Solid, realistic, believable excuse of the month... I have to go home early because: my pet was at the veternarian and needs to be picked up. They close at 5pm so I have to leave now to get there in time.
Manager's Corner aka. Piled Higher and Deeper Volunteers: Assignments with impossible deadlines or pointless pet-projects work best when asking for volunteers. Offer nebulous rewards with as few specifics as possible like "an appropriate amount of comp-time", or "the thanks of upper management", or the ultimate, vague non-reward, "a chance to work on elite company-critical research projects in the future". If no one volunteers, assign it to the team-member least qualified to handle the project, or failing that, the least paid. After struggling alone, the novice employee will eventually have to ask for help from your more senior team members. Such a debacle will assure that your most qualified employees will voluteer in the future for such projects, knowing that inevitablly it will be fall on their shoulders anyway.
