Unreasonable urgent work requests AIBU?

[Biffkipandchip]

I have a reasonably nice, moderately paid job for a large organisation. It's fairly technical and I work part time.

There are only 3 people who do this sort of work amongst a few thousand staff, and in the last year our workload has gone a bit crazy. Crazy in so much as we are booked up for a few months, however people keep requesting work and expecting us to drop everything and help them. They are also massively patronising about how easy they think my job is and nothing I do should apparently take more than 5 minutes.

I had a pretty pissy phone call followed by an email this week where once again they wanted something urgently for next week, which would take me only 2 minutes (I wish). I explained it wasn't possible as we have a few big deadlines next week that the colleague really should be in the know about, but they persisted to the point where I have no choice but to work over the weekend unpaid again. They are willing to pay to outsource for a large quantity of stationary supplies (several hundred) but apparently can't afford to outsource the bit they need from me.

I've just spent about 4 hours on their work and wondering if I should send it to them right now so they understand that their demands put me in the position of working until 1am? Would they even give a shit?

I've done this before to meet an urgent request and the colleague had the cheek to ask me if I had nothing better to do at 3am

I can see how it could get to “having to” do something. We are permanently understaffed at work. I regularly say no to things. But I’m usually being asked by people more senior in the organisation than me. I can say “I’m sorry I can’t do that” and they can say “Well it needs doing” and ultimately if I disobey a direct order from a superior that’s gross misconduct for which I can be sacked. I can be required to work unlimited unpaid overtime per my contract. I can and do manage most requests by saying no, referring them to my direct manager, asking what tasks from A, B and C they would like doing, but ultimately if I go through all those and am still told to do the task, I am contractually obliged to do so. I don’t do a lot of things I’m initially asked to do, because I do use those techniques first, but it creates a lot of conflict which never makes an enjoyable work environment.

You always have a choice, and you need to learn to say no. Insistent people should be directed to your manager, who can then make a decision about whether it's more important than something else on your plate that can then be delayed to accommodate this.

I used to work for one section of the business, but they decided this wasn't enough, so centralised myself and a colleague and opened our services up to 6 sections of the business, one of which is about five times the size of where I used to work.

Why did you make your services available to do many more sections? Can you reduce that number?