one piece.
Yours
- Whether you set it straight, and at what moment.There is a middle road between swallowing it and jumping on it: continuing on your own point in the meeting, and mentioning it once afterwards to whoever it concerns. Once, calmly; more often makes it smaller rather than bigger.
Not yours
- That it happened, and who remembers it.The idea was credited to somebody else, and whether anyone in the room corrects it or later recalls whose it was: that memory is not yours to steer. Exactly that feeds the irritation.
- Whether he did it on purpose.Maybe it was theft, maybe sloppiness, maybe he genuinely believes the idea was born in his own shower. His inside remains closed ground, and your correction does not need that answer. Set straight what happened, not what he intended.
The reasoning. The room’s memory belongs to the room; one calm correction is yours, and you need no more.
- To do good and be spoken ill of is kingly.attributed to Antisthenes
Nearby situations
More on this topic: Criticism and insult