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Tell them there are others ahead of them in the queue and you will get to theirs when you finish the others. Tell them they should have given you more than 5 minutes notice. Also tell them that if it's really urgent, then they need to talk to your boss about re-arranging your priorities.
Tell them you have gotten the same urgent requests from other people and that if they want theirs to trump them they have to go talk to them. That usually stops that kind of thing.
That's not a bad idea. I will spend the weekend pondering whether I should start playing that card.
This same sort of thing happened to me at a previous job. My supervisor was somewhat sympathetic but I could tell he didn't realize the full degree of what I was experiencing. So I started a log in which I wrote down the person who sent me the piece of work, the time I recieved it, and the turnaround time that was expected. After about a month my log showed a couple of things to my supervisor. First, it showed the volume of work, which I don't think he realized, and showed that a large percentage of the assignments were submitted on a rsuh basis….this was a few years ago but I want to say it was somewhere between a third and half. At any rate, having actual data to back up what I was saying was extremely helpful in my later conversations with him. If your supervisor thinks you are just being dramatic something like this might help. Good luck!
When I had those kinds of problems, I asked for a meeting with my boss. I asked him or her to prioritize for me which projects get worked on, in what order, for the good of the office. And I would ask him or her to back me up if there were things I had to put on the bottom of the heap. Don't do it in a whiny way. Project an image of, "I'm a team player and I want direction as to how to do my job most efficiently for the good of everyone."
Bosses like being kept up to speed and getting a heads up if something is going to fall by the wayside. They don't like to be ambushed by someone who goes to them and says, "My job is really important and Noelle41 is ignoring it." Also ask your boss how s/he wants you to handle those phone calls with people demanding a finish time. S/he could possibly prefer different responses to different people. (Maybe you would even get permission not to answer the phone.) Bosses also like a heads up if there is going to be overtime involved to get all the work done. This is also a round-about way of telling your boss you have too much work without directly complaining about it.
But this method only works if you really are putting in the effort and working all your required hours.
I had a job like that; I thought I was almost indispensible. My boss certainly thought so. Then, corporate decided to drop the axe on me and several others in my office.
I started my own business that same week. I hope it works out well, because I'd rather chew glass than go back to the corporate world.
Tell them there are others ahead of them in the queue and you will get to theirs when you finish the others. Tell them they should have given you more than 5 minutes notice. Also tell them that if it's really urgent, then they need to talk to your boss about re-arranging your priorities.
This is a great suggestion, along with the earlier suggestion of not answering the phone anymore unless it is your boss. Accepting the phone calls has got to be a huge time sink since everyone is calling to confirm you received their emails.
When everything becomes a priority, then nothing is a priority.
Accept that you can only do so much in 40 hours, and do not give them any time you are not being paid for. Reality is, only when things start to not get completed will your superiors take notice of how busy you really are. You can tell them all day long but at the end of the day, if things are getting accomplished, they have no reason to change anything.
Just make sure you are working at full capacity during those 40 hours and on par with others in your position. Taking 20 minutes to complete a function is fine so long as your coworkers are not doing the same task in 10. Assuming you are working at full capacity and at the same level as others, do not give them your weekends - huge mistake. Not only do they see you do not need help since all they see is the work getting completed, but you are letting a company that doesn't appreciate you, at least not yet, effect your personal life, and I am going to bet it is having a significant effect on your personal life.
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