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AIBU?

Not pulling her weight

182 replies

AnUnhappyStudent · 23/04/2017 07:41

I am a mature student at uni. We have to do a group presentation tomorrow and have been meeting as a group for the last couple of months to work on it. One of the group has really taken the piss.
Turned up to about a third of the meetings, not delivered on her stuff, not letting us know when she is not attending meetings but then turning up to the one session we had with tutor
I raised it with the group and it was agreed that we would mail her and say if she didn't get her finger out we were going to ask for her to be removed as she will be graded on something she hasn't contribute to.

Today we are meeting up for a run through and its been arranged weeks. Just had an email from her to say that her uncle is seriously ill and she will need to leave early! I don't believe it for a minute. We have had various stories of ill relatives and just serms like its another excuse. But I could be wrong.
Anyway we have to submit a record of how we worked as a group this can involve meeting notes, action logs and emails. If I include the email we sent her then it will be really obvious that she was not a team player but would it reflect badly on me for dobbing her in as it were?? And what if uncle is really ill? I would feel awful

OP posts:

Report

roundaboutthetown · 23/04/2017 08:23

Surely in any event, your meeting notes will dob her in, because she wasn't at a lot of the meetings and everyone else was? Or were you planning to lie for her?

Calphurnia · 23/04/2017 08:24

Ask your tutor, there should be a group work protocol, where the rest of you in the group can make a case for her being marked differently according to the amount of work out in

AnUnhappyStudent · 23/04/2017 08:26

Have just been back through emails from her and according to her she has had 3 funerals in three months! That may be true, but i am skeptical.
We did email her about a month ago but by that time the work was almost complete. This was after both her and her partner failed to attend a crucial meeting where we were all 'signing off' their piece of work.
At the time we were all extremley busy on placement and writing assignments so to all make the effort (5 of us) to travel into Uni and then not be able to do anything was more than annoying when time was so precious.
The email stated that we were concerned about her committment and that unless she could demonstrate that the work was a priority then we would approach the tutor to ask her to be removed from the group.
I can understand about cutting her some slack but had she talked to us we would have come up with something else so she could contribute ( we did this for someone else). I think I will include the email and although she didn't do the project any harm she did in my eyes steal valuable time from people who did not have time to waste and who have far more caring responsibilities than she has!!

OP posts:

roundaboutthetown · 23/04/2017 08:27

Brokenbiscuit - it clearly wasn't the university's problem as you did not bother to tell them. It was 100% your problem.

Trifleorbust · 23/04/2017 08:28

FrancisCrawford:

In the nicest possible why, why would you care this much about this?

is showing that there is a sustained pattern of not having commitment, of not working collabaratively etc

I do my own work. If someone else shirks their work, in most situations I would just let it go. I am not in a supervising position or their tutor, so it isn't my responsibility and I would feel like I was being spiteful/vindictive.

Trifleorbust · 23/04/2017 08:31

AnUnhappyStudent:

And you will gain what?

roundaboutthetown · 23/04/2017 08:32

Trifleorburst - so would you lie for the person, then? If a log is supposed to be kept, both their absence from meetings, any reasons they gave and how you dealt with it should be recorded for the tutor to see, surely?

AnUnhappyStudent · 23/04/2017 08:34

roundabout not planning on lying for her but the emails make it rather more explicit about how she did not contribute. Those who think it would show the group in a bad light, why would that be the case if the rest of the group had managed to deliver and had approached the situation in a professional way?

OP posts:

Maylani · 23/04/2017 08:35

Academic here - we come across this a lot. Unless you write it in a complaining or vindictive manner it's fine. You need to concentrate on how you tried to include her, resolve any issues etc. What we want to see is that it wasn't just cliquiness, or excluding someone who then didn't get a chance to contribute (e.g. Meetings alwaysscheduled whilst they work etc). if it's clear you tried your best and the end result is good then it won't reflect badly but show you tried to manage the situation.

GoBigOrange · 23/04/2017 08:36

Ugh, I hated people like that when I was in college. There was always one lazy twat who wanted to coast along and take advantage of the hard work put in by others.

I think turning in a totally unemotional and factual report detailing who attended which meetings on which dates, and clearly attributing who researched/produced/contributed each element of the project is completely fair.

The significantly lower number of mentions of her name in the report when compared to the rest of you will nicely highlight her lack of commitment and effort without any of you actually having to outright point out that she wasn't a useful team member.

Maylani · 23/04/2017 08:36

*cross post!

Trifleorbust · 23/04/2017 08:37

roundaboutthetown:

I wouldn't lie for someone I didn't know, no. But not would I take the initiative and go running to the tutor. I'm just not like that. Let the facts speak for themselves.

LittleCandle · 23/04/2017 08:37

Trifle it isn't being vindictive - its being honest. This person has not done the work, so why the hell should they get the credit? I also do my own work and am not in a supervisory position, but if someone is skiving regularly, then believe me I shall say something, as that always means that someone else has to pick up the slack. You are saying that this person deserves to get the credit for the project, even though they did nothing. So you are condoning doing that? Really? Next thing, you'll be saying cheating is fine.

OP, hand in the email because it is a true record of what happened. If the girl had so many problems, she should have been talking to the tutor long before now.

SallyGinnamon · 23/04/2017 08:38

Trifleorbust

When I graduated with my Masters many years ago it did feel devalued by getting it alongside people who had done chuff all (before computers to check for copying and plagiarism).

My worry was that employers may take them on, assuming they had certain skills and knowledge, because of the qualification, and find none. They would not be impressed with my institution for basically handing out a bit of paper. They could rightly assume that future graduates were as ill qualified.

Brokenbiscuit · 23/04/2017 08:40

Brokenbiscuit - it clearly wasn't the university's problem as you did not bother to tell them. It was 100% your problem.

I disagree. If the university is churning out graduates who aren't actually up to much, it won't do their reputation any good in the longer term, so it is their problem and it's their responsibility to find a better way of assessing work.

If the university had asked whether we had worked well as a team, and whether everyone had contributed equally, I certainly wouldn't have lied to cover for anyone. But they didn't ask.

I don't think the OP should lie in her reflection on how the group worked together. I think she should state the facts, without passing judgement on them, and let the university decide what to do.

Trifleorbust · 23/04/2017 08:41

LittleCandle:

Vindictiveness and honesty aren't mutually exclusive. This strikes me as self-righteous indignation, which to me isn't a good enough reason to go out of my way to get someone into trouble, true or not.

FrancisCrawford · 23/04/2017 08:42

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Trifleorbust · 23/04/2017 08:43

Bordersarethebest:

Really? That was actually your main worry? How far-sighted of you

Trifleorbust · 23/04/2017 08:44

FrancisCrawford:

I don't mean why would you care enough to post (calm down).i mean why would you care enough to go out of your way to bring someone else's slacking to light.

roundaboutthetown · 23/04/2017 08:45

Trifleorburst - it is not running to the tutor to hand in a full and honest record. Why leave part of the record out? The email is part of the record, as it is evidence of how the group worked. Either you tell the tutor earlier that you think the student needs some support, or you dob them in at the end by handing in an honest log of what happened. Or, of course, you gloss over it and hope that you don't get marked down for not properly including one member of the group for no apparent reason.

LittleCandle · 23/04/2017 08:46

Goodness, Trifle, you are over-involved in this thread. Has someone done something like this to you, and you are still smarting about it? I don't blame you at all if that is the case, but we aren't all being doormats about it.

Trifleorbust · 23/04/2017 08:48

LittleCandle:

What does 'over-involved' mean? I'm giving my opinion. It's an opinion forum.

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Trifleorbust · 23/04/2017 08:49

roundaboutthetown:

I think including the email is unnecessary and vindictive and I don't think it will reflect well on anyone, frankly. I would hand in a simple report of who did what.

Trifleorbust · 23/04/2017 08:50

LittleCandle:

And no, by the way. I have never left my work to others.

Hulder · 23/04/2017 08:50

I had someone like this at university. Every module, another uncle died

Of course it was a new tutor each time so no one was counting the uncles and he got the best mark of all of us

Put the emails in and leave it to the tutor to decide. It's what they are there for.

Flip

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