Well, at least the final RARARANTRARA related to the senior project. So, yesterday we presented our project and handed in our binder. The paper ended up being a total of 203 pages including appendices. Take a look!

So, that said.. I’ve got a mini rant, or a wrap-up rant.

Our last meeting (EVER!) went pretty much how ALL of the meetings should have gone. All we had left to do was compile the paper and finalize the paper, and the powerpoint, and decide who was going to present which parts.

In the meeting before, Project Manager was stuck out of town so the rest of us met to finish up separate parts of the paper. Project Manager attended via AIM. I was sifting through source code and making it neat, as well as typing up test plans and stuff to send off to Project Manager to do. Meanwhile F5 took screenshots for the user guide, that later she and Lone Male split up to take home to do parts of the user guide.

So, this all sounds great, work was broken up and stuff got done outside a meeting, right? Well kinda. I had sent an email asking that the user guide be up over the weekend so that Project Manager could put it in the paper before our meeting so that we only had to finalize the paper and do the presentation at our last meeting. So yeah, by Monday it was all there, so I guess thats good.

Come time for our meeting, the guide parts that were there had to be re-arranged because they were out of order. So, F5 took that on.. merging the 2 and organizing them according to the website. Project Manager and I hadn’t really looked at the docs prior to the final thing being handed over to go into the paper.. and it was kinda messed up. Project Manager asked F5 to format it a little better, with no page breaks so it could fit more easily into the paper. F5 wasn’t happy - at all. But made an attempt to fix, but really didn’t fix.

Also, let me throw a note in here that at the beginning of the meeting Project Manager had mentioned to the group at large that we would need to go to dinner around 5:30-6 because I needed to let my boyfriend’s dog out (he lives in the area). We are thinking this will be the first time ALL semester that we get to go to dinner first. We. Were. Wrong. At about 4:30 or so, F5 says.. I’m starving so I’m gonna go grab food and bring it back. Once she leaves we just kinda look at each other baffled like.. even when we SAY we’re gonna go early we STILL don’t get to go first. But it was ok. When she came back, a little while later we left. Whatever.

F5 worked on the powerpoint while we were at dinner. When we got back, Project Manager and I worked on making sure all the parts of the paper were accounted for.. and the parts of the appendices. We looked over the powerpoint in the new group study room on the big screen, agreed on it, went back to our room and decided who was going to say what.

I mentioned that our last status report was due that night, so we all started working on our individual status reports. F5 mentions that she didn’t realize that we *HAD* status reports all semester! She said.. I did like 2 of these, I didn’t know there were more. And she says.. I wonder if Professor will let me back-do them for some kind of credit. 

We also find out that she asked Professor about putting status reports in the paper, which ‘reminded’ him (according to his email) to let us all know that we no longer needed individual status reports in the paper because he had been collecting them on angel all term. I guess she might have said at that time she just didn’t have them, or complained the Project Manager was asking for them and she didn’t know why (even though in her email she clearly stated we need these for the paper). So now we know sorta why or how it came about that we didn’t need them. Oh fn well.

We left, and agreed that Project Manager and I would print the paper at my place the next night. We were finished, and even after stopping to visit boyfriend, I was home by 10:30. That is earlier than any other night when I don’t have time to stop and visit boyfriend!

So, lets talk about presentation day - again. :) So, we find out that we need to include in our powerpoint any diagrams that we revised. So, Project Manager and I revised the powerpoint to add the diagrams. We had to change the theme because the one that F5 had done used an image for the title area of the slides and of course we didn’t have the image. So we picked a nice theme, knowing F5 was gonna throw a fit when she saw that the powerpoint was different. But we didn’t have time to care, we made these edits at 12:30, class started at 1. We had to turn in b&w printouts of the powerpoint because the color ones I printed were obviously not right anymore. 

We had to present last because, as usual, F5 couldn’t leave work a half hour early to get to class on time. So, since we didn’t get a chance to say anything BEFORE we presented.. on the way up to the front Project Manager tells F5 that we had to add on to the beginning, and change the layout, but everything else was the same from her first part through the end. First thing she (F5) said is you could have asked me for the image. Project Manager says, we did this today at 12:30 there was NO time. She grumbled something to Lone Male I think, I heard part of it.. something about they changed my layout or something. Whatever. We got through it! IT IS  DOOOONE!

We could hear her asking Professor about turning in her status reports late because she ‘didn’t know about them’. He says, yeah the drop boxes are still up. LET ME JUST SAY.. I took points off of mine (and Project Manager’s) for being like a DAY late. Even left a comment on mine about the one over spring break being late, saying Angel is an internet app. SO HERS will be like a MONTH late. At a point for one or two days, hers are worthless. BUT, he told her to turn them in. WHY!? Does he contemplate giving her credit? Or does he just want to see what kind of status reports she is going to turn in considering these were due a month to almost two months ago.. and that Project Manager and I have talked to him since then about her lack of contribution.. AND we mention it in EVERY status report and team evaluation that we turn in. 

I have this feeling (AND IT SUCKS) that he is catering to her because she is the lone MIS person and had to be put on an IST team. I DO NOT FEEL SORRY FOR HER! AT FN ALL! If you don’t know something, you learn something, or at least you attempt.

During the presentations, the group that had 2 SRA majors and 1 IST major, they talked about the challenges they faced from the beginning even getting a project settled. The SRA people stated that they had no programming background, had never seen the diagrams or written any code, BUT that they learned something about making a website and writing code, etc. The IST person said he learned a lot about security and risk potential. That is what our group should have been. Everyone should have learned something. NO ONE.. OK WRONG! PROJECT MANAGER learned something of value! You know what F5 learned!? THAT TESTING IS IMPORTANT! That is all. Testing. Woo!

So yeah, thats all. I have a bad feeling that Professor is going to pass her on like principal or something. I don’t think he is going to pay attention to our status reports, or team evals, or anything.. even the fact that hers are like a month late or whatever and obviously going to be made up all in one night.

We shall see. I will ask what she gets. In casual conversation on FB. ;)

/end RARARANTRARA

Its almost like Twilight, only.. there are no sparkly vampires. But here we go, rant part 3. I am so glad its almost over. Actually, in 2 weeks it WILL be over.

There is good news - the website itself is finished. If anything gets added this week, it will be a picture or two, other than that, nothing will change about the website. This meeting and next meeting are ALL about getting the paper done and the powerpoint presentation. That said, lets talk about last 2 weeks.

As previously on.. RARARANTRARA I have named our 4th person F5/Nappy either one will work. Lets recap, 4 weeks ago F5 fell asleep, 3 weeks ago F5 was sick therefore didn’t come to the meeting, 2 weeks ago she didn’t do anything extremely rant-worthy but wasn’t very helpful either, soo that about catches us up to this past week:

We start our meetings at 2, and work until.. a good stopping point when a good chunk of work is done. Project Manager and I are usually leaving the library about 10pm or later. F5 leaves between 7 and 8, its guaranteed. She doesn’t even say anything at the beginning anymore, just mentions it sometime around dinner break or when she gets back from dinner break.

So this week, Project Manager and I were finalizing the last 2 pages of the website that needed content and making sure that everything else was done according to our last round of meetings with our “clients”. F5 was sitting on the other side of the table doing.. nothing? work for another class? facebook? Who the hell knows or fn cares at this point. Why show up AT ALL!? LIE, come up with an excuse.. don’t waste our air! Anyway, I digress.

We had some wireless internet issues, the vpn kept kicking us off.. randomly. Sometimes I would have no issues while Project Manager couldn’t stay connected. Other times it would reverse.. F5 seems to always have problems, but.. is sometimes connected.. or complaining about not being connected. Something. My complaint about the complaining is this: when I can’t connect (same applies to Project Manager) I can’t get work done on the website - which is what I was working on. When she can’t connect she can’t.. what? get on facebook? boo fn hoo! Go home to your wireless..wired..whatever.

At some point, before dinner break, our Lone Male went scouting other rooms to see if any were empty that we could re-locate. He found one across the.. room? floor? whatever, it faces the front side of the building. We all moved, got much better reception. Nice, we can work now. Well, some of us. So once we get settled and some time passes and she is ready to go get her dinner. I noted the time she left via timestamp on an IM I sent to my best friend (lets call her Friend of the Cause), it was 6:09pm. Project Manager and I continue working, Lone Male is kinda helping.. but had been spending a lot of his time this particular week texting someone (this becomes important later) or answering the phone (thats not so important).

I will take this point in the rant to go back and mention something from earlier in the night that didn’t seem significant, but became so later. Lone Male had to go to another building to meet with someone for a short time during our meeting time. No biggie that he had to do that, the significant part comes much much later.

Anyway, back to F5’s dinner break. Time passes, we are working and making decisions about how to proceed with a test plan and so on.. looking at what we need to complete for the paper. I hadn’t realized how much time had passed until Friend of the Cause sent me an IM asking if F5 was back yet (because I had mentioned at some point that I hoped she’d be back soon because I was getting hungry), and I said no. I then noticed the timestamp on the message I had just sent - 7:04. Friend of the cause mentions that in 5 mins she will have been gone an hour. I said, yep. So, practically 7:09 on the dot F5 comes back.. carrying her dinner from Neato Burrito. So I start (internally) flipping out that she’s gone a whole HOUR and hasn’t EATEN HER FOOD YET! So, Lone Male skips out for his dinner break as soon as F5 came back. Project Manager and I finish up the one thing we were working on, and decided that we should go get food. So, we say we are gonna go get our dinner. To which F5 replies, will you.. or Lone Male.. be back before 8 because I am leaving at 8. (note that it is like.. 7:15  just about) We say, yeah sure and leave.. grumbling the whole way out that she takes an HOURRR and then throws a warning at us that we need to be back by X time because she has to leave!? Oh whatever! But, we run to the steak place nearby and come right back, all within 20 minutes.

Here is the good part. Well, the RARA part.. well one of them. We didn’t get napkins with our hoagies, so at some point after unwrapping her hoagie Project Manager goes to get paper towels from the bathroom. On her way back in, she sees F5’s laptop screen. SHE IS DOING WORK ON A POWERPOINT FOR ANOTHER CLASS!!

Once she leaves, Lone Male says that she has been texting him all night.. and shows us the texts! Remember that walk to another building Lone Male had to take at the beginning? Apparently he was gone for a little bit, and it musta been quiet in the room there cause we were working.. she sends him a text that said “I am being ignored.. wtf”. I forget what his reply was, he did show us. But that wasn’t the only text. The others were along the lines of trying to get him to go to neato burrito with her for dinner.. and oh haha i’m doing work for another class.. or i’m not doing anything.. stuff like that. Nice how she thought he wasn’t going to tell us. Of course he says, now.. don’t hold it against me. Which in his replies he didn’t say anything bad about us, so there is nothing to hold against him. As for the doing other work, Project Manager saw her screen while she was doing something un-related to our work. If we wanted to say something, we could even without mentioning the texts.

But are we going to say anything, hell no. There is no point whatsoever in saying anything. We tried to handle this issue back in JANUARY (yeah I said September in another rant, that is wrong.. I meant JANUARY) but it got us nothing but a lecture. We got a little happy about the fact the checklist says we need to include status reports in the final paper… but then the professor emailed the next day saying we don’t need to include individual status reports.. we can include team status reports if we have them. Thing is, we were told NOT to do team status reports, so he KNOWS no one has those. There is a theory behind this, that Project Manager and I have, but there is no proof to it. It just seems strange that this is the first semester that individual status reports do not need to be turned in. The examples from last semester have them, people we talked to that took the class last spring had to have them.. its just weird.

/end rararantrara

This is a slightly shorter, maybe less RARA than the others, but still noteworthy in that it adds more fuel to the fn fire as to why we were RIGHT back in fn SEPTEMBER when we said we’d be better off without our 4th Person. Who is now going to be re-named Nappy, kinda like Sleepy the dwarf - buy why hate on the dwarfs.

So, 2 weeks ago at our senior project team meeting.. Project Manager and I ask Nappy (who hadn’t earned this name yet, but for future consistancy lets go with it) and Lone Male to go around campus mainly outside and around the School of Business hallway and classrooms and take pictures for us to use on the website. They agree with the idea and go off on their merry way.

About an hour passes and then come back. Project Manager and I have been tweaking our layout and putting basic content on the pages from the current website. When they get back, we take turns copying the pictures off of the memory card to our respective laptops so we all have the same pictures. This is fine, this is great, now we can start making new banners and putting images on the pages. So then, Project Manager and I start working on the block that will sit in the side bar that will hold the twitter and facebook widgets. We needed to get the widgets made, so we did that.. took the code from the respective pages and copied into a text doc. Trying to get the block to display properly meant diving head first into the css.. ever so much fun for me. So the 3 of us are looking at code, 2 are offering me suggestings that I try.. and sometimes have success with and other times not so much. But, the point is we try. 3 of us TRY! And our 4th, Nappy, who I could also call F5.. hmm I like that too.. F5. Well F5/Nappy does exactly what F5 does - refresh the page. That worked, that didn’t, nothing changed. Well guess what, don’t you think I’m refreshing my screen too!? About the only help it does is that we can see what it looks like to someone who is not logged in, and using a different browser from the one I’m using. So its like .35 helpful. Maybe.

So, it gets awfully quiet across the table. I glance up and notice her head is down, but I kinda ignore it. A few mins later Project Manager taps me and points in the direction of Nappy/F5 and mouths the words “shes sleeping”. Lone Male peeks over at her (he is sitting or standing off to the side of me  - where I was kinda between Project Manager and Lone Male but we could all see my laptop and the code) and says yeah she is. SO! We’re working, yet.. we somehow missed the nap time memo. Nice. So we keep working, and we’re not even trying to be quiet. Not that we were overly loud before, aside from my random WHAT THE HELL or WORK DAMNIT when something just wouldn’t work right. So we just go on with what we were doing not caring if we woke her or whatever.. debating on just like.. HEY! ARE YOU TIRED!! GO THE FUCK HOME! But decided no.. lets just see how long naptime is.

So time passes, like 30-45 mins and outta nowhere Nappy starts hitting keys on her keyboard grumbling something about I dunno what my computer is doing trying to play it off like no one noticed. We didn’t say a word, but believe me WE FN NOTICED!

THEN maybe like 20 mins after that she goes on her dinner break! OH OH wait, let me go back.. the begining of the meeting she says she had to leave around 7. So naptime is around 4-4:30.. dinner starts around 5:30 or so.. YA KNOW WHEN SHE STROLLS BACK IN!? Around 6 or just about 6. **FUME** You nap. Then you eat. Even though you have to leave early. And you don’t even make dinner quick or bring it back and eat in the room so the rest of us can go. Lone Male had gone and come back in the time she was gone, I think.. or at least he came back soon after.. I forget. When Project Manager and I go to leave to get our dinner (just across campus) we say, are you gonna be here.. so we can leave our stuff and not lose the room. The reply, i’ll be here till 7. Implying she’s out at 7 whether we are back or not and who cares about our stuff. *FUME*

Lets just say there are 3 unhappy campers about this whole situation. VERY unhappy! EXTREMELY unhappy. ANGERR!

So then last meeting, yesterday. Project Manager gets a text message from Nappy/F5 saying she’s sick and won’t be there. Nothing asking if there is anything she can do, nothing. Just. Not gonna be there. FN wonderful. I guess as least we got a message. Whatever. We worked without her. We are scheduling meetings without her.

I would love to know what her status reports say. I’m sure they are more elaborate than “I refreshed the page and took pictures”. But really, thats all she does. Not. Helpful. At. All. But there is nothing we can say. We tried to get her out of our group and the prof basically said no. Under the guise of “your group will be ok because you’re coming to me early”. This is not couples counseling. If it is.. its a strange grouping, and 3 of us want a divorce! But we didn’t get one. What we got is… you’ll be graded individually based on input and I can tell who isn’t pulling their weight by the presentations and work handed in. Which no, I do not want names in the TOC nor do I want an I DID THIS chart.. although it would look nice in the favor of some, I think its tacky and unfair. Don’t get me wrong, its not unfair to Nappy/F5 for it to look like she did nothing. Its unfair to the 3 of us who work together, like at the same time. Only one person can actual edit the code at a time.. and technically because of permissions and whatnot, its always my log in. So I have to be there and logged in even to let someone else edit code. So for the most part, I edit code while Project Manager and Lone Male help me by giving suggestions or hey this worked before, do that again. Its unfair to say, “I did the ccs for our style” or “I wrote code” because while thats true it unfairly implies that no one else helped which is untrue. I always put in my status reports that I had help. Project Manager does some code edits too, even more in the last few meetings because she wants to understand. She was doing some html last night, pretty much on her own with just a little help from me because I was trying to fuss with the css again. I am grateful that drupal has a separate login and that we can be logged into drupal more than once with our login because if not it would be even more difficult.

We got an email from our professor. There are 6 weeks left. HO-RAY! I am proud of this project, it has taken a lot of figuring out of things for all involved. It has been made harder because we are spending more time on things because we can’t rely on one of our members. We would have been better off as a 3 person group, at least then we would know how to budget time amongst ourselves.

And to wrap up, from last post - I mentioned snow. We got over 40 inches of snow between 2 storms, approx 20 each time. So we did miss that wednesday’s meeting back in february. Our project was not thrown off by this. We were able to finalize and complete our paper and presentation on time. And you know what else, another case in point. Spring Break week was another meeting that we didn’t have. We could have, we’re all local and no one was going anywhere before the weekend anyway, but we wanted a week off of everything school related. And we were able to do that. We are not behind. We are pretty much on track for our ‘finish early’ date, so really we are ahead still. We should be finished in time for the walkthrough on April 5th. If not, the week after, so that we can finialize the paper in the last weeks and tweak any last minute things. See how that works. We were doing it right from the beginning. Work hard early so that if things come up the project doesn’t fall behind.

/end rantfnrant

So, I meant to have this written right after the meeting with my group and the professor for my senior class project. But, when I got back to the office after that meeting I had to go right into the regularly scheduled web team meeting. Then I left work, went food shopping that took forever and then snow came. So here it is monday and i’m not any less annoyed about the situation… I’m just not thinking about it.

So here is what happened in a nutshell: we got lectured (like I said we would) and we have to work together (like I said we would) and basically were told ways of making this work that would benefit everyone but leaning more toward benefiting our fourth (which I kinda implied by saying that I wouldn’t be someone elses A.. meaning I want them to work too). So basically everything I was RARARARAR about, happened and a little bit more which annoyed me even MORE if that were possible.

So let me back up. Wednesday, our 4th showed at our group meeting. For part of the time. She helped with the “describing diagrams” part. The diagrams were done by the rest of us before. Since there were 4 of us, we broke up into 2s and worked on half of the diagrams. She was there to pretty much check my wording. Oh that sounds great, or.. how about this.. break this up into 2 sentences to make it look longer. Helpful. Loads. I was an English major before I turned to technology, I can make 2 sentences look like 3/4 of a page long paragraph. However, thank you ever so much for your input. We also worked on screen drawings, which.. one group member draw on a small whiteboard while our 4th draw them with a pencil on paper. So, that was helpful. And when that was done she got up and left. No one mentioned us being done meeting, that there was nothing left to do. Nor did she stay I can only stay till x-time. After she left, we drew those pencil diagrams in Paint and now we have electronic copies of them as well. So. back to less than 3% input from our 4th.

Now, to our appt with the principal… i mean professor on Thursday. We meet in front of the classroom. He lets us in, we take seats in the first row like in the middle of the row, and he sits at the table thing in front of us. This is when I knew that we were gonna be “taught” somethin. So then he says, you are all here becauss we’re having some group issues. I wanted to say there is no we, you are not IN our group, so its more like your group is having issues.. but alas I bit my tongue - something I did for almost the whole 45 mins.

He starts off with this is what sometimes goes wrong in groups. Groups need to communicate, that is usually the biggest problems in a group. So work on that. Next, there could be a situation where someone may not understand and they just kinda sit back because they don’t want to say something. There was also something about how meetings should/could work where you have people who don’t want to be in a room working for a lot of hours, which is ok because with all the technology we have, we don’t need to all be in the same room to be working together on something. Then he goes into… 70% of your group work should be done individually outside of the group meetings, while the other 30% is spent working as a team compiling and finalizing everything. Also, if groups want to meet weekly for any amount of time, that time should be spend dividing up the project into sections that each person then can take responsibility for and work on during the week in their own time.. then at the following week’s meeting bring everything and put it together. (at this point I am starting to taste blood, I’m biting my tongue so hard.. and my nails were digging into the back of my hands from being clasped together so tightly) He said something else, I was seeing red so I kinda didn’t retain that part.

Then he stopped talking and looked at us. He started with the person furthest to the left, our project manager (I’m going to refer to people by their titles within our project or in some other way without using their names), asking for comments. She said oh I have comments but you won’t like them (I <3 her and her snappy comebacks sometimes lol). But he asked for them, soo she gave em. The biggest issue is our 4th just getting up and leaving when we aren’t finished, or in the case of the first meeting just not staying at all. And same said 4th wondering why we have to meet already, there didn’t seem to be much to do.* She talked about our team contract, we agreed to meet on Wednesdays because it is the only day that we can all meet. And that we agreed to meet for at least the 3 hours because that is the length of time we can reserve a library room, stating that if we finished early that would be fine.. and if we had to work longer as long as no one else reserved it after us we could stay. This was agreed on and only being paid attention to by 3. The prof responds by rehashing that meetings shouldn’t go longer than 3 hours and the 70/30 nonesence. (tasting blood now).

*Side note - yet the 3 of us have clocked A LOT of hours getting things done. It started with the proposal, and into this part of the project (systems analysis and design), we have spent late nights getting stuff done picking up for that last member.

I am next in the row, and he says Jen, what about you comments/questions? I said um yeah. Comm.. no.. question.. what if say we do it like you’re saying - split up the work and someone doesn’t bring their completed part to the next meeting. If we leave it out, and we hand in the binder on presentation day, its not complete. Its not done! He said, thats right, it will be incomplete. I said, but I don’t like that. And I gave him the look that said, and you should know that by now. I will not let that happen. So then I said, like we kinda did do that - split up the work. I explained the interview day (see previous post for that). I said, its not my story to tell because I wasn’t there to see. But, when you have that - two members going to an interview and two members staying behind to work, and then the first two come back only to find that one of the others had left and that the one member that was still there was the only one that had actually worked. I didn’t spell out “MEMBER 4 was on FACEBOOOOK!”, but just said you know the situation that I can’t say any more because its not my thing to tell. He just nodded and started drawing a chart on the board. He said, this is what people do. You make a chart with the tasks and who is responsible for what. Or you could put in the table of contents the name of the person who did the task. (blood does not taste good.. and is almost being drawn on my hands at this point) Then he goes on to say that he’ll be able to tell if someone wasn’t pulling their weight in the group based on the chart thing, or during the presentations if one person doesn’t look comfortable presenting the part they are talking about. This is not making me feel better about the ‘incomplete’ issue.

So, our LoneMale, is next, who just says “we gotta communicate better”. I’m thinking… please please say something about the facebook thing. But no. He didn’t repeat it. Ah well, not that it would have mattered.

Finally he gets to our 4th Member who states that she didn’t understand a lot of the diagrams because she had never seen them. Being in a different major she was taught a different approach to things, and never used more than 2 of the diagrams. (Is it possible to see purple? instead of red?) I think she had something to say about splitting up the work, or there being no one to ask or something. I wanted to scream, but didn’t.**

**SIDE FN NOTE: If this was in reference to when 2 of us were meeting with the school director and 4th member was left with LoneMale to work on diagrams… why didn’t she GOOGLE the diagrams instead of play on facebook. LoneMale told us he had to look them up because he didn’t understand the one either. She didn’t even try, or ask him.

So we’re back to the prof, who then explains to us the difference between IST, MIS, and SRA. We don’t care (at least, I don’t care.. I picked IST for a reason). So, then he says, for the record, the SRA people have never taken programming so chances are they have never seen any of these diagrams. The only students who would have seen them have taken either IST 302 (Project Management) or IST 420 (Systems Analysis). The 3 of us have taken both. This is not an excuse. Google it. Although I have SEEN the diagrams doesn’t mean I remember exactly how they are used and what needs to go on them. That is what textbooks and professor slides, and FN GOOGLE are for! OR.. ask a group member. We don’t bite. I might. NOW. Because.. my tongue already has a hole in it.

He wraps up with “I think your group will be fine.. ya know why”? *blank looks* “Because you’re here 4 weeks into the semester with these issues, not at the very end”. This does not make me feel better! AT ALL! WORSE EVEN!

Oh and somewhere in amongst the wrap up he says something about taking ownership in your projects. He pointed out what I said about not liking to turn in incomplete work, it shows I’ve taken ownership in the project. He also went on to say that its because I’m doing it for the school of business, for the people in my office, these are the people I work with all the time and it has to be done right.. I’ve taken stock in it. I wanted to cut him off and say NO. WELL A LITTLE! BUT NO! I have taken ownership in the project, of course I have, its my GRADE. Its my LAST PROJECT! I want this for my resume, this is the JOB I WANT! But more than that, its my NAME! It is a project, an assignment, and it has to have my name on it. I don’t want something that is not complete to have my name on it. I don’t want to be associated with something that was turned in incomplete. NO! Just.. NO! So if there ever is a time when something is left undone or done halfway, it will just be completed by the rest of us and noted. Because the project will be complete.

So we all leave. 4th Member decides to approach Project Manager and say something along the lines of they need to sit and talk. Project Manager says she can’t stay right then.. 4th Member says fine, whenever you get a chance, and runs off to get her books for class. Whatever. 4th Member is not going to single out Project Manager when we all had something to say about her. Nope, not gonna let that happen.

So, we are left with this - we HAVE to work with her.. and it seems like now we HAVE to divide up the work. I don’t like that. I am not happy with the decision at all. There isn’t enough trust in 4th Person for that.

***CASE IN POINT***

Harrisburg got a huge snowstorm over the weekend. We are expecting another big storm (could be a foot or more of snow) Tuesday into Wednesday evening. Wednesday is when we would meet as a group. We are about 85% complete in what we need done. All diagrams, drawings, writings are done. What still needs doing is compiling the paper and putting together the powerpoint presentation. We present on Feb 22nd. This gives us this wed (2/10) and next wed (2/17) to get that done. It really looks like there will be no meeting, but its ok because we still have the 17th to get things done. Of course, with this wonderful technology we can still get a head start on the compiling. But, this is why it is important to work at least a week ahead, if we get more than a week ahead that’s great. This is why the way we’ve been going about getting the project done is working.

/end rant

Ok so, the reason for creating this blog was to RANT my ass off. SO. I am gonna RANT! Not sure exactly how RARAFNRARARA I should be right now, since.. I don’t really know the outcome  yet but I am 99.95334% sure that I am not going to like it.

So. Groups. I hate working in groups. With the exception of when I get to pick who I work with. Senior project class. We get to pick who we work with. This is great. I have 2 great group members. We got stuck with a 4th, a person I thought would have been a better person to work with than she turned out to be. The 3 of us went to the professor and explained our issue. He said, I’ll talk to her. The whole group gets an email today asking if we can meet him Thursday.

THIS PISSES ME OFF! SO MUCH! I feel like we are being called to the principal’s office for doing something wrong. Our complaint: the group has met twice on the day that we ALL agreed to meet. The first meeting, she couldn’t stay at all. The rest of us worked. The second meeting she couldn’t stay the whole time. Two of us had to meet with the School Director (as part of our project) during part of our meeting time. We asked the other 2 to get started on 2 diagrams that we already had the information for. Apparently, this was either too hard or whatever, but when we got back from our meeting she was gone and our other group member told us that he finished one and did the best he could on the other and he got no help from her. She was there for an hour, on facebook (FN FACEBOOK!) , then left. And also, let slip to our groupmate that she’d rather work alone. OK! ***FUME*** WTF! Didn’t she see him working? WHAT WAS SO FN IMPORTANT ON FB! THIS IS HER PROJECT TOO! WELL.. we’d like for it NOT TO BE! The rest of us worked pretty late that night to get the majority of our stuff done. Jotted down some questions and decided that we should talk to the professor.

So we met with said Prof. Explained our issue. He said he’d talk with her. Ok. So I’m guessing someone talked to someone because we have this meeting. Which, I guess.. FINE.. maybe we should all be in the same room or whatever to “talk”. BUT I don’t want to be talked into (read: FORCED) to work with someone who is going to not want to come to meetings (or stay at them) and get work done. If she’d rather not work with us, or would rather work alone, WE ARE FINE WITH THAT! WE ACTUALLY WANT THAT!

We did not ask to work with her. We were not given the option to not work with her. For reasons of accreditation she was not an option to ANY group on day one when we all had to listen to our classmates talk about possible topics and then write down: the top 3 projects we want to work on, top 3 people we want to work with, and the top 3 people we do NOT want to work with. She did not have to write this down, and we were not able to consider her. After permissions were granted and she was able to be placed on a group, she was added to ours. She didn’t get to pick a group, nor did a group get to say hey join us. I have to say, I had never worked with this person before so I would not have been opposed (at the time). However, once information from those who had worked with her previously trickled in, PLUS FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE, I would have put a foot down and said HELL NO! HELL NO!

I will not be in a group where 4 people get credit when 3 people do the majority of the work. I WILL NOT BE SOMEONE ELSES A! (BECAUSE I DO WANT AN A!)

Which brings me to - this next section that we present in 3 weeks. THREE PEOPLE WORKED LONG AND HARD ON WHAT WE HAVE DONE! WE WILL NOT SHARE CREDIT! NO WE WILL NOT FN NO!

As a group, we are meeting tomorrow (AS USUAL)! IF SHE DOES NOT SHOW - I DO NOT WANT ANY EXCUSES on thursday when we all meet with the prof. THERE IS NO FN WAY! There is no EXCUSE short of VOLCANIC ERRUPTION that I will take.

I truly HATE that I feel like we will be forced to work together. I hope this isn’t the case. I hope this meeting is to do some kinda of.. amicable split? Or whatever the fuck. But, it doesn’t sound like it. It SOUNDS like we are gonna be lectured about teamwork and whateverthefuckelse and told that since we’ve already made 2 presentations as a group that we MUSTFNWORKTOGETHER. I WILL BE FUMING!

RARARAFNFNFNFNFNFRARARARARA

Just a quick update, must use this blog more.
Sitting at work, first day back after break. Its kinda boring, I’m sure things will be picking up soon. I should cross post my entry from my psh blog.. but nah, follow the link in my other blog to read that.

I haven’t tumblr’d today.. weird, I haven’t done my usual blog and its almost 3. That gives me something to do between now and 4:30ish. yay. Nothing much going on here, LOTS of baby talk. (babbiiieeesss!!) With 2 preggers in the office, due within weeks of each other, its bound to happen. One is a first time mom (doesn’t wanna know) and the other has an 8 year old son (does wanna know, is finding out today). That being said, everyone in the office (99% women, just 2 men.. all of which are parents except maaaybe 3 of us - 2 of us for sure) is bout ready to explode since she hasn’t called yet ad her appt was at 1. On any given day.. baby names.. baby stories.. when I was pregnant stories.. omg its drivin me nuts. lol