Not My Job

I don’t really believe in the whole ‘Not My Job’ type attitude in the workplace. I think that everyone should focus on being a team, friendly and efficient. If asked to do something or to help out in someway you should always try to lend a hand to others and do what your told. Today I fell away from that principle when I got a call from a co-worker. They immediately asked if they could request help from me or if they needed to go through my boss first. For the past few months my boss has been instructing the rest of the team to direct all requests for my help through her, so as to keep me on track with the tasks I have been assigned and to weed out inappropriate or unnecessary demands on my time. This protection of sorts is both a good and bad thing. I responded to the co-worker by saying it depended on the task at hand. I help many people in the program on a whole number of things, without first checking with my boss, because the tasks are part of what I do. Help with travel, catering, location hunting and booking, general events and travel logistics. I was hoping that they were calling for something along these lines. It turns out it is a stupid and mindless task that I had helped out with last year, when I was in a different position within the program. I politely explained that I would be able to help with some aspects of it, but that I no longer have the equipment or computer program to do the first half of the work and suggested a more appropriate person. Not only is there a more appropriate and more obvious person for this job, but there are a number of other people that could have been called upon to help out that make more sense than asking me. I thought I had diplomatically dodged the bullet. I brought over some supplies and explained again to the co-worker that I was available for the second half of the task. I was then informed that they had not approached the correct person for the first part and then started to instruct me on what needed to be done. I tried to politely deflect again, though was slightly less successful. I returned to my desk annoyed. I just received another call from them saying that they themselves had done most of the first part and were ready for my help to finish it. Seriously, it is not my job!! Oh well, I need to be a friendly team player.