I nearly fell upon my sword once in a similar situation, having been en-route to a delivery destination and being interdicted. I normally win these with reasonable ease, but not this time. Lost my shields and a few systems very quickly. Having dispatched the little sod I set off back to my delivery ...
I honestly wonder a bit about the issue you have with the grinding thing. Regarding your signature you are a player of the first generation of ELITE, which was one of the first games with the basic concept of grinding ever released on home computers. You flew through the galaxy hauling stuff around...
Well, you are playing in an open Universe and within a PvE-Group. There is not really a competition around here (except for the higher tiers in Community Goals), the interaction is reduced to be cooperative or informative. Thus you don't have to feel forced into doing stuff you don't like to do, or...
Because I am totally lazy. I could never be bother to grind in this game since it went live, preferring to simply enjoy it and let the credits come at their own pace. I have also never traded, never bought or sold a single unit of goods, although my trading ranking seems to increase at a steady pace...
Yes these can be annoying, I had one that I intended dealing with after the time was up, I think it had just over a day left. I was looking for something for a ship I had not long since bought, unfortunately my most expensive ship at the time. I ventured into the system totally forgetting about it. ...
Reading peoples good advice here I decided to decommission the DBX and gave myself the morning off working for OOM to change my AspX from A rated to D rated, (apart from the FSD of course). I did buy the 6A fuel scoop after I picked myself off the floor at the nearly 29 mill price tag. I am not sure...