Twenty-One Ways To Decline Work

1. "I'm working on a bunch of other assignments."
2. "I'm waiting for a call back from a partner."
3. "I'm up against a pretty tight deadline here."
4. "Someone else asked me to keep my schedule pretty clear today."
5. "Oh, I just took another project no more than five minutes ago."
6. "I recently suffered a brain injury."
7. "My computer's broken."
8. "I have a doctor's note saying I shouldn't do any work today."
9. "The last project like that I worked on was a complete disaster and they made me promise to turn down any similar assignments in the future."
10. "I have lice."
11. "No hablo Ingles."
12. "I hear Sam hasn't had an assignment in three weeks."
13. "I'd be happy to work on it, but I was planning to catch the 12:30 showing of The Bourne Supremacy this afternoon."
14. "I'd be happy to work on it, but I'm bleeding pretty profusely, so it might get soiled."
15. "I'd be happy to work on it, but I'll need some extra compensation."
16. "The orange alert has frightened me to the point where I can no longer get anything done."
17. "My Internet is down. It's a local failure."
18. "I'm still drunk from last night."
19. "I can't hear you. What? Huh?"
20. "I'm stuck in the elevator. Typing to you on my Blackberry. Don't know how long I'll be in here."
21. "I don't want to do that work. Sorry."