So, I have some severe social anxiety that has fucked me over in work groups. I used to get paired up with a control freak, and I was too much of a coward to give input in the end. She scared me so much I ended up not wanting to work in a group ever. Since then, I've done work on my own. I don't want to pull people down, but now that I'm in uni, work groups are everywhere and I get assigned to people I don't know. I'm currently preparing the introduction and conclusion of a presentation and I feel like one of those shitty work partners because I struggle to speak with my peers. It sucks.

This is a disaster happening in real time.

So for part of my theatre course we have to do two performances at the end of the year worth 60% of our grade, these pieces need to be refined and properly rehearsed with complex technical aspects like lighting and sound. We had to do a performance thing last year, which if I’m being honest went terribly, my group members messed up their lines in the most embarrassing way possible. But apparently we ended up with a good grade for it. I don’t like taking the credit for it, but I wrote the piece and had the most influence on the production, something my group members were totally ok with.

Overall they were generally unhelpful and loved to waste time doing nothing. But that’s not the worst part, …they’re my closest college “friends”. I use quotation marks because I’m not a big fan of them anymore, maybe before the piece but certainly not after the stunt they’ve just pulled.

So we were assigned groups without our own input both times, the first time I was quite excited to be working with my friends, the second time I was very visibly disappointed, I honestly don’t regret the fact that I subconsciously “made a face.” But against my better judgement I relaxed myself and tried to better engage them this time. I specifically chose a premise that appealed to them, and encouraged them to join me in a call to brainstorm. That was about the most productive they’ve been.

In order to pull of the idea we’d decided we needed to film some things externally, in the early month there was some talk of when and where these scenes would be shot, they volunteered my house to which I reluctantly agreed. But after that decision was made neither of them even attempted to take initiative and decide a date. So I got sick of waiting and set aside a date myself, which they agreed with. A couple of days before the day I ask what time they planned to show up, to which I got a lot of question marks. They had either A: completely forgotten after our extensive conversation, or B: decided they didn’t want to do it and decided to gaslight me over it. I was kinda mad, but I reminded myself that we still had a month or so. So I ask about another date, they don’t reply. I do the same again a week later, they give me a vague response. Finally I’m able to get them to agree to come over this weekend, three weeks before the deadline. The whole reason I’m writing this is because one of them cancelled last minute, the day after our teacher tells us off for being “disorganised”. And because one of them cancelled, the other decided she didn’t want to do it anymore, and that we instead should edit together a bunch of stock footage, a stupid idea.

I can handle writing the script, I can handle establishing the cues and tech, I can handle custom making props, designing the set, sourcing the props and costumes, spending my own money and my free time carrying this project. What I can handle is flippant, last minute cancellations because of personal matters aka: some bachelorette party or a date. The girls have made no effort to think things through, one of them shows up late to every lesson and hasn’t made it to a single late stage rehearsal.

We perform on Monday and Tuesday; I have 3 exams total this week and another on said Tuesday. I’m freaking out because we’ve been told to make last minute changes by our useless teacher and I just know that one of them won’t register the script changes until it’s too late.

I have another paper on Friday; I’m going to cry. This could legitimately bomb my grade.

I've been in many group projects in my lifetime. Some of the group members I've worked with are snakes and try to do the much work as possible to signal that they are the main contributors to a group project. The idea is that they do more work and so can have more power in arguing because they could say they contributed more. Those that didn't fight for work, can contribute little because the snakes ate more amount of the project grade percentage and then sneakily report others for not contributing enough to the professor. The snakes didn't tell that they would not share the credit with the members that they took work from, metaphorically they gobbled up most of the pieces of the pie.

I've been burned by a few snakes in group projects. I changed my whole tone during these messed up malicious encounters and going forward I fight and argue with group members to get to do group work that yields a high percentage of grade points.

When I was in university, I had to do group lab reports for one of my courses. I lived half an hour from campus if there was no traffic and they all stayed on campus.

Every week, my group members would send a text at like 7 at night: “Let’s all meet in the SUB in 10 minutes to do the lab.”

I’d say that I can’t make it on short notice or that I’d leave but be there like 20 minutes after they started which they never liked or said they’d just do it without me.

They eventually went to our prof and told him that I wasn’t doing any of the work on the labs…which was correct but only because they kept scheduling meetings that I couldn’t attend.

I got a better group after who always met after the lab to just do it then.

Hi. Never seen this thread before, but I have a story for it. I was doing my Masters in Teaching (Primary). We had to do a wide variety of classes on educational theories and handing controversial opinions within communities etc, as well as learning how to teach all of the subjects. There weren't too many group projects, but we did have a couple, and one was a doozy.

When we were doing our first year Maths subjects, we had a group project about cross-KLA teaching. Basically, this means we needed to find a way to teach Maths while teaching another subject. The tutor puts us into pairs, and I get paired with 'Allen'(obviously not his real name). Allen is a nice enough guy but he's a bit flaky. I already have a great idea for how to link fractions to music (since every note in music is just a fraction of the whole bar). Allen said this sounded great, and I was ready to leap in.

However, while I was working on the project, Allen vanished. No responding to texts. No responding to Facebook Messenger. I'm not sure he was even in class or at his lectures (he had some accommodations made by the uni since he wasn't neurotypical. Not sure exactly what his deal was or what his accommodations were, but he did tell me while we were chatting one day that he had different rules for attendance). Eventually, I assumed that he had found a different group to work with and I did the project solo, which is honestly how I prefer to work. It's the week before the project is due, and Allen walks up to me at the end of tutoring. We say hi, he apologises for being a flake, and then he asks me which part of the project he was supposed to do...in front of our tutor. Keep in mind the tutors have a large say in our grades and report back to our lecturers. I tell him, somewhat baffled, that I thought he had gone to a different group and the project was finished. Allen responded, just as baffled, that he hadn't and he needs to have his name as part of a group or he'll fail. The tutor asks me if I'd be willing to find something for Allen to do, and I obligingly let him proof-read the completed project. We turn it in, I get decent grades, Allen gets much less decent grades due to lack of participation, and I swear never to be partnered with Allen again.

The story has a happy ending. After a lot of struggle due to having undiagnosed ADD, I got my Masters and I'm now teaching. Allen on the other hand was called up by the Head of the Education Department (basically the guy in charge of running all teaching courses at our uni) for plagiarism. Instead of taking a penalty or discussing the charges, Allen decided to leave uni to 'rethink his options'. He made a point of saying goodbye on his final day, and then I never saw Allen again. Part of me wonders if he ever went back to finish his degree, and if he did, if he was as much of a flake in his group projects as he was with me.

I’m currently in my third year of college but due to being a dj and sometimes having 4-5 gigs a week i’ve decided to take less classes per year. Now i got myself into a group project with 7 people in total and i showed up for most of the meetings if i could and tried to help out and ask the group what i could do for them but they never gave me anything. I expect they just didn’t trust me because i’ve got a pretty laid back attitude towards school but i can still get the work done in time.

Now comes the time of presentation and the whole thing lasted about 50 minutes with me having barely 3 minutes of talking and obviously the teacher called me out on that. I’m yet to see if i’ve failed the class but i sure hope i won’t because next year it’ll be with people who i know even less about.

About 2 years ago, I got expelled from uni for repeated misconduct in a few of my group projects (usually 2-3 members per group) and I had no idea why it was only me who was punished or who did it, a few months ago, I found out that one person who was in all my group projects either edited the entire thing or most of it, as he got good grades, always returned final copies within 1-2 days, and was the only one who didn’t work night shifts. Turns out, he repeatedly deemed my parts ‘terrible’, and ‘fixed them’ by replacing ENTIRE PARAGRAPHS with copied inserts. Now I’m a manager at my office and he’s on parole, cheaters never prosper. :)

Just wanna rant about my recent group project.
I hated group projects since high school cuz of the uncertainty of getting shitty group members, but so far every project has gone well and peacefully. been lucky till grad school.

Then theres this guy who wanna assert dominance and control and acts hypocritically at best. wanna be right in all decisions but some are just genuinely truly stupid that i thought would affect my own grade. everytime i argue with him with logic he would immediately bring things up to a personal level. like, dude, i dont know u personally. u dont know me personally. we just happened to be assigned in a group projects. dats it.

like its good that hes active and has the same goal of getting good grades, far better than inactive fucks, but like stop over-complicating shits bro. it aint that hard but every time hes like "its not as easy as u think" im like smh.

then when we write project report i wrote most of it and there are some parts that are specifically my parts because i was the only one who worked on those experiments. then he just replaced that entire section on overleaf with his own understanding, which was completely wrong. like, if u are right, correct me as u wish. but u are wrong dude. cant u realize that u are wrong?

just cringy. he even went to group chat, wrote 5 long-ass paragraphs with very implicit but obvious hints on that he opposes me. like, bitch, just finish the fkin project ffs. idgaf bout drama and shit. ITS GRAD SCHOOL! no game, no bs, its grad school dog! if i were like 18-ish id go on and argue but like bruh ffs stop complicating things and just do the right thing.

he would also do extremely extra work that were completely irrelevant to the grading rubric and be like oh this is worth writing on the report. No its not. NO IT IS NOT. We are here to get good grades. We follow the very clearly-written grading rubric, and we write our report. STOP COMPLICATING THINGS.

the other member and i each had only one code script, because that was enough. he had 19. like, bruh.

and he never listened to us. whenever i suggest something he would just defend his ideas and be like i was attacking on him. NO DUDE, IDGAF ABOUT YOU! ALL I CARE ABOUT IS THE FKIN PROJECT! I DONT EVEN KNOW YOU!

he acts like im condescending when hes hypocritically condescending to us. the other guy in the group didnt like him either. just cringe.

also he wanted to make everything professional with very strict schedules of not only deadlines but also meeting and reporting and bs like fuck you dude. its a fkin class project, not a fkin research paper. ive got much more important stuff to do. I ll contribute 1000% as i always did up till this moment in my life, but a class project isnt like a business project or research project or smth.

in the end no one did nothing professional and we still finished it like a champ.

sry this post is very disorganized but just wanna get this outta my chest. cringiest group member ive ever met.

just ignore this actually. move on with ur day. now that i let it out kinda feel relieved. have a great day and i hope yall never get shitty group members.

Throwaway

Our english teacher made us do 2 grand tasks for our exams. Due to some time constraints in a class of 60 people there were only 2 groups( so about 30 people for 1 of the tasks) we had only about 2 days to work with. I was busy with other works so I couldnt help do my part in editing but when I could the slides and reporters were aleady done so I couldnt really do much now were passing the task and I cant get any of the credit since I couldnt do my part. I already apologized to my leader.

Any advice given is thanks. I just needed to say this somewhere

In my next subject we have group project and it will determine the final grade. I obviously want a good grade.

There are 3 topics 2 I'm interested in but I'm more interested in topic B

Topic A now have 2 members

Topic B have one member but an honour student that is not part of the class will join this project because he is interested in it

I like Topic B but I feel choosing it is risky because I don't think the student that not part of the class will care about grade and Topic A is bit boring but there are 2 members which make me feel like it's better

Years ago, I took a forensic chemistry class because I needed a science course with a lab and this course was for arts students who aren't good at math. For our final presentation, we needed to pick a forensic chemistry component and create a presentation for it. My group member did not do anything saying that he was confused about the topic. I scheduled an appointment with the instructor so my group member could ask for clarification. At the meeting he said he understood everything, but when I got home, I got a message from him saying he was confused again. I finished my part of the presentation and sent it to him to add his part. At 11 pm he sends it back having deleted half my work, and adding information that was not relevant to our presentation. I was up until 4 am fixing it. I spoke to the instructor and she gave us an extension, but made it clear that I had to include some of what he did, even if it is not relevant (To give you an idea of what he did, our presentation was on how fingerprints are used in tv shows and if it is accurate or not. He added 4 slides on the history of crime shows and deleted 4 slides on how the science works). I got a B in the presentation.

At my masters, there were a few shitty group assignments, but this one is the one that got the perfect results.
Anyway, so it's the second semester of a 2 year computer course, and we were learning Java. The professor decided that it would be great if he divides the class in group of 10 people (the strength is 60) and give a small 10 minute presentation on something that he has already taught, so that he could understand how well we have understood Java, also to keep notes who was putting effort in learning.
So after getting this, I created a WhatsApp group, texting the group members the details. No one responded.
Fine, I thought. The deadline was 2 weeks away, and I am good at last minute presentations and procrastination so it was fine for me.
2 day away from the deadline, and no one has given a single message about what is the status or anything like that.
Then I texted personally everyone about the presentation, suddenly they all (except one) became prime ministers of some country, and very busy, and no reply.
Thankfully, one guy helped me out and we both were able to give the presentation.
After the presentation, my professor asked me about the contributions of each project members. I told him everything about how no one contributed except one and all.
He gave them a solid 0 out of 10 (the presentation was part of the final paper, they didn't know), and scolded them for long. The guy and me got full marks, and yeah, I got the highest marks in finals too.
Working hard does have its results!

This happened in high school, around a decade ago.

I had a friend in school, let's call her B, that, for a time, copied everything I did, including taking subjects that she had no interest in, and wasn't good at. It was one of a few things that eventually ended the friendship. In one of the classes we shared, we were set a pairs project, and, knowing we were friends, our tutor paired us up.

This project was to be completed in class time, over a couple of weeks, and as the room we were in didn't have computers, we didn't have to stay in the room to complete it, we just had to check in with the tutor at the start of class so she could confirm we were there.

The day it was assigned, we all left the room, and I, logically, headed to the library. B told me she just had to get something from her locker and would meet me there. Most of the class ended up there or in the study room just off of the library. My partner doesn't show up. I texted her, no answer. Didn't see her again until our final class of the day, and she didn't explain when I asked her where she'd got to.

I always arrived at class before her, and didn't really want to waste class time (it was an elective class, so work that I wanted to be doing), so I usually left before she had even checked in, texting her every time that I would meet her in the library, even telling her where I was sitting in the library. She never showed up. If I texted her about anything else, she'd respond, but if it was about the project, it was like she had temporarily forgotten how to read and she'd either ignore the message or change the subject.

After about a week and a half of this, and a few days before the project was due in, I had almost finished, and she still hadn't showed up to the library, so instead of going straight to the library after checking in, I hung around for a bit, wanting to see if she showed up to check in. She did. When she came out, I asked her if she was coming to the library with me, and she blanked me.

The library was in a different building, so I had to go the same way, and watched her leave the school grounds (we were allowed to do this if we didn't have a class). I went to the library, finished the project, then went back to the classroom to let the tutor know I had finished, and that I was a little frustrated as I had done all of the work by myself. She told me that was fine, to make sure only my name was on the work, and when it was my 'group's' turn to present on Friday, she would call me only.

The best part was, the tutor already knew that B had done nothing, she had just wanted to see if I would say anything before she stepped in. The gate that B had walked out of, leaving the school grounds, was outside the window of the classroom, and the tutor had watched her leave every day. She had also confirmed with the librarian, who knew me quite well due to book club, that I had been there working alone. Not only did she fail the project, but despite checking in, she was marked as absent without reason for those classes for two weeks. I passed.

She was so angry when she realised that I was no longer working with her and she hadn't been told. I will admit I was a little snarky about it when she questioned why I didn't tell her - I responded with "How could I? You never read any messages about the project."

A couple years ago I was placed in an assigned group for a project. Being the only guy I thought it should be smooth sailing because in my experience the girls are more dilligent group members and don't mess around they just get shit done.

We initiate contact and start plans to meet. The leader (red) suggests a time to meet but I couldn't do it and proposed another time. I was busy with lab work on my thesis and my day job at the time but I managed to carve out some time to meet.

I suggest "Tuesday" and get confirmation from red but then she drops me on the day. In fact, I get quite a cheeky response from her. Since I turned down her first suggestion because I had to be in the lab at the time, she saw it fit to do the same, but at the last minute. Some other things happened that were red flags, all before we could even meet.

I went to talk to the professor and as there was the option to either do a group presentation or write a critical paper on the article (solo), he agreed to allow me to change over to the solo option and then everything worked out for me. So I quit.

Then the day of the presentations came and two of the girls weren't up there, leaving red and one other to deliver a very average presentation. Turns out they did exactly the same thing I did and took the solo option because when they rocked up to the meeting, red just didn't show either. This girl was SEETHING at the sight of me because she believed that I was the reason for the other two quitting. Maybe so, but she had it coming.

Its an engineering report. Lecturer says its due in two weeks which was right after the two week break. I do a bunch of it and no one else contributes. It was established that its available as a google docs so everyone can contribute so no excuses. During the break, I see the fuckhead post photos enjoying his two week break interstate. When he finally wants to contribute, the thing is due in like hours to a couple days I think (will check) and has the gall to tell me 'what are we all doing, just sitting tight?'. In retrospect, i wish I told the lecturer. I've told him I hate him after I couldn't hold it in anymore. Can upload proof if yall wanna see. His reply is really anticlimactic because it was years after.

These guys are the most mind numbingly stupid people I have ever had to work with so far in my life. I shall refer to them as Mr. Cheeky, Mr. Clueless, and Mr. Nowhere.

​

Mr. Cheeky is an asshole. He is rarely present for work and when you call him out on his bullcrap, he attacks you with a baseless accusation that you are also a lazy bastard and proceeds to mock you and talk to you condescendingly for the next 3 days, especially in public or in the main class group chat.

Mr. Clueless has a mind that is a mix between that of a child's and a fruit fly. He will constantly pepper you with questions and every time you entertain these questions, he will add additional questions because he absolutely refuses to read instructions or he will just go off messenger for several hours without seeing your answers to his questions. I once sent him a Google Doc with all the answers to his questions but then he went missing for hours and suddenly he came back and asked THE SAME QUESTIONS as if he never read the doc in the first place. At one point, he asked me how to make a paragraph and I just gave up with him. The motherfucker even took a nap at one point after his dinner while I worked on the project alone.

Mr. Nowhere is a classic shitty group member. He is almost always missing and doesn't reply back to messages. While other shitty group members see your messages but don't reply to them, this guy takes it a step further and DOESN'T READ MESSAGES FOR DAYS. It would come to a point where there would be a week's worth of messages but none of them are read by him, even if you ping him or dm him. He is also almost as clueless as Mr. Clueless.

​

I did almost all of the work by myself and they congratulated and thanked me and Mr. Clueless even apologized for his poor contribution, but I don't want their thanks and I do not and will not accept any of their apologies, and I wish them all the ill will I can give.

I finished my last test, and I'm graduating. So I figured I'd post about all my most notable group members from my academic journey. *Names changed to protect the not-so innocent.

• Kylie - We did a video/essay project together along with another member.
  • Said she was too busy to work over the weekend due to her birthday party bash.
  • Did not respond to any texts afterwards until it was time to add our name to the video.
  • Despite that she didn't help at all with the video, she said it was only fair that we split the essay equally. *Note: the essay was about the video process so I have no idea what she was planning to write.
  • We finished the essay without her, she texted me the day of the presentation that she was too sick to finish the essay and asked me to ask the teacher if she could get an extension.
  • Because we were short a member, we weren't allow to present until day 2 of presentations.
  • She didn't show up on day 2 either, she texted me asking for the link to the google doc for the essay--something I sent to everyone a long time ago. I didn't reply.
  • Just to add, our teacher also told us to include in the essay if anyone didn't do their part, so we did write that Kylie didn't respond to our texts and did not contribute anything to the project. I guess she never noticed it because she never read it.
• Kevin - We were in lab together. We technically didn't have to work in pairs but we were allowed to so that the labs would go faster and easier. Kevin told me this was his second time taking the class because he had a baby last year. We decided to work together, and I created a group chat with him and a few other people sitting in at our table.
  • He didn't come to class one day because his baby was sick. Fair, I think. Some of my friends with kids said that he should have had a babysitter either way.
  • He didn't come to class the next day because he said he got sick. Okay, still make sense. This was during the onset of Covid-19.
  • He didn't come to class because he said he got a flat tire-he sent us a picture of the flat tire.
  • He finally came to class an hour late, turned in the same paper he wrote for the same class last year (got in trouble for it). He told the teacher it was an accident and he swore he had the real paper at home.
  • He stopped coming to class after this because of Covid-19, but also kept texting and asking for all of our results from the labs. He also said the teacher better not punish him for not coming to class because he said it wouldn't be fair. Note I had been going to class and doing the labs alone or with anyone else who was present.
  • Texted and asked for the complete calculations for one of the papers (which was 36 calculations) something we were supposed to calculate on our own. Note someone had already given him the data and notes on how to do it but I guess he just didn't want to do it himself.
  • Tried to text us all during the test (which was online) asking us for the answers.
• Lydia - Honestly, I forgot her real name so I was gonna make up a name for her anyways. We had both an essay and power point presentation together with 3 other members.
  • Said she had a family vacation over the weekend so she'd get back to us during the week. She did not get back to us during the week. We split up the work without her.
  • Texted us before the due date to see what she can help with. I told her all that was left was the "works cited" page which she did do for us.
  • Didn't show up for class the day the draft was due-which we needed to be present for because the teacher was going to review the essay with us.
  • Teacher gave everyone an extra day-but she didn't show up for class again. I guess she didn't realize we had to put on the front of the essay who wrote each part because the teacher was not pleased seeing she only wrote the work cited page--on top of not showing up for class.
  • We had to rewrite the essay after the critique-she did not offer to help on the rewrite either. I did ask my members if they thought I should ask her to help but everyone was like "Nah."
  • For the presentation, she offered to do one part of it which was honestly the easiest part.
  • I have no idea what grade she got for the essay but I don't think she knew that the teacher graded us separately for the parts we wrote.

I thought I could do my part of the French project over the weekend and it turns out even though we are presenting on Monday it was due 2 days ago. I feel like shit. I apologized to my group leader and asked her if there was a way I could do the slide and still present but it's like 2 am so no response. I'm gonna tell the teacher what happened I feel like garbage.

Update: I got an extension from the teacher so it's all good.

Hi!
I'm writing here to vent. I have three group works to do before Tuesday and I'm at my wits end. I understand that this is just the bachelors course, and students are not full-on academics yet, but come the duck on!
1. You can't make claims in a research paper without backing them up with RELEVANT facts. Even if they seem logical/likely! For example, the fact that students self-report more happiness when engaging in creative ways to learn science, doesn't mean they get better test results. The fact, that students self-report that they learn and remember science better now, does not mean they get better results. BETTER TEST RESULTS, and that ONLY, can prove that they get better results. If you have no access to this data, you can not make this claim. IF YOU'VE WRITTEN A PAGEFULL OF GUESSES, THAT DOESN'T COUNT AS WORK. Extra ridiculous points++ for when you complain that you can't find sufficient information to prove your opinion. just wow.

1. When answering questions given by the professor, you have to actually answer THOSE questions. DO NOT PILE A WALL OF TEXT ON A SIMILAR TOPIC. Do not find everything you can find on the subject and pile it into a neat paragraph, without even addressing the question. Do not answer a random question that you found an answer for. THIS DOES NOT COUNT AS WORK. WHY WOULD YOU THINK IT WOULD.

2. IF YOU COME TO A PROJECT MEETING WITHOUT HAVING READ THE MATERIALS OR EVEN THE TASK, please have the mercy to not atleast argue the others on everything. why ... oh why would you do this

I'm so exhausted and I feel like everybody's idiots. please send help :'(

The deadline is this Friday.

This guy was supposed to give me his file last week, but it’s been delayed till now, I had messaged him asking to send me by yesterday because we still need to pass the work to another team member for completion and compilation. I explained to him that if he doesn't send his file asap, the other team member might not be able to finish on time

I didn’t get any response nor update from him at all.

At this point I’m planning to do the work myself. I can’t wait for him any longer and put my grade on the line. I’m extremely sick and tired of his behaviour and I want to report him to my lecturer, but I’m worried about what my lecturer will say or think of me.

Also it’s not his first time, for our first assignment he went MIA and we couldn’t reach him for weeks. On the day of presentation he told me his grandma passed away which I doubt he was telling the truth but I gave him a chance anyways

It’s my first time being a group leader and I’ve told them countless times if they were to miss my deadlines I’d let the lecturer know but it seems like they don’t care.

I am 100% the shitty group member. I produce good work usually, but there's no way I'm not doing it last minute. Even if I do get better at being on time, there's no way I'll be able to do that every single time. So, how does a shitty group member approach the rest of the group? Do I say "hey guys, I'm gonna try my absolute hardest to not do the work last-minute, but knowing me it's probably best if I do the things that need to be done last, so that you don't have to be dependent on me finishing my part"? How do I say something like that in a better way? Also, this is for work-purposes, I've graduated university so now im starting out in the professional world, and im just tryna get by without ppl hating me like they did in uni. Also, plz don't tell me to just get it done, that's very useless advice lmao