Had The Receipt to Prove It
I’m in a class where a group research project and presentation is a huge chunk of overall points. Everyone knows that in group projects, you always have that one slacker who doesn’t do anything that you have to compensate for.
However, I got stuck with possibly the worst three people to be in a project with in the class. I did the entire research, presentation, poster boards, etc., among many other annoying things myself. I tried talking to them and telling them they needed to put in their share of effort. Ignored.
I’d send them tasks to do, ignored. I’d try to schedule meetings, they’d say they were coming and then leave me alone at the library. This happened from the get-go. It was abundantly clear that they expected everyone else to do the work, but “everyone else” turned out to be just me.
So here was one rule: We couldn’t have things 100% memorized word for word, and we couldn’t read off of anything. Basically, we had to actually know the subject we were discussing.
I was fully prepared to do most of the talking and even wrote down a small script for them and told them to know what to say during their part, at the very least. The night before, I told them we had to meet to at least go over the whole thing one time. Once again, none of them showed.
At this point, I’m livid and decide they can just do it themselves. This means they’d get up there, not know a darn thing to say other than the small info I gave them, and they couldn’t even make up anything because they did no research. Thing is, if we miss the presentation without an excuse, we fail the project.
If you have an excuse, you have to have documentation. That’s when I came up with the perfect solution. I commute and live an hour away, so I decide that I’ll conveniently have a flat tire right before class. I went out and actually bought a tire so I could have the receipt to prove it.
I emailed the professor, who said I could present by myself during his office hours. Turns out, they COMPLETELY tanked, and not only probably failed the project but since they’re bad students, the professor might even make them fail the entire class.