It has not been a good day at the office for Patricia Sullivan. Pat is a designer of ergonomic office furniture for a company called Bio-Conform. She began at Bio-Conform as a lay-out artist eleven years ago, but through hard work and a very creative mind grew to become one of three main designers on a team led by long-term designer Phillip Austin. Although he had always been a hands-on designer, Austin was promoted to Design Team Leader three and a half years ago to control the team’s design direction, and to act as the liaison between the design team and the marketing and creative departments. Being charismatic, energetic and passionate, Austin proved himself to be well-suited to the task of liaison, but had permitted his design work; developing the company’s vision on new designs; to ebb, leaving that task in the hands of team members.

Austin’s abdication of his creative duties did not bother the team members, gaining as they did, the unprecedented opportunity to push their own ideas. It especially did not bother Patricia, who, in the last three years, had strung together a series of very popular, and very profitable, product lines. She was especially proud of her recent design of upscale, but relaxed casual business furniture which had become the company’s leading product line. In fact, more than half of Bio-Conform’s annual sales came from Pat’s designs. So, all-in-all, life at work had been exciting and promising for Pat.

But things changed today when she got to her desk and found a company announcement naming the new head of the creative department:

We are pleased to announce that Phillip Austin has been named COO of Creative. His unique and groundbreaking designs, including Bio-Conform’s leading line of upscale, casual business furniture, makes him the ideal candidate to lead Bio-Conform’s creative department.

The announcement went on to list the designs of Phillip Austin. Patricia was stunned. The designs for which Austin was being honored were all her designs, not his! What was worse, however, was that when she asked Austin about the error, he told her simply that this is how things are done in the corporate world. He explained to her that he was the team leader and that as the team leader he gets the credit for team work. He then added excitedly that he was rubber-stamping her for his old slot and that she would get her turn at glory soon enough. Strangely, this promise of promotion did not make her feel any better.

What should Pat do? How does a Christian go about getting credit or correcting injustices in the work place? Does a Christian do nothing and leave it to God? What would the secular world say Pat should do? Does it affect your thinking if you knew that Pat was well-known by her peers for her Christianity? Would it matter to you if you knew that over the last year Pat had been talking about Christ to Philip Austin?