Not pulling her weight

[AnUnhappyStudent]

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

FrancisCrawford:

I think it is minor no matter how big a part of the grading it is. The OP has done her work and the presentation is fit for purpose. She can hand in a truthful account of who did what and how they worked as a group without sharing private emails and going out of her way to act as informant. It is minor because she stands to gain nothing by being more explicit.

redexpat It only works if all of the group members pull their weight. In this case, and in my daughter's case they did not.

DD also had problems in year 7 when a group homework was set. It ended up with a falling out and my daughter being bullied for the rest of the year. I really dislike group work for these reasons.

LittleCandle:

Again, your post seems to be aiming to shut down/question my right to comment. Let's be clear: I am responding to repetitive questioning, not repeating myself for the sake of it. I will comment if I wish to.

I think you should report factually what happened.

I've had a few instances over my working career where people have not pulled their weight. Most recently a couple of years ago the more senior person on my project seemed to suffer from an inordinate amount of illnesses and family dramas meaning i had to pick up the slack. It was so ingrained in me that letting someone know was tattletale that I struggled for far too long doing two jobs ( his was a lot better paid than mine) in part time hours.

Eventually I reached breaking point and blurted it all out to my line manager in a very unprofessional way. In retrospect I should have flagged it up much sooner before i got myself into such a state.

So I firmly believe that group projects are also about having the courage to flag up non participants- not in a nasty way but by making sure that everyone is responsible for a certain aspect of the project but with enough slack in the deadline so that someone else can pick things up if the aren't done. Then let the tutor know absolutely - the slacker may be struggling or may indeed have endured multiple family deaths, the tutor is the one paid to teach the students so make it their problem as it should be.

Wow - if the OP's flaky friend had done half as much work as has been done on this thread, they would be flying through.

OP - just be accurate. Make sure you all present your OWN work only. Then it will be evident in the presentation how much effort she has put in. Put all the evidence in and let the tutor make their own judgement call.

So in other words, Trifle, in your report you would make it obvious that the slacker only turned up to a third of the meetings, obvious that they said they would contribute one thing and in the end contributed far less, but would not provide any information about why they did not contribute or what anyone else in the group did about it, even though this would lower everyone's mark for the group work, as clearly something went wrong with the group dynamic.

Or are you just assuming the university cannot be arsed to mark group work properly and is only interested in the end result, despite its clear guidelines indicating that how the group worked together is an important part ofmthe assignment?

We are not at school, my friends 12 year old goes to a Grammar school, and they are expected to get themselves organised with regards to work, homework etc, at Uni, I would expect a student to be able to work independently and to contribute to the group. Nothing about dobbing in, this is not school! Op and the rest in the group submit what they done, and it will be evident that the other person has not done the work. I would have talked to the tutor beforehand to explain this. It is not up to op to spoonfeed her collegue.

Group projects are surely about more than getting the work done and everyone doing their fair share.

Sounds like being back at primary school.

They are more like the world of work - someone doesn't pull their weight - the group pulls together to find a way to get them to do some work, or to ameliorate their non-attendance.

The point is about what the group presents, not about what whinging can be done about a slacker. Be careful what it says about you - that you could not all manage the group dynamic.

List the steps that were taken by you all to try to manage the situation. Were meetings agreed at a time convenient to all? At a place that transport was readily available to all at those times? Did someone speak to her about the difficulties that her lack of attendance posed to the group? how was that done,? were notes taken? Or did you just run off to the tutor to solve your problems?

Bosses face this every day in the workplace, they solve it too.

roundaboutthetown:

No, I would mention her as little as possible and focus on the positive detail of who did what, what went well etc, I absolutely wouldn't make the report all about her. I believe that would speak for itself. If further questions were asked I would answer truthfully.

roundaboutthetown:

I'm not assuming that at all.

FrancisCrawford: Parts of the work aren't missing. The report would reflect the fact that those who did turn up and did the work worked very effectively together. I doubt the presentation would fail because of the lack of participation of one member, and if it did, I would have that evidence in reserve. I believe that is reasonable. I would be very unwilling to hand in what sounds (from some of these suggestions) like a negative whining fest. Tutors don't tend to be impressed by that. They want to see how the group worked together to complete he challenge, not receive a blow-by-blow of someone's inadequacies.

In other words, Trifle, you would dob her in it by not mentioning her.

roundaboutthetown:

Oh yes. Totally. I am not responsible for her failure and wouldn't lie for her.

If it was only this one incident I wouldn't say anything but with a culmination I'd be honest and let the tutor know she took no part in this.

Iamastonished I know it only works if everyone pulls their weight, but if there is someone who doesnt then either they get kicked out of the group, or everyone else withdraws from the group and forms a new one. Then the person suddenly has to do a whole lot more by themselves. But doing things like keeping a logbook where you weite down what needs to happen before the next meeting makes it much easier to say you havent done what was agreed - goodbye.

Get on with sorting out the presentation when she can attend the meeting.

The rest of you can do the report on how the project went, you could just do a quick spreadsheet about meeting attendance, allocation and delivery of tasks etc etc. as an appendix. Don't flag it up to her, she probably won't read it before it's handed in. if its all true then so what.

In other words, how this is presented depends on how you kept records as you went along, how you have been asked to present your report and how you originally intended to record everything. Don't make a special case with that one email if it is not in accordance with the rest of your record keeping, but do include it if it is part of a full record in the style in which you chose to keep your log/records. If you have done the project properly, the slacker's slacking should be readily apparent, regardless - even Trifleorburst agrees that!

YANBU, OP.

Although, as others have suggested, your fellow student may well be experiencing problems/have issues which you - obviously - know nothing about. However, that's their issue to sort out and discuss with the tutor.

Is she a mature student, also, or younger?

Like you, I was deemed a mature student when I was at uni (I was 22), and the way in which the 18 year olds behaved, their attitudes towards attendance and coursework... well, let's put it this way: I didn't keep in touch with any of them after graduation. In groupwork, someone not pulling their weight affects everyone in that group.

It is difficult, though, because you've essentially just described my daughter - when she's asked to work with a group, it's like torture to her (she has MH issues... which the tutors know about, but her peers don't), and she very often doesn't turn up to meetings (claiming that she didn't know about them) or sobs her way through them because she feels victimised by the others. They, quite understandably, react with confusion, irritation and then anger towards her.

But yes, you have to be brutally honest to your tutor. Because, at the end of the day, this is your grade and your degree and your future. Let the other student worry about their own grade, degree and future. It sounds horrific, but you have to be quite cut-throat about protecting your own future at times - and this is one of those times...

roundaboutthetown:

I do!

Beyondthepage - I disagree with some of what you said. I agree that the group should try to find a solution, but when that doesn't work ( as it invariably doesn't) , then rather than "ameliorating their non-attendance" - aka do the slackers work for them and let them take the credit - then the grown up thing to do is not to whine or dob the non performer in it, but to make the tutor aware of the situation - perhaps by asking what suggestions they have to increase this person's productivity.

We as a society are so conditioned to cover up others cock-ups that we continue doing it into adult life. As a project manager which I've done in the past , if I've asked someone to do something by a certain date, I'd be negligent if I don't flag it up to others that they haven't done the task, or better highlighting in advance that they appear to have a heavy workload/personal problems/whatever and we may miss our deadline.

In the past I tried my best not to do that, tried to do their work myself, took their non performance as a personal reflection on my ability to get them to do things. You can't make someone else do something if they don't want to - particularly if they think there will be no repercussions on them. Why make yourself ill doing the extra work and covering for a slacker ?

You report your findings in a neutral and professional manner.

"Colleague Name was unable to attend X number of meetings, due to other commitments/family illnesses. However she contributed Y and Z. The remaining duties which Colleague would have taken up, were reassigned to Other Colleague(s), ensuring that the group would still be able to meet the target completion for the assignment."

Keep it factual. If she's genuinely had family issues, multiple bereavements etc., then she needs to discuss that with the tutor 1-2-1. It's not up to you or your group to sort this out for her. However you shouldn't deliberately sling her in it either (not suggesting you would) - not just because it's a shitty thing to do, but also because it would reflect really badly on you as a group. Part of what you're being marked on will include how you have worked together, managed conflict etc.

It's a useful skill to learn - you will almost certainly come up against people like this in your working life!

You should have spoken with your tutor sooner but I appreciate you were trying to give the person a chance.

We recently had to do a group project (also mature student at Uni). We started as a group of 5 and ended up as a group of 3. One person was sick all the time, which in itself wouldn't be a massive issue for me but the fact they ignored emails trying to get her up to speed and ignored requests that they contribute via email was, to us as a group, unacceptable. We spoke with our tutor and she was out of our group and had to submit the whole project on her own. Another group member ignored emails, wouldn't respond to requests to send us copies of their contribution etc - then turns up to our workshop without having done the work, my tutor overheard me questioning why he hadn't done it and could see I was pissed, she asked him if he would go home (only 5 minute walk) and get the work he'd done and he just mumbled and muttered excuses (clearly hadn't done it), I asked that he be paired up with someone who was also behind as he was holding us back.

Our group of 3 managed fine because we weren't wasting time chasing up work that would never have materialised anyway. The other two who thought we would cover their arses have now learnt that in future projects they will HAVE to work, long term I've done them (and other people who will have to work with them) a massive favour. Although we are in first year so the grades won't be counted towards our final mark.

I wouldn't cover for this person but it's too late now to do much about it other than make it clear they didn't contribute. It may reflect badly on your grades but maybe it should? if you were in a work situation and there was a group project you should have raised it with a manager or with the person slacking rather than potentially jeapordising a group project by alowing this person to not contribute and therefore putting all other team members under undue pressures or workload. I think part of group work is about learning how to deal with those who don't pull their weight, and this person hasn't been 'dealt with' by the group at all - they've been given free pass to do fuck all which is everyones fault.

have been in this situation - twice. Both times the group assessed the level of work this person had contributed (ie none) and also noted it on their personal assessment. I had also contacted my tutor in despair the second time round and she told me that this was extremely common, that I would be graded on what I had managed to achieve and that the other persons marks would be allocated with the assessments from the group in mind. We had done everything including driving to theirs to collect them as well. I hate groupwork.