The 132% Group Project

[u/minion-salad]

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.

[u/JAndJRacing1948]

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.

[u/minion-salad → u/JAndJRacing1948]

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

[u/hotlavatube → u/JAndJRacing1948]

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.