Vendors Limited is a multi-disciplinary work environment where several priorities could be identified within a similar time frame to meet deadlines. You work in a busy administrative services unit as an office assistant. In your role, you are responsible for providing clerical and administrative support within the unit you work in as well as to internal clients in other areas of the organization.
You begin your day on Tuesday at 8:30am as usual. Today you have a team meeting from 10am to 11:30am, a lunch and learn that you organized from noon to 12:45pm and you are attending a mandatory training course between 1pm-4pm but otherwise your day is open to accomplish tasks on your to-do list. Some of these items on your to-do list have various deadlines for the week. You have a personal commitment later in the day so you must leave the office by 4:30pm.
At 9:00am as you are working on your daily tasks, your supervisor Mary asks you to complete a report for the morning meeting. The report looks complex but you promise Mary you will get it done by 9:45am so she can have a quick review before the meeting. As you work through the report for Mary you realize the template is wrong so it will take a little longer but you are confident you can get it done by 10am, not sooner. At that moment, you receive a phone call from a client who is requesting for your assistance in completing a service request form which needs to be done correctly and urgently, by 11am today.
Due to competing priorities and ad-hoc requests coming in at the start of the day, you realize you will not be able to complete 2 other items on your to-do list for today.
Points to consider:
Training course is delivered by a third-party company which cannot be cancelled without a penalty. Alternate slots are all booked with a long wait-list.
Due to budgetary reasons overtime requests must be submitted in advance to the manager for approval.
There are 2 other assistants on the team but they recently joined and are not as experienced as you.
You report to Mary (supervisor) and there is a unit manager Sophie who is on vacation this week.
QUESTIONS:
Considering the given situation, how would you manage your professional and personal commitments?
Identify 3 concerns where you may face challenges and what you would to do address them.
What would you do after realizing you cannot complete your daily tasks as required/requested?
