Irrational Rant...Desk for One, Work for Two

I am sure most people can relate to essentially having to carry a co-worker at one time or another and I am sure at some point someone has wanted to tell me to get my head out of my ass, but I figured this was a good topic to cover anyway.

At my P.O.E., a co-worker and I are swapping international coverage and clients.  We both needed a change and it is always good to have more people that know a certain part of the globe.  For four years I handled Asia; all the e-mails, all the calls, all the files, and all the travel.  While it is a fantastic opportunity to go to an area I would never get to go to on my own, the trip is non-stop, it is a long way from home, and the jet lag is something special.  Anyway, there is a three week trip to Asia for my company every fall and I have helped my co-worker plan for it.  Telling him where to go, which clients to visit, advice on flights and hotels.  Right before I went on vacation, we were both at a conference where I introduced him to everyone I could from the region and set up meetings for him on the spot.  I was then on vacation for two weeks and when I get back, he is out and asks me to finalize several stops in Asia for him.  Wait.  What?  I have handed everything to you on a silver platter, what have you been doing for the last two weeks?  The answer is clearly nothing.  He simply waited for me to come back to the office, wasting two weeks of time scheduling his own trip.  This blew my mind and got me to thinking about what could be going on in someone's head that they think it is OK for you to do their work for them?  I mean, on one hand, I admire your delegation skills, pawning off your own responsibilities, but its friggin' ridiculous.

Like I said earlier, I am sure everyone has someone in their office that doesn't see the problem in having you do their work.  To a certain extent, I'm a sucker, but I wasn't this time and thankfully I had another co-worker give the e-mail I was going to send him before I hit send.  She edited out a few uber-a-hole comments and probably salvaged that relationship.

-Big Ran

KC Jones Comment: I feel you Big Ran, some people suck so bad.....I've encountered similar situations and have found myself wanting to punch babies and kick puppies....how about the woman whose work I had to do (because she's incompetent) and she then had the testicles to ask me to PRINT IT OUT AND HAND DELIVER IT TO HER! I wasn't even suppose to be doing it in the first place.....so, yup, I printed it out and left it in my cube for her to retrieve.....lazy B!