Why I Hate Group Projects

It is always with supreme dread when I find myself cast into a group for a specific class project or presentation. It never matters for which class or who is ultimately stuck in my group, I know that it's going to be a disaster. Because group projects bring out the worst in everyone. You have those who will take charge and simply assign everyone a task. You have those who kind of slink into the background and do nothing. And then you have people like me, who are willing to pull their own weight but also want a say in what goes on.

I've gotten stuck in a few groups so far this semester. In the first one where a presentation was required, it was me and a bunch other girls. One of whom is intelligent, the rest of which are complete idiot slackers. Because of that, the presentation was rather lackluster, the speeches given were disjointed and filled with verbal garbage (ums, ahs, hmms) and nobody really seemed to care.

This current group project I'm stuck in is the worst of the worst. It requires a lot of collaboration and work outside of class. I knew the moment that the idea of doing an infomercial for our "product" was tossed out there that it would be a major failure. I wasn't entirely wrong about that.

We were supposed to meet last night in the library at 6:30 pm. That was what we decided on Monday anyhow. I had a bad feeling about that though, since three of our group members didn't even show up to class on Monday. What would prompt them to bother showing up in the evening for group work? I made it on time, I even printed out the infomercial scripts beforehand. Megan showed up (the smart one). Jenna showed up (the loud, outgoing one) and that was pretty much it. We lucked out in getting a study room and sat around in the there, waiting to see who was going to show. It wasn't until close to 9 pm that Kate showed up (the sexy one with the video camera). Two of our "students" - two guys in our group - did not show up. So we had to rearrange who was playing what role and do our best to film it with just the four of us.

Surprisingly, it didn't turn out too awful. It was kind of funny in it's own way as well.

Today in class, when we got time to talk amongst ourselves in groups, the two guys who had bailed out on us came up with some pretty hilarious ideas for the live portion of the presentation. It would be really awesome if they followed through but I'm pretty convinced...they won't. Well whatever. I know what I have to do for my part, so if they fuck up I don't really care.

Still...I really hate group projects.