Mom's Home!!!

So I left work at about 3:35, headed to Penn Station/Newark. Parked the car and went inside.

15 minutes later, Mom was home!!!

I'm so glad she's here! I know she had a great time at P's house, and I know she likes to go there, but it's really hard on my husband when mom is away. I admit it. I'm a big baby! In fact, J met us at the Tick Tock for dinner. He came in, gave Mom a hug and a kiss and said, "Thanks for coming home, Mom! Now I'll have a happy home again!"

BUT with the advent of a webcam setup, I can deal with it in a much more adult manner!  When I finally return Mom's laptop to her, I'll go out and buy myself a webcam. (It's a cheaper alternative to a laptop I really can't justify at this time!)

On the way home, it was snowing. (Actually, it was snowing all day.) I've never had the experience of not being able to stop my car on ice; I know, I've been lucky. Yesterday, though, I was sending many thank yous up to Jesus for ABS brakes! Boy howdy, were the roads slippery! A couple of times I was sweating thinking I was going to hit the man and woman crossing the street in front of me. I was afraid, in a way, to beep the horn or flash my headlights 'cause I thought they'd think I was telling them to go ahead and cross in front of me when in fact I couldn't stop my truck!!! [Jack pointed out I should have just LAID on the horn, long and strident, so they'd know something was wrong.]

I'm having some trouble here at work. I know I need to let it go, but I'm having a hard time not obsessing over it. What do you think?

There are 6 of us in our territory. We all answer to W. Here's the breakdown of our territories: I have 12 states, R has 10, E has 9, D has 14, and K has 2 plus author sales. S has the US for corporate bulk sales but for the most part, he just sits and waits for orders to hit his desk; it's not a very proactive job...

A couple of weeks ago, R and E were out at the same time. For a week. And I covered for them. By myself. We don't have an assistant anymore, and we don't know when/if we'll get one. K has already stated, in no uncertain terms, that she's too overworked with her 2 states and author sales to help cover our territories when we're out. (This was in response to my joking with her that I was going to put her name down as a contact when I went on vacation - she said I could, but that she wouldn't be doing any of the work. Now, keep in mind that she refers all existing author accounts to customer service and is away from her desk for 3 hours a day, running, visiting her mom who works in our company, and doing whatever else it is she does when she's not at her desk...)

Anyway, I covered for R and E. Then I called out sick last Friday.

THEY.DID.NOT.PROCESS.ONE.SINGLE.ORDER.FOR.ME.

And E found it necessary to send me an email to tell me that she overheard R telling my accounts that I'd be back in the office on Monday and that they could contact me then. Okay, I was pissed. But then I walked over and saw that E didn't do anything for me either.

3 orders came in on Friday, over the fax. One at 8:45am, one at noon-ish, and one at 3-something pm. Plenty of time to process them before they went home. And no one did a single thing for me.

I'm SO hot under the collar that I can't stand myself, let alone these people.

I love my job. It's easy and I'm certainly not going anywhere. But I'm done doing unto others. They did squat for me.

My pals seem to think I should talk to my boss about it. I feel as though I could be perceived as ratting them out. I don't want to be a rat fink, but I'm feeling distinctly taken advantage of and obviously they don't care about my customers as much as I cared about them.

I think I'm just going to keep my distance and tell them not to put me down to cover them the next time they ask if they can. Or if they don't even ask, just refer their customers back to them when they return. Or to customer service. Why should I go the extra mile when they won't help me out at all???

What do you think?