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Sorry to shake any worlds, people, but just about EVERY business is like that, at least some of the times.  With the sole exception of my job sorting books at the public library when I was fresh out of college, every single place I’ve worked has been like that.  Whether I was flipping burgers to updating state Web pages.  Since leaving that library job, every place I’ve worked has had those exact same circumstances.  Sure, sometimes it was a consulting client making demands, sometimes it was the Governor making demands, and sometimes it was just a boss covering their own butt.  But that’s how jobs are.  They pay you because otherwise you usually won’t put up with that sort of crap in your hobbies.
On 9-11, I was online at home, after we had been evacuated, updating the state Web portal with breaking news because that was the job.  When the Girl Scout Web server locked up, I went online at 2 in the morning to restart the server.  When some chowderhead deleted  an important file by accident I worked late with senior managers hovering over me making stupid suggestions so that I could find the problem and fix it before any customers realized the home page was gone.  When we found out the Secretary of Technology had announced – in the paper – that we were about to release the first personalized home page in government history, and we didn’t even know we were supposed to be doing that project at all, we all worked 12 hour days until it was done.
Because that’s the job.
True, I work in IT, and for some reason every single thing that happens in IT is a big horkin’ emergency, but that’s how it is when you work in any way with other people.  Things get crazy really fast.
Don’t get me started about that time I accidentally put that Judy Blume book in the preschooler section…