As I think pretty much everyone knows by now, I am in grad school. I think it should be called 'only graduate it you are lucky and forgo sleep school'. Just a thought. So, this week is my final week of my current class which has been rough on me, mostly because of all the traveling we did. And, I'm just the teensy, tinest bit anal and obsessive about certain things. Okay, fine. I'm extremely anal and obsessive.
Moving on - in each class we are assigned to learning teams. I've been with two of my team mates through this entire program except for one class. We work really well together and each have very complementary strengths and weaknesses. The only problem is that we almost always end up getting one to two extra folks as well. We try to make them feel welcomed and included - no inside jokes or dismissing their ideas or ganging up on them. For the most part, each person that has been on our learning team has been pretty great to work with. For awhile, there was a fourth person that was in most of our classes and therefore on our learning team. Yet as time went on he kept doing less and less work and it was poorer and poorer quality. So, I finally called him on it. And I was nice about it. He got mad, dropped the team, and we haven't seen him since.
This class we had a lady assigned to our team that we'd been in class with before, but hadn't worked with on a learning team. No biggie. We progress through class and she does the absolute minimum (at least it seemed to me) required to get by. So this week we had a project due on day three and in the early morning hours of day three when she hadn't checked into the team forum in a week and a half, I emailed her to see what was going on and emailed our professor to see if our teammate had communicated with her in any way. Prof M said no. Hmmmm. Later on that day, which was also the day the project was due, team member four logs on and say s she's been sick with the flu. Having had the flu a time or two myself, I can sympathize with her, but I am disappointed that she couldn't or didn't think to let us know what was happening.
Here's where it gets sticky. Teammate 4 seems to think that because she read the project and changed a verb tense that that should qualify as equally contributing. To be honest, I appreciate the proofreading and I totally missed that error, so thank you teammate four. But to suggest that she (and this is a quote) 'did what she had to do to pull our team through' is, well...laughable. My other two teammates are simply not going to be confrontational, which I can appreciate. But since M and I did all the work, I bristled a bit that she actually thought she did comparable work. So, I send her an email to her individual email addresses letting her know that I was disappointed that she didn't let us know what was going on and why she wasn't online. This quickly started turning into a snark fest between the two of us, so I suggested that we agree to disagree. She sends back another snarky email and I realize that it's pointless to continue to converse with her.
Since it was the last week of class, I am hoping this will be the last I see of her for a while. I know that in life you are always going to meet people who don't do the work but will take the credit, and I can deal with that. But it never fails to amaze me when I meet someone with a deep-rooted intense sense of entitlement, like good ol' teammate four. I also feel sorry for her. She (and this is paraphrasing part of her bio that she posted in class) considers herself to have a natural gift for inspiring and motivating people. Man, did THAT take on a completely different meaning after working with her. LOL!!!!! Thanks for listening to me vent. Life moves on :)
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