I am in a project. First draft is due Wednesday morning, in hardcopy. It is now Monday, of course. Finally, my team is willing to meet, after I’ve been trying to get them together all last week, but they kept running off to other things.
I, of course, am the only one who’s done any work at all. I’ve done my own research, using a variety of analysis to produce a brief market analysis looking t current opportunities. I really want to go deeper, but I may not have the time since this is a summer course that’s only a month start to finish.
Today, finally, I manage to get them to stay after class. Fine, now they want to meet. As they start brainstorming on the spot, mostly covering things I already have or which may not be very well-suited to the project, I get more than a little pissed, because now is not the time to start thinking about this. I started working on it last week, and have produced several pages of documentation with . They accuse me of having a bad attitude.
Yeah, you’re damn right I have a bad attitude. I’m surrounded by lazy fools wait until the last day to start working. I’m not going to just assume the best possible conditions. First off, I get to pad the length of the thing by adding more. Second, it will probably look a lot better if we show we’ve thought about potential difficulties.
Dear teacher in other class: I do not know how to tell you this, but logic really can’t be cited.
Just wait until you get to do the same thing at work! I’d say “group projects are such a fucking waste of time” except that you’ll be doing them for the rest of your life and hating them just as much.
I’m no stranger to that, either, I’m afraid. I once worked on a project, nominally equally split. Should have taken a normal week. I worked from 9-9 for a week, plus another week of normal work. I wound up working 80% of the job. And his was done badly.
Of course, he got fired later, so it’s not all bad. Then again. I got laid off after that, so…
I dunno. Whenever I’ve been in a class where a student was complaining about the prof’s request for more citations, saying that the things to be cited couldn’t be cited, I’ve always found the prof to be in the right.
What exactly do you think cannot be cited?
As for group projects, I kinda hear you on this: it sucks to be the one who does all the work. On the other hand, if they’re accusing you of having a bad attitude, you may want to pay attention: it sounds to me as though they had a plan for getting it done on a different schedule from the one you’d prefer, and while their plan might be shittier than your ideal, if you were wasting time by bitching them out, you weren’t helping to get the project done, but rather standing in the way of its progress. I firmly believe that in cases like this one keeps one’s mouth shut until the project is done, then bitches the slackers out to one’s heart’s content.
He asked for a theoretical look (in a very, very short space) of what you would do if you were a manager of [pick a company] doing [pick a logistics thing]. This is a logistics analysis class.
Normally, I have no problem with cites. I got a degree in history and m not stranger to research. This… doesn’t make sense. He didn’t even tell us what, exactly, we would want to cite, just put out a vague idea to cite something.
They didn’t have any damned plan at all. They just completely pushed it off. They only met today because I got them together and forced them do it. And I wasted a lot less time staring in incredulity as they suddenly started to use their brains than they did complaining about me.
In this case, I think I would be finding in which a similar company had engaged in a course of action similar to the one I’m suggesting, and I would cite both the decision and the beneficial effects. If there were room, I’d consider an attractive alternative, and cite a case in which this alternative didn’t pay off.
Ah, okay–then I retract what i said, and sorry. I’ve definitely worked with idjits like that.
Protip in situations like this. Don’t get mad. Be glad. You get to be the boss. You have this data at your finger tips so you can crush anyone who disagrees with in argument. You’re the alpha of the group.
As an alpha of the group you should lead it benevolently. Listen to other people’s ideas and use the collected group’s wisdom to strengthen the group project. Be willing to sacrifice some of your ideas for the greater good. Doing so keeps you from being “asshole bully who needs a sound throat punch”, and makes you “beloved leader who deserves candy, and hookers”. Bit of hyperbole but yea.
As beloved leader no one will mind you leading the delegation of who can and will do what.
Unless you just happened to get a bunch of lazy fucks who don’t care. In which case that really sucks man. I have that problem in English Comp. One day, one very special day, it’s going to be Throat Punch Judgment Day when I will be judge, jury and throat punch-icutioner.*
*they’re actually nice people, usually.
Do what I did, did the project, never forced any of my study group partners to participate, documented everything I did and submitted it the instant I had finished it, with MY name on it. When the last day before the due date class, when everybody else wanted to copy the project I apologized profusely to them in class just before class started and told them that because they never called me back I simply did what I could and submitted it when it was finished and hoped I wouldn’t lose any points for it being a solo project instead of a group project … they didnt know that the prof was listening from the office. They started bitching me out because I didnt have a copy for them to copy and hand in, and I pointed out to them that I had tried getting in touch with them, and they had the same amount of time to work as I did, and I was working a full time job in addition to my full time classes … they whined that they had been busy … then the teacher came out and asked them why they didnt get in tough with him for an extension if they were so busy. One jerk actually said that he had planned on just providing pizza and beer and just copying the work the group did :eek:
Nah, it’s OK. We finally arranged to meet last night, and worked out a bit of what needed to be done. It does suck that this si only going down now, however, because the time for brainstorming was, well… a week ago. And what they wanted to do didn’t actually meet the assignment (I had to divert them). There was the usual counter-complaint that I had “pushed ahead and done things myself I shouldn’t have”. Given that IU had informed them what I was doing, asked for feedback, and noted that we needed to get together, I was not impressed. Still, managed to keep things nice and we’re making some progress anyhow.
Would you mind if I used this story for my classes? I assign group projects a lot, in part because I want people to get some practice to dealing with lazy, stupid fools before they go out into the work world. My biggest problem is not the incompetent idiots who coast on the hard work of others, but the hard-working ones WHO LET THEM and then complain to me. (I always offer my groups options to kick people out if they get a dud, but they never do because they don’t want to make anyone feel bad.) It’s always crystal clear who worked and who coasted.
I worked in industry from the time I was 16, and was raised with a good work ethic. I was paying for my own education and I was not going to be fucked over by a bunch of greekling jerks who wanted to party all the time and depend on a few hard working people. One thing I learned as a machinist was documentation, and I had everything, the school library timestamped book loans, my copies were timestamped by the library, and I could document by the time stamp on the computer sign out logs when I actually copied into the word processing program and printed out my first typed draft, my second draft and my final copy. All completed almost 3 weeks prior to the due date.
It has always been my practice to document things, and my last office cube job before i started to telecommute was organized enough that any contract i was working on was in one of 3 wallpockets, with a cover sheet as to exactly where i was in the process, who i spoke with and any comments, and the same information entered on the department spreadsheet. I could have dropped dead [or been out on medical at the drop of a hat, which did happen] and anybody in the department could have grabbed the paperwork and been able to finish it with a minimum of trouble.
Covering your ass is always easier than finding someone to alibi yourself =)
I will say one thing in defense of group projects: if you get a good team, the benefit of being able to bounce ideas back and forth to refine them is well worth the logistical hassle. When I was still doing coursework for the program I’m in now, I worked with the same four or five people for about half of the classes I was required to take, and it went very well. Everyone contributed, everyone made it to nearly all the meetings, and everybody was happy.
This is definitely true. I had some typically crappy experiences in groups in college, but I also managed to write a paper with a good friend (it applied a pseudoFreudian/sociopolitical analysis to the differences between the 1956 and 1978 Invasion of the Bodysnatchers movies–ah, college!), and we sat at the keyboard together arguing over every word and every turn of phrase and every point. It took a ridiculously long time to write the paper, and it was a glorious experience.
If you ever get in a class with another nerd, especially one you can get along with, please try to get into a group with them! There are few experiences more rewarding.
