Suggestions?

What do you do with someone who takes things you say and presents them as their own material and/or understanding(s)?  After having thought that I left this crap behind me, I have recently realised that I have run into yet *another* personality like this, and I am afraid that I don't handle them very well.  Perhaps it is just a pet peeve, but this behaviour *really* gets under my skin in no small way.  Today our director had walked away for a moment and (after this one person interrupted me multiple times), I finally managed to ask our Presenter a question--in a really condensed nutshell, I was asking if they were saying that the magnitude of a particular change was more important than the direction for a certain measurement.  Presenter had tried several different ways to explain his take on a concept that is a bit difficult for any of us to wrap our minds around (being condensed it sounds simple, but it is not only more complicated that that, it is wholly and completely counter-intuitive given the situation; it is like saying that it is more important for Squooshable to have a heart than to DNA test as a feline, and until you frame it with respect to wanting Squooshable to be *alive*, it is counter-intuitive; you'd think that we would want Squooshable to be a cat first just because the way things are thought of, having a heart is a subset of being a cat.  That's the best parallel I can come up with at this late hour; we want a living Squoosh, so he has to have a heart. His DNA is distracting, but actually immaterial to the issue because he can be dead and have no heart yet still have the DNA of a feline [god forbid, knock wood, and all that crap]), and that was the best I could make of what Presenter was saying.  Presenter responded that yes, that was pretty much what they had been trying to say.  Director comes back, and before Presenter or I can can give this simplified explanation (I paused to defer to Presenter in case Presenter wanted to approach Director with this explanation first), Interrupter talks over both of us and explains that Interrupter has just figured out that for this particular situation, the magnitude of the change is more important than the direction.  I look at Presenter, and he doesn't even seem to notice.  I get pissed off, and leave to go get coffee.  Fuck Interrupter, I figure; I'll be god damned if I'll give the Reader's Digest version of any other equations...let Interrupter do their own math.  So I just went into non-participatory mode after that.  Well, for the most part. 

And this is not the only example; the other day I explained a relationship between two events verbally (right now at work we are in a math-heavy stage), and Interrupter said nothing; within two minutes, Interrupter was scribbling something out on a paper and showed it to Director, explaining that Interrupter had just realised X...which happened to be exactly what *I* had just said.  That time, I interrupted Interrupter and said (slightly testily) that I had JUST SAID that.  This got no response from Interrupter at all--nothing.  Then later Interrupter asked me in a challenging way what my background was to be speaking about this, because my current program does not 'entitle' me to speak authoritatively on the topic we are currently tackling.  I replied that my background was irrelevant (to Interrupter; Director and relevant others are fully aware of my background, and have never expressed any puzzlement whatsoever over my 'entitlement' to hold an opinion), but that I came to my current program by way of a short stint in a graduate mathematics program, after I decided that wasn't the direction I wanted to take in my academic career.  Then Interrupter asked if I had actually been *accepted* into aforementioned program, or if I had just taken classes; I told them that I had, in fact, been accepted, and again pointed out that this issue was irrelevant, that one doesn't need to prove one's authority to discuss something that is clearly factual and not open to interpretations which would need to be authoritative interpretations.  I have the feeling that Interrupter did not understand what I was saying, and when I got the impression that Interrupter was trying to say that they had a difficult time believing that I would withdraw from a certain institution's Math Program X if I had been accepted, I gave up and walked away.  I have to admit that I was offended. 

Now true, on some level my background *is* relevant, but I do not feel that I need to justify myself to Interrupter, especially when it is put in a way that comes off as a challenge.  My feeling is that I am being brought into this group, and in on any given group discussion to which I have been invited, for a reason--and that reason need only be justified to the people who hired me.  I have a LOT of varied experience, both real-world and academic, and since I am not claiming expertise (merely interpreting or conveying facts), I don't feel that I need to attempt to establish myself as an authoritative source for much (if any) of what is outside of my actual discipline, because I don't NEED to be an authoritative source.   Hartford will continue to be the capital of Connecticut whether the janitor is telling you, or Rand McNally.  Facts don't change, and one doesn't have to claim to be a mathematician to point out that 2 + 3 = 3 + 2 is an instantiation of the property of commutativity. 

But the real issue is that, for whatever reason, I do not handle people like this very well.  They irritate me to no end, and my reaction so far has always been to either rage at them like a rabid maniac or withdraw; I am having a hard time arriving at a middle ground.  I am having a hard time SEEING a middle ground, or a tactful way to handle it when I find myself in the middle of such a situation.  Today I *probably* should have interrupted in front of the group and said, 'Interrupter, do you realise that you have just stated exactly--verbatim, really--something that *I* had just said, and you did not give me proper credit?  And that, similarly, what I said was essentially a rephrasing of what Presenter has been saying, and you failed to give *him* proper credit as well?' and just called Interrupter out in front of everyone...but for whatever reason, *that* reaction does not occur to me until later.  At the time, my perception of my avenues of response were between screaming out, 'you stupid fuckhead, QUIT STEALING OTHER PEOPLE'S IDEAS!  Did you HEAR me, BITCH?  HUH?  HUH?' and stand there and *demand* a response, or just getting up and walking out.  I felt I was compromising by staying and just falling silent.  And seething.  A lot. 

And I don't know at what point this changes over from being petty to actually being a legitimate complaint; I mean, I know at this point that it *is* a legitimate grievance, but this is after a few weeks of wondering if I am just being petty (there are way more examples of this behaviour, I am only listing a couple from this week).  I have never found myself at a loss for ideas, and for that I am grateful, so it is not the issue of intellectual theft insomuch as it is of proper credit as well as civility.  I mean, if someone 'steals' my idea, I will have another one; they, however, may well not-- and that's really sad.  So it is not that, but it is the attempting to show my work--understanding, ideas, whatever, as someone else's when we are measured by our contributions in this group that gets me.  In a way, it is like Interrupter is stealing a portion of the hours I have worked and claiming they are Interrupter's.  And *that* is what I have a problem with--Interrupter should do their own work, just like the rest of us.  Aha.  I've identified my real problem here; that at the end of the work week (as it were), Director looks at the fact that Ancodia has completed A, B, and C, and contributed ideas x, y, and z to the group--when my x, y, and z get stolen, I end up looking like a hard worker (having completed only A, B, and C), but not exactly a hotbed of innovative ideas or superior comprehension.  And uninspired hard workers in this field are a dime a dozen--it gets you *NOTHING*.  One is in the wrong field if all one has to offer is hard work; that alone will not lead to a thriving career, and I don't want to be advised in a year or so that I might want to set my sights a 'little lower', or something.  The thought of losing the complete support of my advisor and Director to pursue the course I have chosen terrifies me, and that is what is going to happen if I end up with letters of rec (or, worse, private comments) like, 'Ancodia isn't the sharpest pencil in the case, but gosh, she sure is a hard worker!'.  Sniffle.  I wanna be known for being as sharp as at least MOST of the pencils in the case. 

And Interrupter also does the exact same thing someone else I used to work with did--listen (or half-listen, probably) to someone's proposed plan of action and either not respond or reject it.  Then the proposed idea percolates with them for about five minutes, and then they pipe up with, 'Hey!  Why don't we do [previously proposed plan of action]?' as if it hadn't *just* been mentioned.  The other individual was *famous* for just saying, 'oh.' and dropping it when they were told that what they had just said was exactly what Person X had just said; Interrupter just stops talking--doesn't even *acknowledge* the correction.  And that annoys me as well.  Well, the whole damn thing annoys me, but these jackasses should at *least* be apologising when they get called out. 

Usually I just whine, stew, and plot.  I'm trying to be mature and productive in my actions, and suggestions are welcome.  Fire-bombing is out, sadly. 


Bwaah!

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