Four Heads Make None

You may know that I was required by my workplace to do a 30-hour night course. The final exam was last week, but we were also given a group project to do. I spent the better part of my weekend trying to finish up my portion of the group project, which was due yesterday. In fact, I went further than that; the project is divided into two parts, and I decided to do an entire part by myself. Now’s a good time to note that the group consists of 5 members. Anyway, after feeling ill on Monday morning, and not going to work, I decided to call work in the afternoon to find out from the other group members (all of whom work at my workplace) how their portion of the work was going. Afterall, 4 of them could manage a half of the project if I could handle a half on my own, right?

I was well aware, however, of the fact that at least 2 of those members had paid absolutely no attention to the project. In fact, yesterday afternoon, one of them asked ‘Is today it due?’ That leaves 2 people to manage the other section. One of those had declared from a week ago that she’d be the typist (as it turns out, what she really meant by that was that she’d find someone to type for her). This really only left one person. So technically, only one person was handling, or was willing to handle, the first half of the project. So anyway, I called and spoke to ‘the typist’ on Monday morning, and she said that the first half was done (by the 1 willing person), and that she just needed to ‘read it through’ and type it up in the night. At this point, I’m impressed. I mean, if the information is as such that she can’t read it while at work, then it has to be a lot, right?

I turn up to work yesterday, show ‘the typist’ my work, and ask to see what they have done. My work (which, by the way, also included writing the introduction, conclusion, and a page of writing to go at the start of the section they were to prepare, as well as all of the second half) was a total of 12 pages; Their work was a total of 1 page (well, 2 pages, if you want to consider the 3 lines of writing that spilled over onto a second page). Needless to say, I was furious. Their one page was simply a regurgitation of the point-form notes provided to us in class- there was no research, no additional data, nothing. Should I, the person who had already done 90% of the work, really go back and dig for info to cover for them? Should I did for data to cover my own ass? Afterall, my name would be on this project as well.

A lot of other little things happened that I can’t get into now. Anyway, our lecturer also required that we write a signed statement declaring what our individual contributions to the project were. Of course, all my other group members were keen to skip that step. I was not so keen. So I wrote my statement, signed it, and now the project is in my possession to get sent off- one day late (because ‘the typist’ “didn’t feel like” sending the project off yesterday afternoon).

This whole thing really bothers me, because I managed to represent myself well in my final exam, and now my grade is at risk of being eroded because of the incompetence called group members. It’s funny how, as I sat in class and heard that we needed to put ourselves into groups, I jumped at the idea of working with a group of my co-workers, for simplicity and ease. It’s obvious that I lacked foresight, and never considered what would happen if the s**t hit the fan. But I know now. Never again.