For mid-career ICs · Peer credit disputes
They presented your work Monday. Rehearse Wednesday’s coffee before you sound petty.
You have the Slack thread. You don’t have the words for when they say “I thought we were a team.”
Your peer walked into Monday’s all-hands and presented the latency analysis you spent two weeks on. Your manager was in the room. You sat there smiling because making a scene would look unprofessional. Now it’s Tuesday night and you need a private conversation that names what happened without turning you into the office villain. Kommi puts you in that coffee chat first — with a peer who denies intent, reframes it as collaboration, or says you never spoke up — so the real talk isn’t your first take.
The script isn’t the hard part.
Every career blog has the same opening: name the incident, state your contribution, set an expectation for attribution. You have the template. What you don’t have is muscle memory for when Casey says “I thought we were presenting as a team” and you have to decide in real time whether to hold the factual line or let the conversation become about your tone.
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What’s at stake
Stay silent and your promotion case loses another visible win. Confront badly and you’re “difficult.” Your manager files it as drama instead of a visibility problem.
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Why you procrastinate
They’re well-liked. Maybe it was an honest mistake. You keep rewriting the opening in your head until Wednesday arrives and you send a passive-aggressive Slack instead of having the talk.
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What blogs can’t do
CareerClimb and Simon Sinek’s FBI method teach the framework. They can’t simulate the peer denying it and you feeling your face get hot while you try to stay factual.
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What a coach costs
One hour with a career coach runs $150–300. You need three reps across the week — too accusatory, too soft, factual reset — not one polished paragraph for email.
Sample roleplay · 3 minutes
“I thought we were presenting as a team.”
You’re Jordan. Casey presented your latency analysis in Monday’s all-hands without your name on it. You’ve asked for ten minutes Wednesday morning.
You (Jordan)
“Hey, I wanted to talk about Monday’s all-hands. The latency section in slide four — the p99 analysis, the Grafana screenshots, the recommendation to shard the cache — that was my work. I authored the design doc on March 3rd and led the implementation PRs. My name wasn’t on it when you presented.”
Casey (your peer)
“Whoa — I didn’t mean it like that at all. I thought we were presenting as a team. You were on the thread. I figured everyone knew you did the heavy lifting. Are you saying I stole your work?”
Your move
- → Restate the fact without accusation: “I’m not saying you stole anything”
- → Name the specific gap: “When you said ‘I built this,’ my manager heard your name on my analysis”
- → Set forward expectation: “Going forward I need us to name who did what in leadership meetings”
Each choice changes how Casey responds — denial, hurt feelings, or grudging agreement. You practice staying factual when your pulse is up and catching yourself before you say “you always do this.”
Then the coach reads you back to yourself.
Not a scorecard. Not seventeen tips. One observation about what you did, one adjustment for next time, one sentence you can carry into Wednesday’s coffee.
Sample coach debrief
“You named the specific incident clearly — slide four, the design doc date, the PRs. When Casey reframed it as ‘we were a team,’ you immediately apologized for ‘making it a thing’ and offered to co-present next time. That let Casey off the hook before attribution was settled.
Try next time: Acknowledge collaboration in one sentence, then return to the fact: ‘I’m glad we’re aligned on the work — and in Monday’s meeting, when you said “I built this,” my manager didn’t hear my name on analysis I led. I need that corrected going forward.’
Carry into Wednesday: ‘I’m not trying to create drama. I want my contributions visible for my review. Can we agree to name who led what in leadership syncs?’”
Questions people ask before confronting a peer
- Should I go to my manager instead of talking to them directly?
- For a first incident, a private peer conversation is usually the right move — if you can stay factual. Kommi helps you rehearse that talk so you don’t escalate to HR over one bad meeting. If it’s a pattern, practice the manager conversation too.
- What if they genuinely didn’t realize?
- That’s why you lead with a specific incident, not “you always do this.” The roleplay includes a peer who made an honest mistake and one who denies it deliberately — so you practice both responses without guessing which one you’re facing.
- Will practicing make me sound scripted?
- The opposite. Most people either stay silent or blurt something accusatory in the moment. Three minutes of rehearsal gives you one factual opening and one reset line when they push back — so you sound calm, not rehearsed.
- Is this only for engineers?
- No. Credit disputes hit product managers, marketers, designers, and analysts the same way. Swap “latency analysis” for campaign results, a research deck, or a client proposal — the conversation structure is identical.
$11.99 a month.
A coach with a calendar runs two hundred dollars an hour. Kommi runs roughly forty cents a day — and is awake when you can't sleep, which is when most of these conversations are actually being rehearsed anyway.
We don't have a free tier, a team plan, or a premium upsell. One price, no pricing page riddle. If we add tiers later, we'll do it because users asked — not because a growth deck did.
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- Unlimited sessions — any conversation you can describe
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One conversation you’d have talked yourself out of is worth years of this. Or just sleep better on Wednesday. Either way.
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