I Hate Group Work

Soooo....

I have two work days left until I am FINALLY done with the hospital. Woop woop!! Tomorrow and next wednesday will be my last days. *Sniffle*...oh you know I am just sooooooo sad!

Luckily, I have been given five 8 hour shifts at the Hampton and am also doing some awesome work for this amazing company called ValDevTec. Haven't heard of it? Go online at veldevtec.com. It's pretty cool and I work for a pretty phenomenal boss lady, too :)

The only problem with the new hours at the Hampton -- not that I am not grateful, because I am -- is that three of those shifts are night audits (11pm-7am) Friday through Sunday. This shoots down any social life I might try to have and also, Mom is not too keen on it. Rightfully so. I am taking two Maymester classes from 8am-2pm Mon-Fri so it's gonna be really hard to drag through those night shifts. PLUS, I have an internship at the High Museum of Art on Saturday afternoons, so what am I supposed to do about that?

I have this problem about doing what's best for everyone else and not myself and I don't know how much longer I can do this. My boss at the Hampton is one of my best buds, so bringing this up to him that I need to do what's better for me and not him is going to be tough. A part of me just wants to wait it out through the summer and see how I handle it all....Stress. When you get rid of one stress, another replaces it, seems like.

Speaking of stress, I hate group projects. Yeah, I'm an alpha-female and I'd rather just do everything in a group project because at least I know I get it done right.

But no, I try to play with the team like I'm supposed to in my Eastern Religions class and what happens?

I'm working with a bunch of 19-yr-old don't know or care what they wanna do with their lives, so they'll wait until a day before the project is due to start working on it. I'm sorry, I work 60 hours a week and try to manage this school thing -- I can't afford to procrastinate.

Here was the initial plan -- There are 5 of us. We have to research a religion, write a paper on it, and present some kind of visual to the class. Not a big deal, easy to get done, right?

Oh of course not. I'm Tabitha Freeman. God has a sense of humor.

So my part is to research the biggest part of the project -- the history and dogmas of this religion. Cool. The others do the same and one guy volunteers to compile all of our research stuff together into the paper. I keep my mouth shut, even though in the back of my mind, I hear a voice screaming, "NO TABITHA! YOU DO THIS! IT WON'T GET DONE RIGHT IF YOU DON'T!!!!"

Over a week before the project is due, I send this guy oodles of info. Two days before the project is due, he emails me back and tells me I need to put all this info in a paragraph. Apparently, he is getting everyone to write a paragraph and he's just gonna stick it together for the paper.

UH, HELLO?!! Is this going to flow right, sound right, look right? No. Is he a lazy hash smoker that doesn't feel like writing anything? Yes.

So I fire back at him in an email. I am too old for this crap and pay too much money for this class to make anything less than an A on this project.

I point out to him the cons of doing things this way and offer to just write the whole paper myself. Also, I let him know he's a freakin goober for waiting over a week to ask me to do this and he shouldn't have volunteered to compile stuff in the first place if he wasn't going to do it right. Freakin A.

So he emails me back, says he's doing what he's supposed to do and he will make everything flow right. But if it's too much to ask, he can just write my part for me. Okay, sir, that was your job in the first place, but I am COMPLETELY COMPETENT of writing my own damn stuff! So I send him my stuff. Oh God, he freaks because it is longer than one paragraph. HELLO!!!! It's over the history and doctrines of an ancient religion!!! Did he think that was just gonna be five sentences? Is he retarded? No, really. Retarded?

So he sends us the final copy THIS MORNING when the project is due in TWO HOURS. It sucks and he took out half of what I wrote, so nothing makes sense. If we make less than an A on this, he is going down in a ball of flames.

Did I mention this is the last guy I went on a date with that had mommy issues and likes to talk about the one time he crapped himself?

Should I insert "story of my life" phrase here, or is it just assumed at this point?

The guy that did the powerpoint for this was supposed to send me that. Did he? No. Do I even know if it's done? No.

So, in two hours I have a project to present and I guess we're all just gonna "wing it".

I hate group projects.

On a better note, they keep asking me to pick up all these shifts at the hospital between now and my last day because they don't have enough qualified people to cover. Oh darn. I can't. I'm busy picking my freaking nose. Good luck.

Ah, that does feel good I gotta say.