For those of us that are the actual productive people in our worlds. it is a well thought out smart move. Will he be any worse off a day/week later? I do not think he'd notice. Plus, the productive people know that some busy-body, flitting around aimlessly, searching for some self-defined crisis to avoid real work, will happen by and pretend to take care of it.
See? Problem solved. Feel free to adopt this crisis as your own.