Suppose that you and several co-workers are assigned to a project. With all of you working together, this project will take about 6 hours to complete.

One of your co-workers sends the rest of you an e-mail stating that he will be unable to help with the project. Without being too specific, he has a legitimate excuse. In the past, when similar schedule conflicts have arisen, the person with the schedule conflict has paid a substitute to do the work for him, and the going rate for this is a hundred bucks. However, this guy says he'd rather not hire a substitute because there are enough of us to get the job done without him. He says that if the rest of us have a problem with that, we should tell him, and he'll find a substitute.

Most of these guys have been at this job a lot longer than me, and I'd rather not rock the boat. At the same time, I'm annoyed that someone would ask us to do extra work for free. I think he put the rest of us in an awkward position by basically asking us to confront him, as he knows that we're all pretty laid-back dudes. What exactly would you guys do in this situation? Hilarious, over-the-top suggestions are welcome, but I'd appreciate some serious advice, too.