A gathering storm

This week saw a nasty escalation of the mid-project blues that often hits me during an extended and complicated job. I fully accept that a client has a right to feel nervous, especially if we haven't worked together before. No small part of my job is to ease those concerns.

Alas, the escalation came from another, albeit not entirely unexpected, quarter. As part of the task of integrating my ideas with existing elements of the client's culture I was emailed a 'background' PowerPoint presentation, which I opened at 5am last Thursday. There, in all its barely adulterated glory was a sequence of my slides.

My ideas are a big part of my livelihood and they'd been lifted without a hint of acknowledgement or attribution. Seemingly this has been going on for about three years.  The prospect of the coming fight exhausts me. Try as I might I cannot figure a way to resolve this mess without the plagiarist losing face.

The sad irony is that the client is a pharmaceutical company; one industry that exists only on account of vigorous intellectual property law.