teamwork sucks...
*Sigh* It's now been three days since my nightmare of a presentation and I'm still feeling relieved that it's finally over, maybe documenting the whole disaster will get me to move on...
I wasn't really interested or paying attention on what the teacher was saying because it was the first class of the course and teachers never say anything worthwhile during the first class or so I thought... And ended up with the "left over" group (they were dividing the rest of the class into groups of four while I daydreamed) that consisted of me, a finnish guy who apparently can't speak clearly, really I never understand what he's saying, doesn't matter whether he's speaking finnish or english and he's extremely anti-social, an african guy who's african accent is really thick and again I can't understand him half of the time he's speaking and a vietnamese boy who wasn't at school at all during the first week of the project. He is really cute though so I forgive him, he's very short and it makes him look like he's twelve and I just want to hug him so bad.
The task was to pick a company and do a 20-30min presentation about the company and about a topic the teacher gave us (our's was financing in the international market), that's when the problems started, my group couldn't pick a company BECAUSE THERE WAS NO COMMUNICATION!! I tried ask them because I didn't have any company that I was that interested in but got no real answer, in the end the teacher picked us a company (UPM). For the next two weeks our group had NO CONTACT with each other, all the other groups were preparing their presentations or at least communicating with each other, we did nothing.
I started to realize that the situation was even more messed up than I had originally thought when two weeks before the presentation the vietnamese boy came and asked me if I was in his group and I realized that he hadn't even known who was in his group (because he wasn't at school when we divided the groups). So with reluctance I took the role of the leader (or an ass kicker) and held a meeting where I divided all of us something to do and gave the next Friday as a dead-line for everybody. Would have been nice if things had gone well after that...
And so the week went on and Friday came. We only had one class on Friday that was over at 9.30, after that we were going to put some kind of preliminary presentation together because at 12.00 we had a check-point meeting with the teacher where we had to show him what we had done. Let's just say that on Friday things went from bad to worse, the african boy was apparently sick (heard from somebody else not from the boy), the vietnamese was missing and the finnish boy, the only one from my group who was at school, told me after classes that he's NOT INTERESTED (in our classes/school/us), would maybe do something next week and that we can kick him out of the group if we want and went home, leaving me alone with only 1/4 of the stuff we were supposed to have ready. I was "slightly" pissed at my group at that point, after spending 2,5 hours researching and putting together some kind of power point presentation for the teacher I was furious at the morons of my group. The meeting with the teacher went rather well and he was really understanding of my situation and we agreed to meet again on Wednesday to look at the presentation AGAIN.
The weekend was spent studying financing/UPM, readying myself to do the whole damn project alone and of course being pissed. On Tuesday (Monday classes were canceled) told the Vietnamese and African what the teacher had said, they apologized for not being at school on Friday and again we agreed to get everything ready by Wednesday, I left school with a bit lighter mood that day. Btw, I did not talk to the Finnish boy eventhough he was at school that day because I was still extremely pissed at him.
Wednesday was so-so, I got PP slides from both the African and Vietnamese, the slides were done a bit half-assed but what ever I could make them better later and the Vietnamese even attended the meeting with the teacher with me (the African guy was at a resit). Thursday went on without much trouble, I even felt a bit very giddy when I did the title page for our presentation and left the finnish boy's name out of it (the project/presentation is mandatory for the course so unless he does something alone he'll be failing the course).
Friday's presentation went very well considering how little anyone put effort into this project. It was the longest 20-30 min of my life and during the presentation I felt like I was the only who knew something about financing in our group because though the boys tried to explain stuff their explanations made no sense at times. But the main point is that the presentation is over and I'm so very happy/relieved that it's over and I will never have to work with that group again. There, done, hopefully I can now rid myself of this relieved feeling and move on.
On to other things, where are my Eito cds? I want them now, I'm at my limit, next time I'll order them via air mail.
Better go to bed now so I can play a team leader to my stimulus/problem-solving team tomorrow, just to be clear the previously mentioned persons are not in my stimulus team though we do have a troublesome drama queen/manic depressive latino guy. Oh the joys of leadership, can't wait for tomorrow...
I wasn't really interested or paying attention on what the teacher was saying because it was the first class of the course and teachers never say anything worthwhile during the first class or so I thought... And ended up with the "left over" group (they were dividing the rest of the class into groups of four while I daydreamed) that consisted of me, a finnish guy who apparently can't speak clearly, really I never understand what he's saying, doesn't matter whether he's speaking finnish or english and he's extremely anti-social, an african guy who's african accent is really thick and again I can't understand him half of the time he's speaking and a vietnamese boy who wasn't at school at all during the first week of the project. He is really cute though so I forgive him, he's very short and it makes him look like he's twelve and I just want to hug him so bad.
The task was to pick a company and do a 20-30min presentation about the company and about a topic the teacher gave us (our's was financing in the international market), that's when the problems started, my group couldn't pick a company BECAUSE THERE WAS NO COMMUNICATION!! I tried ask them because I didn't have any company that I was that interested in but got no real answer, in the end the teacher picked us a company (UPM). For the next two weeks our group had NO CONTACT with each other, all the other groups were preparing their presentations or at least communicating with each other, we did nothing.
I started to realize that the situation was even more messed up than I had originally thought when two weeks before the presentation the vietnamese boy came and asked me if I was in his group and I realized that he hadn't even known who was in his group (because he wasn't at school when we divided the groups). So with reluctance I took the role of the leader (or an ass kicker) and held a meeting where I divided all of us something to do and gave the next Friday as a dead-line for everybody. Would have been nice if things had gone well after that...
And so the week went on and Friday came. We only had one class on Friday that was over at 9.30, after that we were going to put some kind of preliminary presentation together because at 12.00 we had a check-point meeting with the teacher where we had to show him what we had done. Let's just say that on Friday things went from bad to worse, the african boy was apparently sick (heard from somebody else not from the boy), the vietnamese was missing and the finnish boy, the only one from my group who was at school, told me after classes that he's NOT INTERESTED (in our classes/school/us), would maybe do something next week and that we can kick him out of the group if we want and went home, leaving me alone with only 1/4 of the stuff we were supposed to have ready. I was "slightly" pissed at my group at that point, after spending 2,5 hours researching and putting together some kind of power point presentation for the teacher I was furious at the morons of my group. The meeting with the teacher went rather well and he was really understanding of my situation and we agreed to meet again on Wednesday to look at the presentation AGAIN.
The weekend was spent studying financing/UPM, readying myself to do the whole damn project alone and of course being pissed. On Tuesday (Monday classes were canceled) told the Vietnamese and African what the teacher had said, they apologized for not being at school on Friday and again we agreed to get everything ready by Wednesday, I left school with a bit lighter mood that day. Btw, I did not talk to the Finnish boy eventhough he was at school that day because I was still extremely pissed at him.
Wednesday was so-so, I got PP slides from both the African and Vietnamese, the slides were done a bit half-assed but what ever I could make them better later and the Vietnamese even attended the meeting with the teacher with me (the African guy was at a resit). Thursday went on without much trouble, I even felt a bit very giddy when I did the title page for our presentation and left the finnish boy's name out of it (the project/presentation is mandatory for the course so unless he does something alone he'll be failing the course).
Friday's presentation went very well considering how little anyone put effort into this project. It was the longest 20-30 min of my life and during the presentation I felt like I was the only who knew something about financing in our group because though the boys tried to explain stuff their explanations made no sense at times. But the main point is that the presentation is over and I'm so very happy/relieved that it's over and I will never have to work with that group again. There, done, hopefully I can now rid myself of this relieved feeling and move on.
On to other things, where are my Eito cds? I want them now, I'm at my limit, next time I'll order them via air mail.
Better go to bed now so I can play a team leader to my stimulus/problem-solving team tomorrow, just to be clear the previously mentioned persons are not in my stimulus team though we do have a troublesome drama queen/manic depressive latino guy. Oh the joys of leadership, can't wait for tomorrow...