Coworker steals employee's client deck and passes off their work as his own, then gets upset when the employee confronts him: ‘Should I… let this man crumble under the weight of his lies?’

You could be the nicest, most helpful colleague any of your coworkers could possibly have, and they'll still try to pull a fast one on you. That is the nature of a competitive, hierarchical workforce where output = priority, even when quality (and morality) are sacrificed in the process. It doesn't matter where someone got their idea, only that they said it first, and louder. Sure, that's not intellectual theft at all!

This happens in the workplace more often than you'd think. It's easy to turn the other cheek if it happens to you once or twice, but in doing so, you're setting a precedent that only exists to hurt you and be a source of benefit for a lazy colleague. Don't become someone people want to step on—it's difficult to come back from something like that.

That's why you go straight to a higher-up and tattle on your fraudulent coworker instead! Yep, this isn't high school. Tattle tales don't get called out for being too sensitive—they're rewarded. A company will avoid a lawsuit at all costs, so they'll likely be in the scorned employee's corner. Scroll below to see how this story ends.