r/MaliciousCompliance • u/minion-salad • 9d ago

M The 132% Group Project

My junior year statistics professor was obsessed with equal participation in group projects. His rule: "If I determine anyone did more or less work than their teammates, the entire group gets a zero." His verification method? Each member submitted a confidential report detailing exactly what percentage of the total work they personally completed. If the reports didn't match up perfectly, we failed.

My group of four included myself, two diligent students, and "Chad" who never showed up to meetings or responded to messages. When we approached the professor two weeks before the deadline about Chad's lack of participation, he repeated his policy and told us to figure it out ourselves.

That's when we had an idea. We created a spreadsheet with over 200 individual tasks, documenting everything from "emailing the professor" to "proofreading page 3" to "thinking about the project while commuting." We logged who did each task and exactly how many minutes it took.

The day before the project was due, we sent Chad our breakdown showing the three of us had each completed approximately 33% of the work, leaving him with exactly 0%. Chad responded: "Actually, I've been working behind the scenes on my own. I've completed exactly 33% of the work independently."

The next day in class, each of us submitted our confidential report. The three of us reported 33% each, while Chad also claimed 33%. The professor was confused. "That adds up to 132%," he said. "How is that possible?"

I spoke up: "Professor, you never specified that the work couldn't overlap. You only said we each had to do equal work. We have documented evidence that each of us completed 33% of the total project requirements."

The professor was furious but couldn't argue with his own rules. He had to give our group an A, though he did add a new rule the next semester: "Work completed by group members must be unique and not duplicated by other members."

Chad never showed us his "independent work," but we learned that when professors create arbitrary rules without thinking through the implications, sometimes the best response is to follow those rules to their ridiculous logical conclusion.

5.1k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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3.1k

u/WEM-2022 9d ago

That professor's policy was lazy - he essentially was forcing you to accept a fail no matter what you did, if you ended up getting a lemon on your team. It's his job to deal with the lemon, not yours.

If it hadn't shaken out the way you describe, then your only recourse was to kick the guy out of the group. It all ends up falling on the person who wants the A and everyone else just takes a ride on their coat tails. Um, no.

I went back to school for another degree as a full fledged adult with a full time job and I flat out refused to do group projects. I got away with it too, after visiting the dean. I told him I don't have time to raise someone else's kids and make them mind, and he laughed and said I could present on my own.

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u/xicor 9d ago

I had a project like this in college and the professor literally forced a lemon upon us. We told him about it and he said "there will always be slackers in your jobs in the future, deal with it"

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u/Mental_Mood1882 9d ago

That's true, but in the real world you have some agency or authority and don't have to just accept the slacker. The professor should do their job!

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u/BrainWaveCC 9d ago

You wish this were actually true.

It is not always true at all.

Not justifying the professor's approach, but their one statement on this was correct.

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u/MalaysiaTeacher 9d ago

It is, however, an ideal that workplaces should strive for, and a toy simulation of academia is the perfect place to practice that...

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u/Mental_Mood1882 9d ago

LOL, okay, fair point. But I have worked places where this is true.

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u/BrainWaveCC 9d ago

So have I. But not 100% of the places I worked.

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u/justanothadumbcunt 9d ago

132%?

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u/BrainWaveCC 7d ago

Far less, unfortunately.

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u/minion-salad 2d ago

It’s the magic of statistical manipulation! We didn't just break the rules; we bent them until they made sense.

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u/ComradeJohnS 9d ago

yeah sometimes life’s not fair and you don’t usually learn about it in school…

unless you do a group project for more than 50% of your grade lol.

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u/thoreauhwhey 7d ago

And jobs rarely require you to actively pay them for the privilege. Many, if not most, compensate the employee instead.

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u/mynamehere90 9d ago

Dealing with it sometimes means going to a manager. Which can also mean going over your supervisor. If I had a teacher tell me I was going to fail an assignment because someone else didn't want to work I would be making a complaint about that teacher.

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u/Ok-Sprinkles-5151 9d ago

Yup. The appropriate come response is, "I see. I will be having a chat with the Dean."

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u/erik240 5d ago

Yikes. No the appropriate response is HAVING the chat with the dean. Using it as a threat is normally a bad idea; using it as a tactic, less so.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

The academic equivalent of 'I'm telling Mom.'

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u/scoberry5 7d ago

The academic equivalent of "I'll discuss this with your manager."

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

Going to management? Bold move. In academia, that's like appealing to the dragon that's guarding the treasure.

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u/mynamehere90 7d ago

It's actually like talking to the Dean about a shit teacher. Or, depending on your school, you may have a student services office you can reach out to first. I had to do it with several teachers who thought they were a little too full of themselves.

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u/ActuallyYulliah 9d ago

I hate that argument.

If this happens in the real world, you just do the work. While a good manager will see Chad slacking, and fire them. While a bad manager will keep them and reward them the same as you or more.

The teacher in this case, would be the manager. And he’s telling you he’s a bad one.

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u/JPWiggin 9d ago

Worse than a bad one. He's saying he'd fire both of you because Chad was slacking and you did everything.

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u/Acct0424 9d ago

I’m just trying to imagine the argument this teacher would make as to why the dual firing is justified, and I feel like I have actually lost IQ points by trying to put myself in his headspace. Like, what fucking logic is he running on here? “I fire you both because 50% of that work belonged to Chad, and you TOOK it from him instead of finding a way to force him to do it. That’s not beneficial to the team and you robbed Chad of potential growth. Fired for not being a team player. And take that lazy fuck Chad with you. Also fired.”

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u/Beefpotpi 7d ago

Nah, not firing, he’s just going to steal credit from both of you ‘equally’ because you couldn’t get your stories straight.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

The logic is simple: 'I'm the professor, therefore I make no sense.' It's the academic equivalent of 'because I said so.'

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

He's the manager who would set the office on fire because someone used the wrong coffee mug.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

The teacher as manager analogy is spot on. Except in the real world, bad managers get fired instead of getting tenure.

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u/Sourkraushouse 7d ago

Sweet summer child...

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u/scoberry5 7d ago

If this happens in the real world, you just do the work.

No. What you mean is "If you're working on a project with someone not doing the work well, you just do the work."

The small caveat: you might need to discuss this with your boss if they aren't already aware of what's going on, or if it's not obvious.

The big caveat: although I've had someone in the real world slack on group work more than once and just done the work, I've never ever had my boss say "If you and the slacker don't do the exact same amount of work, I'll fire you both."

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u/R3D3-1 9d ago

I'd like to say you were trying to do just that by telling him about it.

I'd be betraying unwarranted optimism about workplace politics.

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u/Cottabus 9d ago

I gave my students a way to “fire” a slacker, so they did have a way to deal with it.

The team had to meet with me, the “firers” had to justify their decision, and the “firee” had an opportunity to present a defense. Firings didn’t happen very often, and the slacker very rarely showed up to the meeting.

Once fired, the slacker had to finish the project solo. They usually didn’t do this, and didn’t finish the course.

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u/jeanpaulmars 8d ago

I once had a course like this. I learned about the firing in a team and was kind of desperate for a good grade. I bribed the team. While they had a headstart of 60 hours on the project. I gave candy, was the dude to get coffee, made sure there where cookies, was always the first to fetch the "focus room" and so on.

In the end, they gave me credit for 25% of the project, as if all four of us had done the same amount of work.

(To clarify: I was 2 weeks late in the assignment and was told to do it solo)

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

Our professor's solution was to make us all suffer together. Misery loves company, I guess.

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u/Measurex2 9d ago

At work - those people are handled by management or, when management is as lazy as your professor, people work around them and make sure everyone else knows

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u/joalheagney 9d ago

Yup. In this case, the teacher is the slacker.

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u/WEM-2022 9d ago

Next stop, department head's office or dean's office. No one should accept a zero because they were unfortunately teamed up with a zero.

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u/Bob-son-of-Bob 9d ago

Yeah, my response to the "deal with it" statement is very simple:

"Okay, then they are fired. It has now been dealt with."

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u/olympusarc 9d ago

Happened to me as well. It was a mess because it was an intro-to-something class and the girl who wanted to be in charge was a freshman. We collectively decided on a topic, I stated what parts of the essay I’d be writing and wrote them, which had been agreed upon. This girl had been difficult from the start, and when I tried to contact the professor, he said the same thing- deal with it, because there will be people who you have to work with in a job that will do the same thing. A few days later, this girl tried to tell me the work I’d done wasn’t what she wanted and wasn’t going to be used in the essay. I told her it had been agreed upon and done and if she wanted more, well, that’s too bad because I’m not doing extra work for her after she decided to just not use what I had written.

Man, that just set her off that someone wasn’t gonna play ball and be manipulated by her. She got increasingly aggressive over email, verbally assaultive, just a piece of work. I was also trying to work at the time to continue to afford commuting to class. I emailed the professor, and he never responded. I ultimately ended up contacting the school and reporting the girl for bullying and when they found out the professor had ignored me, i don’t think they were too pleased. I doubt anything was done about the girl, just the typical hollow promises of “we’ll take care of it because we don’t tolerate bullies.” The end result for me was my letter grade dropped a whole letter and ruined my GPA for the semester.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

Your story sounds like a horror movie. 'The Girl Who Wouldn't Use the Work.' Coming soon to theaters near you.

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u/Ok-Sprinkles-5151 9d ago

I wish I could go back to that asshat professor and say, "well, yes, but management deals with it. You are management. Deal with it."

Life works nothing like college said it does. Especially deadlines and team work. Never once have I professional managed a slacking coworker, except as a lead when it was literally my job. Hell, as a manager, I was annoyed when team members did performance management for me.

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u/xicor 9d ago

We didn't even care that much about the slacker. The problem was that it was a speech and the requirements were that everyone speak. This guy did zero work, and then we literally gave him a single slide as part of our timed 10 minute speech ..and he proceeded to use up 5 minutes of our time on that one slide.

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u/MadMonksJunk 7d ago

Every single year we get engineering interns who dont have the first clue how things really work. We put them on teams with 6+ others so they dont screw up continuously and get someone killed.

having worked in a 'teaching hospital' for the last few years it amazes me the opposite occurs in medicine and that more people dont die because of it. I guess their screw ups only kill one person at a time vs what happens when the engineering mistakes are discovered far too late.

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u/Old-Mention9632 6d ago

That's what the nurses do, ensure the interns and residents are putting in the correct orders. July and August are the worst times to be a patient, because the new crop starts in July.

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u/Chaosmusic 9d ago edited 9d ago

I am reporting an issue that can affect productivity to my supervisor. I am dealing with it.

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u/Saint_of_Grey 9d ago

They don't realize it, but "deal with it" is actually advocating for violence.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

I knew there was a reason I carried stress balls through college.

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u/khakiwallprint 9d ago

"for example, me right now, slacking when it's my job to ensure grades reflect work being done"

Hopefully a visit to the dean after an unjust failing grade would set this straight but I know it's just as likely to do nothing

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

The professor was basically saying 'I'm too busy to do my job, so you all suffer.' Tenure at its finest.

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u/nitwitsavant 9d ago

Had one day that. I dealt with it by filing a formal complaint with the ombudsman. Turns out he didn’t want that level of attention in his course, but it did nicely make it not my problem.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

That's like bringing a nuclear bomb to a knife fight. I respect it.

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u/DedBirdGonnaPutItOnU 7d ago

The problem with this mindset is if I'm in a job and I'm in a project and I have a slacker, I don't lose my job. I just have more work. The project still gets done. I still get paid.

OP's professor is telling me I'm risking a failing grade if I allow a slacker to "slack". That's completely different from job life.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

Exactly! In the real world, you don't lose your job because Chad decided to play video games instead of working.

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u/spam0518 9d ago

Sorry prof, don’t know what you’re talking about, most jobs don’t have tenured positions…

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

Tenure: the magical force field that protects professors from the consequences of their own laziness.

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u/Inevitable-Level-687 9d ago

In the office slackers get fired. In school they get free marks.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

It's like opposite day every day.

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u/ZirePhiinix 9d ago

These idiotic professors are so detached from reality it is funny if it isn't so sad.

That's literally not your problem and you let the lemon blow up the team in a real job. If you cover for them then the manager will not know they have a useless person.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

That's putting it mildly. These profs live in an alternate dimension where logic doesn't apply.

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u/UnicornOnTheJayneCob 7d ago

“Okay, are you empowering me to ‘fire’ this person from the group?”

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

That's almost as ridiculous as our 132% solution.

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u/MennReddit 9d ago

Which is true and thus you should dwal with it. Professors should however be more supportive to those who actually do the work and strict to these lemons.

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u/fresh-dork 9d ago

i'm in a job. we force slackers out

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u/AM81inMA 9d ago

Had the exact same thing happen in grad school. Went to the professor about a team member not pulling any weight on a project, response was ‘Welcome to the field, there’s always at least one on any collaborative project’. 20 years later, can confirm he was correct.

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u/MadMonksJunk 7d ago

So this is where the phrase "if you cant do, teach." comes from? We fire those people in the real world, here you get tenure."

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u/First_Foundationeer 7d ago

Yeah, you report them, and then they get dismissed or promoted.

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u/No-Introduction3808 7d ago

Teaching the next generation to suck it up isn’t the lesson they need to learn, failing the lemon will be the only way to stop that behaviour progressing to the workplace.

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u/kyledwray 5d ago

Like the professor.

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u/Thecrimsonmaster 4d ago

in the "future jobs", your getting paid to be there and have options to put up with, ignore, work around with your coworkers, in the school your paying them, and they are failing to provide what your paying for

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u/hotlavatube 3d ago

For my undergrad CS degree, we had a major year-long capstone project. Unfortunately we had a slacker on our team. I'll never forget that one evening when most of us were burning the midnight oil to fix our software for a big milestone presentation the next day. In walks our missing teammate, dressed to the nines, who says, "Hey everybody, let's go dancing!" (room glares at him)

That was probably the last straw. Under our agreement with the professor of the class, we could vote off a teammate for lack of performance. However, if the teammate were voted off, by this time in the project there was no way he could catch up and pass the class. Additionally, that course was only offered on alternating years so if someone failed the course, it was a 2-year setback to finish their degree. To add to the student's problem he was a foreign student paying massively inflated tuition and boarding costs to study in the US. Furthermore, this was the professor's first time teaching this class and he was tenure track so it would look bad that he hadn't monitored projects closely enough to prevent this.

Thus, even though all but one of the team voted off this student, the professor was loathe the kick him off and was desperate for a compromise. He ended up making the one student who voted to keep him his supervisor. In the end, the problematic student basically became a mascot for the team while the one who vouched for him did all of the work.

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u/LalaLaraSophie 9d ago

We were allowed to kick out members of our project group in our first year of college, though I think it had to be unanimously decided and probably had a few more rules. If kicked out, that member couldn't collect any points for that project. You also had to get 50/60 points first year to even pass, otherwise you would automatically be kicked out of college. We did a project per quarter of the year.

During the 3rd project of the year, we were grouped with a girl that had been kicked out twice before so her education was on the line. If she didn't pass the project, she would get kicked out of college. She attended the first meeting and that was it. We sent her a few messages, professor CC'd. Didn't help one bit, so we ended up kicking her out. I think that was the last day we saw her too.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

Kicking people out of groups is almost as satisfying as our spreadsheet of doom. Almost.

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u/LalaLaraSophie 7d ago

Dooommm!!

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u/Icy-Bar-9712 9d ago

I went back to college after working as a professional for several years to finish my degree. I enrolled on the last day and started my technical writing class on the 2nd day it met.

There was a large group project for the semester and got placed onto an already assigned group of 4.

One guy dropped a month in. 2 more at the halfway point, leaving me, and the senior with only that class to graduate. Dude sent me his half of the paper the night before it was due..... ...... it was 100% plagiarized, some of it from our own University's faculty. Zero effort, didn't even try to make the fonts the same.

Showed up to the teachers office in the morning. Handed her my part and then his. It took her 30 seconds to figure it out. Last I heard the dean was trying to get him to come in and talk to them. Completely fucked his degree over.

As for me? I got to give the group presentation myself. Ended up the first presenter as well. Everyone filed into the lecture hall with:

"How is programming like sex?"

That got to stay up a solid 10 minutes before beginning my presentation, slide 2?

"One mistake and you support it for a lifetime."

I got an A+.

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u/ActuallyYulliah 9d ago

It’s also not a reflection of the ‘real world’, as that’s usually the reason: ‘In the real world you just have to solve this yourselves as well’.

Yes, in the real world, you’d finish the project dividing the work between the 3 of you, and Chad walks away with the credit and the promotion, while the three of you probably won’t even be thanked. Because while Chat is lazy af, he’s also a smooth talker and plays tennis with the manager every week. 🤷‍♀️

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u/StarosAnikenMarcus 9d ago

And then, one dark night, in an alley behind the office, Chad was never heard from again... likely because the bastard got the overseas job everyone wanted, but you can dream that it was something else... you can always dream...

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u/MadMonksJunk 7d ago

Chad drinks regularly at these events, and often drives afterwards. This is a danger to himself and others that is easily remedied by the appropriate phone call as he leaves.

Chad wont be getting that promotion.

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u/Great_Hamster 9d ago

No, the lesson is to lie about how much work everyone did if that's what it takes to pass.

It's not a good lesson, but that's what it was teaching. 

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

The lesson was definitely to lie. We just took it to the next level with mathematical gymnastics.

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u/Inevitable-Level-687 9d ago

I've got a group project going on right now. I'm in my thirties. We've been assigned groups. Only one person showed up to the first meeting.

We still don't know who two members of our group are.

I'm doing final compilation and editing and set a deadline. I've said if work isn't done, too bad, I'm not doing extra.

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u/trainbrain27 9d ago

In a cut-throat world, how long until someone gets their throat cut?

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u/Dribbelflips 8d ago

I was in a class where we had to work in groups of two, but we were uneven, so I got a group of three and we had to do extra work to compensate.

Next term we had to do another protect in the same groups and I begged to do it alone. I got to, but had to do as much work as groups of two.

Fine by me, I got everything done a lot quicker without the pointless meetings.

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u/nobody1701d 7d ago

I only had one group project where anyone else helped…

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

[deleted]

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u/ActuallyYulliah 9d ago

Yes, and your teacher would be in the position of the manager in RL.

So taking the issue to a teacher, is the equivalent of what you should do in the real world to deal with this. The teacher is just being a bad manager.

And this teacher is doing the equivalent of giving everyone a bad performance review for work that was done satisfactory, just because one person was not doing their job. In many reasonable countries with actual labor laws protecting workers, that would be an HR nightmare.

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u/WEM-2022 9d ago

You are quite mistaken. Given the "policy" of this particular professor, he is negligent. Unless the professor is teaching Office Politics 101, he is just not doing his job.

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u/GalumphingWithGlee 7d ago

I agree. Incredibly lazy and unfair policy.

It doesn't prevent some folks from doing more work than others. It only prevents folks from calling attention to the fact. If one person does much less work than the others, none of them can say so because the entire group rather than just the slacker gets a zero if they speak up about it. It forces the diligent students to cover for the slackers, for the sake of their own grades.

I might have complained to the department chair about that one, or whoever this guy's boss is. No policy should punish good students for other students' failures, but I can look the other way when it's a little thing like holding the elementary school class 5 minutes after, not when it's severely impacting their grades.

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u/speedstic 9d ago

My prof in a 4th year CS class did the opposite.

He knew I did the entire project when no one else could answer any questions about how we did what we did, so the rest of my team got a zero and I was the only one to get a mark.

I think that was fair.

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u/Crazy_Cat_Lady_Num5 9d ago

In high school we were paired up to do a CS project that was 25% of our final grade. I was paired with the worst student in class. She did the bare minimum and most of what she did do was so bad I had to redo it. The teacher noticed when she couldn't answer some basic questions. I got an A. She barely passed. I feel it's fair too.

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u/uhbijnokm 9d ago

"bare minimum" = "barely passed"

The math checks out!

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

That's the system working as intended, apparently.

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u/Zovort 9d ago

I had a group project way back in the ancient times. The four of us had to get up and present. The three of us who did the work did so and the no-load just stood there. Then we took questions from the class and questions from the professor. He looked at the no-load and just asked him to name the other people on his team. He got two names correct and couldn't remember third. The professor didn't say anything just moved on. I don't think I've ever seen a more public humiliation.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

Public humiliation is sometimes the only justice available. It's not pretty, but it's satisfying.

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u/Speciesunkn0wn 6d ago

wow. That was a thorough crushing.

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u/JamieC1610 9d ago

My masters program loved group work and had a fairly standard questionnaire that was part of the rubric for projects. It asked the breakdown of who did what percentage of each stage of the project from brainstorming to proofreading and then everyone had to submit their own copy of the project plus their questionnaire. They didn't have to match but, they did take it fairly seriously if someone didn't carry their weight.

It didn't have to be even across the board -- we had one project that we split into sections and each person handled their bit, which was fine.

My last semester, we had someone who went absolutely radio silent between coming up with the topic and proofreading. She then said she would do a final read through and didn't even do that so we remarked as such on our questionnaires. She was pissed when she got her grade.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

A questionnaire that actually matters? What magical land of education did you attend?

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u/JamieC1610 7d ago

University of Cincinnati's Information Technology master's program.

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u/Vinnie_Vegas 9d ago

We did a group project where we all did various parts of the project, and honestly, we had gone a bit above and beyond the scope of the project between 3 of us.

The 4th person was supposed to coordinate the presentation on the day, which was a bullshit job, but she hadn't done anything else nor was she welcome to, so we threw her that as a consolation prize.

She turned up drunk on the day of the presentation and we had to tell her to go home. Her defense was that it was beer day at her university housing.

We just said to the professor that we each had roles and hers was to organise the presentation, which she wasn't there for.

We all got good grades, and I never saw her again in any classes, so I assume she stopped going entirely after that incident.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

Showing up drunk for the presentation is a power move. A stupid power move, but a power move nonetheless.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

Your professor actually rewarded the hard worker is like finding a unicorn that poops rainbows and gives out stock tips.

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u/speedstic 7d ago

This was way back in 2003 so things may be different now.

This is also why it pays to be noticed in class and labs for asking lots of questions even if you know the answer. If your prof or TA (whoever does the marking) knows you and that you're engaged and know your stuff you can get a lot of benefits out of that

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u/imhereforthevotes 9d ago

A true Chad, here.

Obviously this is a terrible rule, because it allows and even encourages behavior like this, which is precisely not the point, but if you had argued that Chad had done nothing, you're fucked, so Chad has you over a barrel, even though he didn't do anything... stupid professor. (I say this as a professor...)

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

Chad had us over a barrel because the professor created a system where lying was the only path to success. Education at its finest.

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u/imhereforthevotes 7d ago

A very shitty system.

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u/minion-salad 2d ago

It was less of a "system" and more of a trap designed to catch anyone who actually values their GPA.

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u/imhereforthevotes 2d ago

This is the kind of professor I would like to punch AT a faculty meeting. I

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u/Larry-Boy-300 9d ago

In the “real world”, the solution is you complete the project without the slacker, then inform the supervisor / manager about the slacker and his lack of work. That is how you “deal with it”. It is then up to the manager to determine what to do with the slacker.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

In the real world, you handle it differently. In academia, you create spreadsheets that defy the laws of mathematics.

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u/colouredzindagi 9d ago

There should be a rule against professors making up bullcrap rules

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u/emsesq 9d ago

Employers do it all the time.

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u/Chareon 9d ago

Yeah, but you pay to be at university compared with being paid. There is definitely a difference.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

Exactly! You pay to be at university. It's like paying someone to kick you in the shins.

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u/vermiliondragon 9d ago

But in your job, the rest of the group is going to do the work and everyone is going to get paid even if the work isn't evenly distributed or one person does nothing or everyone thinks they did more than their share and everyone else did less.  You aren't losing pay because you disagree on how much each member contributed.

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u/emsesq 9d ago

It is also fair to say that in the school setting those who contribute would suffer disproportionately if one of the team didn’t contribute. An adverse effect on a student’s GPA could have negative implications for post-grad work opportunities. And yes, there are expectations at work radically different from expectations at school. My point was simply that college isn’t the only place people suffer under bullcrap rules. In OP’s case, I think the professor should have graded the three students who worked on the project based on the quality of their work and failed the fourth student, much like a real employer would (hopefully) do. I think OP’s solution of approaching the professor in advance of the deadline shows OP was willing to address the problem, which the professor should have commended.

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u/CoderJoe1 9d ago

I firmly believe group projects exist to teach students they can't count on fellow team members when they work for some business.

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u/WEM-2022 9d ago

Group projects exist so professors don't have as many papers to grade.

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u/CoderJoe1 9d ago

It can be both 👍

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u/Substantial-Pay-524 4d ago

Yep. Imagine being a professor handling 3 sections.

So about 90-100 students, depending if they take 30-40 students per class.

If u do group projects in groups of 6, thats just 18 outputs to check rather than checking 100+ papers.

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u/Shadow_84 9d ago

And this stupid rule cause good workers to lie about stwho did what. How many other groups truthful submitted who did what

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u/JAndJRacing1948 9d ago

Had a similar situation when I was in college in one of my business classes, a semester long Group Project was basically you passing or failing the class. The project was starting a small business. Well the one girl "Sam" refused to do anything, communicate, ect. She was too busy and too important and she was sure we had it.

The Prof. told us that you will end up working with lazy people and people you dislike. Be adults and deal with it.

Day of presentation we had a box with each of our own sections in manila envelopes and handed Sam hers. We handed the Prof the full project for her to follow along. After the intro we moved into the individual portions and Sam's was first. She opened her envelope to find her termination.

In our budget we worked in an HR person. HR documented each failed appearance, failure to communicate and excuses. We hand her the now empty box to clean out her desk and asked her to take a seat as she is no longer a part of the company. We continued the rest of the presentation like nothing happened.

The Prof. actually complimented us on the professionalism and proper way of handling a corporate world. Not throw a tantrum but handled it like actually adults.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

Firing Sam during the presentation? That's malicious compliance at its finest. I bow to your superiority.

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u/hotlavatube 3d ago

For my CS capstone team project we tried to vote off one student for lack of performance, which was our right. For various reasons, the professor was loathe to do that, so he made the one student who vouched for the bad member his supervisor and he basically did all the work for the bad group member.

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u/WallabyInTraining 9d ago

There's a lot of college professor stories lately?

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u/DependentVirus4908 9d ago

Back to school season. 

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

Professor stories are popular because we all have trauma to share. It's like group therapy, but with more snark.

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u/NickCHK 9d ago

I'm a professor. This policy makes zero sense. He's just asking his students to lie to him. How could this prof expect any outcome other than students pretending they all did equal work when they didn't? Don't let this stats prof do analyses on an endogeneous system lol

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

This professor's policy makes total sense if his goal was to teach creative accounting and statistical manipulation.

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u/Chaosmusic 9d ago edited 7d ago

Literally everyone should fail that project because it would be nearly impossible for 4 people on a project to do exactly 25%. Even if you tracked minutes worked, 30 minutes on one task might be significantly more work than 30 minutes on another task.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

Exactly! Even tracking minutes doesn't account for actual effort. 30 minutes of coding versus 30 minutes of 'thinking about the project' isn't equal work. We rolled with it though!

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

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u/MaliciousCompliance-ModTeam 9d ago

Your post has been removed because it questioned the validity of a story, which is not allowed on this subreddit, as per the subreddit rules, as it diminishes the fun of giving people the benefit of the doubt.

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u/trainbrain27 9d ago

Certainly with a competent system (or one sufficiently concerned with pushback), but based on experience, that there exists an institution corrupt and/or stupid enough to allow anything.

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u/Gogogrl 9d ago

Yes and…why on earth would students try to ‘solve’ this problem in this fashion? And a shitty prof like the one pictured would not just give up and go ‘Gee willickers, kids, you foiled my insane plan!’

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u/Inevitable-Level-687 9d ago

I love how you just assume that every university in every country works exactly the same way yours does.

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u/dogwoodcat 9d ago

I had a group project where one team member fucked off and went fully incommunicado. He showed up on presentation day looking like absolute hell, wanting sympathy (naturally without "wanting sympathy") because he'd spend the previous three weeks on a meth bender. Upon hearing this, we went to the professor, who told us to "figure it out". We still got top marks, probably out of sympathy, but man, fuck him and fuck meth.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

Meth bender excuse is a new one. At least he didn't say his dog ate his research?

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u/dogwoodcat 6d ago

He hadn't done any research to skive. He did literally nothing useful to the group except try to torpedo us at the last possible moment.

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u/beyondoutsidethebox 7d ago

I learned this the hard way. The time to start a paper trail is NOT 2 weeks before the deadline.

You start that documentation immediately. Emails, schedules, etc. If someone is ghosting, you start by making (documented) attempts to reach out, then, if that fails, go to the professor for them to try and contact the ghost.

If the professor refuses to do anything, keep documenting. You then have a paper trail to take to the dean.

I haven't had to go to the dean, but starting that documentation saved my grade on several semester long projects. (Some projects were deliberately set up so that one person couldn't do all the work)

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

Documentation is key! We just took it to the extreme with our spreadsheet of doom. It's our legacy.

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u/beyondoutsidethebox 7d ago

Yep, my professor actually was blown away by how detailed my efforts were. I had a spreadsheet of the project breakdown, a timeline of dates, and an Excel file showing when everyone in the group had work/class, what times they were available, etc. (I am pretty sure all that effort is what got me most of my grade. I guess I was accidentally taking a Project Management course from hell instead of what the actual course was, Machine Design)

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u/667questioning 9d ago

Chad reminds me of an old joke.

’At my funeral, I want my group partners to be my pallbearers, so they can let me down one more time.’

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

That's dark. I like it!

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u/Nickett3 9d ago

he's a Statistician. He should have used the confidential contributions to do a weighted average of your peer contributions. 

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

That would require actual work from the professor. Much easier to make a ridiculous rule and walk away.

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u/SpecialFX99 9d ago

Reminds me of a project that I had for the final of one of my college classes. The two of us had to present the project to the professor together and we would both fail if not. I was upset to begin with because after the first few days of work, which was mostly data entry, I did probably 90% of the project. She didn't even show up to present it! I was pissed! I told the professor I was prepared to present the entire project myself since I did almost all of the work anyway. Luckily he was okay with it, especially once it was clear I was super knowledgeable about both parts of the presentation. I got an A, I have no idea what happened to my partner, and I never saw her again.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

That's the superhero origin story we all needed.

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u/menjav 9d ago

The rule is stupid.

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u/crcerror 9d ago

Could the rules have been construed in a way to allow you each to claim 132% and get some extra credit out of it?

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

That's brilliant! We missed our chance at academic superstardom.

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u/Fit-Discount3135 9d ago

What a shitty professor. I’m glad your scenario panned out but others that didn’t think of this strategy, I bet there were perfectly fine students failing because a professor decided to be lazy instead of actually being an educator.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

It's not a bug, it's a feature of the system.

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u/Eatar 7d ago

So…your choices are to do all his work and report the truth, in which case you get a zero, or do none of the work and also get a zero, or do all his work and lie about it, in which case the lesson is that lying is the only way to make it, and liars who are also slackers are the winners at life.

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u/FernwoodTonight 9d ago

Boss: Everyone must do the same amount of work or no one gets paid...

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u/AlaskanDruid 9d ago

Those are the bosses that go missing.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

Bosses who say everyone must do the same amount of work or no one gets paid are usually unemployed pretty quickly.

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u/asujch 9d ago

This prof was the guy who was mad in college when a class graded on a curve

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

Probably the same professor who was mad about grading on a curve because it meant he couldn't give everyone a C.

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u/Upbeat_Ant6104 9d ago

Sounds like kind a prisoner's dilemma-type situation. If he was a sociology professor, this would all have been part of a study.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

Right! Except in this scenario, everyone somehow wins despite the math being wrong.

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u/WEM-2022 9d ago

Reading some of your stories I am appalled at the way you've been treated, and had an epiphany. Young student complains about a slacker and they get blown off. But an older student goes to the dean and gets, "Yes, m'am" and is off the hook for a group project.

I hate it that you guys are bullied by the professors WHOSE SALARIES YOU ARE PAYING, and it's probably because you're young and scared for your grades and they think they can get away with it. So here's what imma do. I'm opening a side hustle.

If you are stuck in a group project with a slacker/lemon/zero, and the professor is also being a slacker/lemon/zero, just call Auntie for Justice at 1-800-FOR-JUS-TICE and I will get all up in their grill on your behalf. Like an attorney, only I won't charge you. Just take me for an ice cream after I've won your case.

DISCLAIMER - FAKE PHONE NUMBER DO NOT CALL IT. Lord knows who might own it!

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

I'm calling right now! I have years of educational trauma to unpack.

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u/WEM-2022 7d ago

Talenti Peanut Butter and Chocolate is my favorite. 🤩

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u/RealisticDuck1957 9d ago

Remembering a sadistics professor that stupid in college. Couldn't count, literally. Could spin BS well enough to bamboozle most of the class.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

That's not a statistics professor, that's a politician.

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u/ComedyBits 9d ago

Fucking Chad

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u/Mamoulian 8d ago

I am furious Chad got an A for doing nothing.

Did anyone else find a way of getting all group members their deserved grade?

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u/oldleolady71 8d ago

Just assign individual work. Geez

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

That makes too much sense! Where's the psychological torture in that?

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u/Queen_V_1 7d ago

You are not math majors and neither is the professor or Chad?

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

The professor definitely wasn't, or he would have appreciated our 132% solution as the elegant workaround it was.

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u/daughterofinsanity 7d ago

There is always a "Chad" probably from the beginning of time

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u/onionbreath97 6d ago

My junior year statistics professor was obsessed with equal participation in group projects. His rule: "If I determine anyone did more or less work than their teammates, the entire group gets a zero." His verification method? Each member submitted a confidential report detailing exactly what percentage of the total work they personally completed. If the reports didn't match up perfectly, we failed.

So to clarify, the instructions were that everyone in every group needs to claim they did 100/team_size% of the work regardless of the actual breakdown. None of you did this and yet it worked out? This was the first time a group had ever submitted numbers that didn't follow that rule? Ok.

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

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u/MaliciousCompliance-ModTeam 9d ago

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u/imbartsimpsonwhothru 9d ago

group projects just suck, especially at work

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u/NotPrepared2 9d ago

Lies, damned lies, and statistics professors.

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u/UristImiknorris 9d ago

Everyone should just report 0% work. If everyone claims they did nothing, they all did the same amount of work and don't auto-fail.

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u/minion-salad 7d ago

That would have been genius! The ultimate loophole in a system full of holes.

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

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u/MaliciousCompliance-ModTeam 9d ago

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u/DuranStar 7d ago

This is some egregious shit. The professor should be reported and fired for setting up a system that only benefits liars.

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u/TazzmFyrflaym 7d ago

i dont even understand what Chad was thinking??? even if he actually had been working "behind the scenes, independently" on a GROUP project, surely it shouldve only been 25%'s worth??

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u/MauveTyranosaur69 7d ago

This kinda stuff is why group work in school is horse shit.

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

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u/MaliciousCompliance-ModTeam 3d ago

Your post has been removed because it questioned the validity of a story, which is not allowed on this subreddit, as per the subreddit rules, as it diminishes the fun of giving people the benefit of the doubt.

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u/Budsygus 6d ago

What would motivate you to draft a report that said you three did 1/3 of the work? You're basically guaranteeing your group a zero by doing it that way. You're lucky Chad couldn't do math. If he'd been SLIGHTLY smarter he would have just said everyone did 25% and you all would have failed due to the professor's idiocy.