Over at Science After Sunclipse, Blake discovers (among other things) a fine tradition: volunteering in absentia.

Do not oversleep and miss a meeting because the meeting announcement was sent to the e-mail address you don’t use because it’s continually broken, or else you too may draw the short straw in absentia and find yourself in charge of assembling a volume of conference proceedings.

Decisions are made by those who show up. Unpleasant tasks go to those who were conveniently out of the room.