Toilet cleaning and department chairing: Volunteering a public service

The question of who will do a job that no one else wants but that someone has to do is addressed. The search for a volunteer is modeled as a war of attrition in which everyone is tempted to just wait for someone else to do it. It is shown that the volunteer will be, ceteris paribus, the individual for whom the benefit/cost ratio of performing the public service is largest, the one most impatient to consume it, or the one who stands to benefit from it the longest.