Short backstory. I joined an engineering company (around 150 employees, 35 in my department) as an intern 2 years ago, short before finishing my master's degree. My task when I joined was to aid a senior engineer, Bob, in his area. Bob had been doing that work for 7 years.
Soon after I started, Bob took a long leave (1 month) and I had to deal with all the work he was doing with very little experience. This stressed me out so much, but everything worked so well that I was hired and, since then, I do his work, and he has been assigned other tasks of simillar difficulty. He has, though, kept the role of "responsible" of the work I do, even though he just checks everything is OK for 5 minutes a month. He does it as a routine, and doesn't really check, he trusts me blindly. He lost the track of the work I deal with. The whole company knows that I do the work.
Do not get me wrong, Bob is a great collegue, he is not the problem of this story. He never took credit of what I do, and taught me barelly all I know.
Now comes the problem, our boss: Jules. He is the boss of Bob and I. Jules is the only person who still seems to think that Bob and I do the work like 50% each, and what I hate the most, is that when an important decision about my work comes around, he asks Bob to decide, not caring for my opinion.
I want to solve this in a way that doesn't undermine Bob by mistake. Basically I would like to say the following to Jules: "How can you not notice that I do all the work, that Bob no longer knows what is needed to do in this area, and I should be the one making decisions here".
Obviously, if I said that like that, I would undermine Bob, who happens just to be in the middle of the issue, but he is not taking any credit, it's just Jules not understanding the situation.
Thanks a lot.
EDIT to clarify some things.
- I don't think it is a duplicate because Bob is not taking credit voluntariely. Jules assumes he has it.
- I finished my master's degree 5 month after getting the internship, so timeline goes like this: Internship for 1 month--> Total crisis and work overload for 1 month---> Getting hired as a bachellor engineer for 3 months --> Getting hired as a master's engineer.
- Bob is not my manager, he just happens to have more experience (or at least more time doing the work), in the area I deal with. We are at equal level in heriarchy. He does not act like a manager, he passively gets the credit for my work without claiming it.
- Other managers of the company who are not "my" managers acknowledge that is me who does the work. One of them, in an informal hallway chat, confessed that does not understand why Jules asks Bob to decide stuff.
Second edit: First of all, I want to say thanks to everyone for your time. Most of you have made quality comments that made me think about the situation from different perspectives. I have seen that the ideal outcome of this situation would be to ask Bob to make Jules aware of the situation. I am afraid though that he could take this as an "attack" to his situation. It shouldn't be the case, but every person is different.
Third edit with examples:
Example 1: A year ago, I had to make a procurement proposal for some hardware (around 100.000€) and assign tasks to 4 people for 4 months. One week ago, the CEO asked Jules if this year the company would have to make upfront to a simillar amount. When Jules answered he put Bob and me (I was in CC) in the loop and literally said: "I will ask Bob, he is the one who did it last year".
Example 2: A new intern was hired (I asked for him last summer) to work in my area around 2 months ago. Jules asked Bob instead of me what the intern should do. I emailed Jules with my proposals even though I wasn't asked: No answer. The intern is finally in another area.