I wish I could get it engraved on an iron plaque and shove it up the ass of the three randomly-assigned teammates I got in college. While the class in general collaborated a lot, we did it “on our own”, but there were two labs where we had to work in teams.
The guy from Electronics had finished all his coursework except the Electronics lab. The physical work was ok, then we split the reports: he had access to a computer and couldn’t really draw, I could draw but no computer, so he did the writing and I did the graphs. He wanted me to change the graphs because the real values didn’t match reality. I told him no fucking way, if he wanted to ruin his career to do it in a way that didn’t involve me, he refused to put the numbers back to the correct values, I threatened with telling the prof, he said you won’t. I didn’t even say “watch me”, I just went and told Turns out the reason he hadn’t been able to pass that lab is that He Tried To Cheat Every Time. Our assignment hadn’t been random: I had a reputation for not taking shit from anybody (his teammates from the two previous years had been handpicked for the same reason).
Algebra II included a Fortran lab. Friday before starting the lab, we were given some math stuff that we had to program in Fortran. On Saturday I decide to give it a look and… uhm… if I… and then… ok, so I started writing the code in Basic on a piece of paper, almost missed lunch, sorry sorry sorry I know it’s late but is there any food left? Thaaaank you!
Monday, I get to the lab. My teammates, two pwetty gahls who’d been tewwibly offended the year before when their mothers said they wouldn’t be allowed to buy completely new clothes every year (they had to keep half and wear the kept half to the labs), didn’t show up until fifteen minutes before closing time. By then, I’d already typed everything in, found the only line (in my Basic code!) that the Fortran wasn’t willing to accept as kosher and changed it. The program was already working. The work was supposed to last a week; they spent it in the cafeteria while I prettified the program and tested every possibility I could think of. It worked beautifully every single time. When it was time to write the report, I informed them that, since I’d done the actual thinking, they had to do the writing. And I went to the cafeteria.
The teacher wanted to flunk me for cheating, on grounds of “a girl” being unable to write a program for that particular function which took 1/3 the memory of previous examples and 1/2 the time. I challenged him to give me another example, I’d code it and write it in his computer while he worked in another desk and he folded. The trisomic fuck gave me a C and Bs to the pwetty gahls.
“the real values didn’t match the theory”. As I told him, “Dr. B has been teaching this class for over 25 years, you seriously think he’s going to expect cute results?”
That should have taught you what’s important… You were far too busy working at college to take the time and effort to look “pwetty” for the teaching staff. Major mistake *
(I’m sure you get it, but I’ll add an IRL :mad: to that so I don’t come off looking like a jerk to any irony-challenged reader who may happen along)
Mr. Pundit was assigned a group project that counted for his entire grade in one of his upper business management classes. The 4 students showed up for the first mutually agreed on appointment to divvy up their assignments. After that, the only girl in their group called to tell them that it was over her head and she was dropping the class. Another guy, “slacker dude,” showed up once with zero work accomplished, then complimented them on their great work and left, never to be heard from again, despite repeated phone messages. The remaining two met with the professor to ask for advice, and he said that they should complete the project on their own, despite now having to do twice the work they were originally assigned to do.
So they finished the project on their own, which was to provide recommendations for developers on what to do with a closed G.M. plant. And on the day of the presentations, lo and behold slacker guy had the audacity to show his face to claim credit! And when he discovered that his name wasn’t on the proposal, he was furious. :rolleyes:
Damn, forgot to mention my own story – undergrad, Computer Science, AI lab. Two person project. Ended up with a C because the other student (and I use the word loosely) really tried to do her bit, but never came up with anything useful… I did for her what I had time for, and the rest of her work stayed… well, undone to poorly done. She was neither evil nor lazy – just dumb as a wheelbarrow of rocks. Still amounted to the same thing.
And she wasn’t good-looking enough to bat her eyes fetchingly at the professor, for extra credit, either… Don’t get me wrong – I don’t approve, but that was how things often worked in that class
The sad thing is, most of you are going to wind up working for the people who slacked off in your group projects. The slacker has “gotten” something most of you did not – an important part of any group project is devising stratagems for dealing with people. This is what slackers do. They do not work, they get you to do the work for them. Frankly, the slackers whom most of you are describing sound like rank amateurs. The best slackers don’t get noticed for their slacking. Too many negative consequences. They’ll typically manage to get assignments that require the least amount of work possible and then do it as minimally as possible but still do it, or get someone else they know to. They may even manipulate you or other members of the team into doing the bulk of the work for them, if they can do so without attracting undue negative attention.
Your task in such an assignment is, not only to complete the work, but to develop effective stratagems for dealing with the slackers, such as going in as a group sans slacker and complaining to the prof about him or her or them. (This may not work if slackers outnumber workers in a group.) Profs can often spot slackers and help you deal with them, but not always. And some profs are slackers.
Evil Captor, I disagree. In some cases, the successful slackers will be able to wind up in management or leadership positions. But the people that **Jurph **is ranting about will tend to get filtered. Remember that the successful slackers at the top of the heap, the ones in management roles, need people who can actually get shit done. In the work world, people who don’t know what they are doing are less valuable than people who do.
Turns out the reason he hadn’t been able to pass that lab is that He Tried To Cheat Every Time. Our assignment hadn’t been random: I had a reputation for not taking shit from anybody (his teammates from the two previous years had been handpicked for the same reason).