Group projects are a bit of a cursed prospect in many of our experiences. You often see some responsible people doing most of the work. Meanwhile, the rest of the group spends their time relaxing and definitely not contributing in any meaningful way. It’s frustrating!
However, some people decide to fight back against the injustice of it all. Redditor u/Draycos_Stormfang went viral after sharing how they publicly embarrassed their project partner, who had stubbornly refused to pull their weight. Scroll down for the story in full. Meanwhile, Bored Panda has reached out to the author via Reddit, and we’ll update the article as soon as we hear back from them.
One of the most frustrating aspects of group projects is that some people refuse to pull their weight
Image credits: monkeybusiness / evanto (not the actual photo)
One student came up with a revenge plan after getting saddled with a lazy partner
Image credits: davidpereiras / evanto (not the actual photo)
Image source: Draycos_Stormfang
You can find free riders pretty much anywhere in society
Group projects are like a microcosm of society. They reveal a very persistent problem whenever you’re talking about a larger group of people. Namely, the so-called free-rider problem.
The reality is that you will never get to a perfectly equal situation where everyone’s doing the exact same amount of work. People have different work ethics and approaches to projects. However, you would expect that everyone would put in a significant amount of effort.
Alas! That’s not the case. Some folks refuse to put in any effort at all or do the absolute minimum. This means that other members of the group are left to shoulder most of the burden.
If the school or college group project is graded individually, then this is less of a problem. However, if the entire group of students is given a single grade, it means that anyone who’s lazy or unmotivated has more power.
This is because their fellow students, who want a decent grade, have to finish the entire project. The responsible individuals end up sacrificing their time and energy for the grade. Meanwhile, the free riders get a good grade without having to sacrifice much of anything. They simply show up.
Your partners need to know what’s expected from them, right off the bat
However, this doesn’t mean that everyone’s held hostage by these students. There are various ways to tackle the issue without resorting to public humiliation (even though that can be a valuable lesson they’ll never forget).
First off, set expectations and deadlines as soon as you start working on the project so that everyone knows what they’re doing. If someone is maliciously missing deadlines or dumping their work on the rest of the group, talk to them about their behavior and lack of effort.
Try to be as diplomatic as you can. If you start accusing them of being lazy, they’ll get defensive and probably won’t feel inspired to help out in any way. Be willing to hear them out and get to grips with their perspective. Offer some sort of compromise going forward.
At the same time, don’t shy away from drawing some common sense boundaries either. It’s not up to you to fix the other person’s life and attitude so they’re suddenly brimming with love for school. Again, reiterate the expectations and explain what will happen if they keep avoiding their share of the work.
If your partner is at all reasonable, they’ll likely get a grip and change their approach. However, if they continue on the same path and you feel an unreasonable amount of stress from all of the extra work, it’s time to get serious.
Subtly reach out to your teacher or lecturer about the expectations for the group project. Ask them what they would personally do if someone was dodging their share of the work. Also, consider asking them to grade all of you individually.
It’s vital that you don’t let anger and resentment eat you up inside
It sometimes takes an authority figure to step in to set things right. They probably have more experience getting to the bottom of issues, including demotivation and a lack of effort at school.
At the end of the day, no school project is worth holding a grudge over. Yes, it’s frustrating. Yes, it’s unfair. But life is so full of unfairness and people who don’t pull their own weight.
If we don’t change how we react to them, we’ll constantly be living in anger.
And chronic anger is just awful for both our physical and mental health. So, we have to make a conscious effort to tackle the issues we can but also let go of matters outside of our control.
What has your experience with group projects in school and at college been like, dear Pandas? Did you ever have to deal with free riders? Or were you lucky enough to always be in a group of hard-working and passionate young academics? Have you ever called any of your fellow students out for being lazy? Tell us all about it in the comments!
The author engaged with a lot of the commenters. Here’s what they had to say
A few internet users shared their experiences working on group projects
