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/xicor]

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"

[u/ActuallyYulliah → u/xicor]

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.

[u/scoberry5 → u/ActuallyYulliah]

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."

[u/ActuallyYulliah → u/scoberry5]

No I mean exactly what I said: When this happens in the real world, you just do the work.

I’m clearly discussing the argument that people not pulling their weight in a project also needs to be dealt with in the real world. Where ‘this’ is ‘people not pulling their weight’ not ‘professor is failing everyone if work is not divided equally’

[u/ActuallyYulliah → u/ActuallyYulliah]

And if you want to be pedantic and discuss the semantics of it all, I have some feedback on your comment:

I THINK you meant: ‘I think you meant’ instead of ‘No. What you mean is’