Cloudy.29C
I've never really met any free-rider in school when we had to do group work as I was usually the luckiest in the group (i.e. other people has done the work voluntarily before I could). And if we have several homework assignments, I don't mind some people not doing one as long as they will make contributions to the other ones. And if so happens I come across an outright free-rider, then I will totally despise that person, ignore and disassociate with him/her. The most difficult case to handle is that the free-rider is a friend, well, actually, a not so close friend (but the closest in class).
What I hated it most was that A was being all nervous about the work and bitching about B for being non-responsive, didn't produce work, blah blah blah. Then, when come face-to-face with B, A became oh-so-friendly all of a sudden, and you would think that they were some long lost friends if you haven't heard about what A has said earlier. So my beautiful Sunday afternoon was spent on a 5-hours homework meeting, listening to A and B talking about boyfriends, work, client meetings, making money and fortune-telling, (which, seriously, I think they didn't know even 100000000000000000th of the real stuff) and working alone on the project.
And about not producing work? Well, I have to say that what A sent out was totally trash. Data tables (don't ask me to explain what these stupid things are) that didn't have the correct values, summary which was the notes jotted down during our meeting and was totally jibberish if we ever turn that in. At least B turned out something that looked like work. What makes the day? A and B did the write up for the same part and so there's another part completely left behind. Ah... what's even better was that there was no response when I asked either of them to sort it out.
It just shows that they don't care at all. I mean, you don't just throw your part out and let the other people deal with it. What if I'm as nonchalant as them and we'll just let the assignment be half done? I mean, yeah yeah, you're busy with work, you might be sick. But hey, an email or sms reply would be nice. At least give me a reason for finishing up the shit work without feeling frustrated.
Well, I know I shouldn't be upset because this is not grade school anymore, and I should be at least glad that this homework wasn't difficult and even someone as dumb as I could handle it. But I need to vent!!!
OK, venting done. Time for bed.
i hate doing group project. one, it is hard to find good groupmate. best friend doesn't necessarily mean best groupmate. two, it is rather common for groupmate to turn into enemy, especially when i am that type of person who insists on getting things done properly and timely.
ReplyDeletei was so glad that for my bachlor degree, my final year project was all-by-myself!
i totally agree.
ReplyDeletewhen you really care about the group project as much as your own grade, some ppl think otherwise. >_<~
yeah, which was why i was so excited when i graduated.
ReplyDeleteIn the office environment, i don't think anyone dares to slack off...
you think?!
ReplyDeleteaxx-kisser maybe :D
oh i forgot about those...Grr...
ReplyDeletebut luckily our team is axx-kisser-free. =)
oh poor lu, that really sucks. 3 in a group or any odd numbers of ppl in a group is not a good idea. i hate dealing w/ these free-riders.
ReplyDeletesandee: yah... same here. but outside our team... i think there are plenty floating around.
ReplyDeletemad dog: thanks :) why odd number is a group is not a good idea?
my friend called this morning and i was still quite mad so i didn't really want to talk to her. and when we talked again later in the afternoon i told her off!!! she said she was "taken" to dinner (and didn't go home?!) and it was such a rush that she's left her phone in office. even though it was what happened, it just sounded so unreasonable to me...
and at first she thought i was bitching about the other girl and i said, "no, i'm bitching about you!" urgh.. it's just so irresponsible of these ppl... and she didn't talk to me in class tonight much.
at work, we call those ppl social loafers.
ReplyDelete不戰而勝，不勞而獲 never happens in real life.
I was the editor for all the group works last year when doing my MBA. People just threw in trash and in some cases, I need to re-write 98% of the work.
ReplyDeleteThe only good thing was: they didn't remember what they had written. So, even I wrote up the whole thing, there's no complaint ever.
It's quite efficient though, but I got so unhappy when it came to the last few course that my colleague said I better quit being the editor.
嬲記: that's an interesting term... but i don't understand >_<~
ReplyDeleteruth: i totally feel it. if i don't take up the word as a coordinator, nothing is really going to get done properly (ok, maybe i'm just anal). but after a while i'll start to think, why does the responsibility always fall on me?! it's a vicious cycle!!!
that actually never happened @ my college years, maybe becoz i was the weakest link.
lu: 單數group無咁好因為(尤其是細group)往往會有人left out.
ReplyDeleteMD: ic. ai... i think my EQ is very low, so it doesn't matter whether the number is odd or even -___-;
ReplyDelete