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The BMW Guy
02-28-2013, 07:33 PM
I can't fucking stand it. I don't want to babysit these lazy fucks any more (some, not all).

When my team members (at school) work, they work very well. Problem is, this rarely happens. I have to almost micro-manage them. Tell them exactly what to do and keep them on track. Give them deadlines and shit. How can I get them self motivated?

Every 10 mins I always look over to see what they are working on and lo and behold, watching video game streams. I asked one guy what he was working on and for about 20 mins he was trying to write a sentence on Google Docs. His cursor hadn't moved for 20...fucking...minutes. It takes them 5 hours to do what we can do within maybe 1.5 hours.

Wish I could get new team members, but they are assigned to us with no flexibility.

How can I get them motivated? They don't seem to give two shits about anything except gaming...well, except for occasionally showing YouTube videos to the group.

calgarygts
02-28-2013, 08:07 PM
My experience (I'm back in school right now with the same problem) - if you want to well and you're stuck with donkeys you have to do it yourself. Tell the prof right away, don't wait! Profs had to go through this too and usually have sympathy for hard working students...but only if you tell them early.

Keep working hard and don't let the laziness of others slow you down!

kvg
02-28-2013, 08:16 PM
You'll probably have to do it yourself and like calgarygts said tell the prof.

SHO
02-28-2013, 09:21 PM
Go to monster.ca do a job search for Calgary area, than narrow it down with the more options selection. Select "education level" see the jobs for high school grads only! Pretty bleak do a screen shot and print it out. Present it to the two idiots and say between the pair of you you get 11 choices. (Currently the high school level jobs listed on Monster)

Oh ya it's an asshole move but they may end up thanking you later in life.

just my 0.02 cents

dirtsniffer
02-28-2013, 10:16 PM
Kick them out off the group. Tell the prof they are coasting and they are no longer needed on your team. Or say you want to be your own group. Or suck it up

You're in first year engg right? That design class sucks and when I took that course it was two semesters long. And lots of kids drop in first year, so much for half the group. Out of the 5 people that were in my first year group I am the only one left graduating in engineering this year. 1 guy switched to geology, another had to redo a bunch of first year and the other two quit.

My recommendation, use a smaller assignment as a tool, show them what happens if they slack till the night before, see what they do without you looking at their computer every five minutes. Don tell them what to do. And let them get the mark they deserve. If it works, great; if not, take the reigns.

tch7
02-28-2013, 10:18 PM
Do it yourself and omit their name from anything you submit (or scale their names relative to their contribution similar to what's done in movie credits). If your team members suck, nothing you do is going to change that in the span of a semester, so don't waste your effort on trying to build an effective team.

My worst group in university taught me a valuable lesson: Not only are communications degrees useless, but so are communications students.
After that one it made even my worst engineering groups seem like a bunch of brilliant, socially adept keeners.

dubhead
02-28-2013, 10:28 PM
If they won't do it then just keep cracking the whip its annoying and unfortunately sometimes getting people to pull their weight is more work than just doing it yourself. I struggle with this problem all the time trying to run a student club, I guess you just have to find reasons why they benefit from putting in the work.

Also what has been previously stated let your prof no early if someone is slacking off sometime they can help.

roll_over
02-28-2013, 10:37 PM
Instead of just telling them what to do explain to them why its important.
Make an emotional connection

"dear can you got get some garlic?"

"dear can you please go to the store to get some garlic, its the secret ingredient to my famous salmon dish, i can't go because im busy cooking and the smiths are coming over for supper tonight"

use a minimum of three items and three actions

gatorade
03-01-2013, 01:43 AM
Originally posted by tch7
Do it yourself and omit their name from anything you submit (or scale their names relative to their contribution similar to what's done in movie credits). If your team members suck, nothing you do is going to change that in the span of a semester, so don't waste your effort on trying to build an effective team.

My worst group in university taught me a valuable lesson: Not only are communications degrees useless, but so are communications students.
After that one it made even my worst engineering groups seem like a bunch of brilliant, socially adept keeners.

lol your critique on communication students is fucking true, I took a comm class to fill my general education cluster and haven't dealt with bigger retards than in this class throughout my whole undergrad. Add to that was the fact that we had two group projects where I ended up putting in extra work in order to ensure a good mark.

In relation to the op, it sucks but you will probably have to pull in extra work to make up for the idiots in your group, either that or talk to the prof and asked to only be marked on your own work. I had to do the former and although it wasn't right, it was necessary to keep my marks good.

It sucks but you just can't motivate people like that, they have their own lives and goals.

Disoblige
03-01-2013, 09:43 AM
There are some pretty bad engineering students in group work, but when I did COMS363, I was stuck with someone in Social Sciences and my head wanted to explode. She was beyond useless.

A lot of good info in this thread. The truth is, 99% of the time, you won't be able to motivate them. Get new members, complain, and/or do work yourself and omit their names as mentioned.

flipstah
03-01-2013, 09:57 AM
Present an ultimatum or kick them out of the group. I've had to do them in university and while they look pissed, they know they fucked up and usually smarten up after.

The ones that are apathetic are just kicked out.

Welcome to real life.

DeleriousZ
03-01-2013, 10:05 AM
Originally posted by tch7
My worst group in university taught me a valuable lesson: Not only are communications degrees useless, but so are communications students.
After that one it made even my worst engineering groups seem like a bunch of brilliant, socially adept keeners.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: oh man this had me in stitches. that shit is almost sig worthy

tangj
03-01-2013, 10:26 AM
Originally posted by calgarygts
My experience (I'm back in school right now with the same problem) - if you want to well and you're stuck with donkeys you have to do it yourself. Tell the prof right away, don't wait! Profs had to go through this too and usually have sympathy for hard working students...but only if you tell them early.

Keep working hard and don't let the laziness of others slow you down!

I don't recommend going to tell the prof right away, you should try to remedy the situation yourself, and if all else fails then go tell the prof.

I'm in a similar situation as yourself right now with my 500 project. I had 2 others that didn't do jack shit, and when I do tell them to do something I have to hold their hand through it cause they're dumb as fuck ( they got through school with all roadmaps..)
But how i resolved it was to just write up a group contract, and made everyone sign it, and within the contract there repercussions for people who dont carry their weight of the project. For our group we have weekly meetings and you report your "minutes" of what you have done, and it is pretty clear who didnt do anything.

But for each part of the project that we have to submit, whatever grade we got for it, instead of everyone being assigned the same grade, we would allocate part of the grades of the people who didnt do anything to the people who did to bump them up a letter grade to compensate for them doing more work.
An example would be for a tech deliverable the group receives a B grade. But mainly 2 of the 4 people basically did all of the work. You would change the grade from the 2 dumb fucks to a C and get the prof to change yours to a A- or something. Most people who dont do shit dont expect a high grade, they just want to pass and move on, usually theyre happy just to receive a C as they just dont give a fuck.
Hardest part for you would be to get them to sign the group contract. and im sure all your profs would support this.

The BMW Guy
03-03-2013, 06:26 PM
Reached a happy medium, they are nice guys (just lazy) so I didn't want to just dump them. Basically if they finish task X in Y amount of time, then they can take a break and do whatever their heart desires for a set amount of time.

It isn't 100% efficient (some rush their work to get the break) but it is a big improvement. I pull them off and cancel their break if I look over their work and see they did a half ass job though, so they are starting to pick up their work quality. Some are getting me to look over their stuff before they take a break as well, which is nice to see.

Don't know if I come off as a micro-managing jack ass to them, but at least we are actually finishing projects ahead of time now. And I join them on their games once in a while :D

flipstah
03-04-2013, 11:12 AM
Originally posted by The BMW Guy
Reached a happy medium, they are nice guys (just lazy) so I didn't want to just dump them. Basically if they finish task X in Y amount of time, then they can take a break and do whatever their heart desires for a set amount of time.

It isn't 100% efficient (some rush their work to get the break) but it is a big improvement. I pull them off and cancel their break if I look over their work and see they did a half ass job though, so they are starting to pick up their work quality. Some are getting me to look over their stuff before they take a break as well, which is nice to see.

Don't know if I come off as a micro-managing jack ass to them, but at least we are actually finishing projects ahead of time now. And I join them on their games once in a while :D

Sounds like you're baby-sitting.

Disoblige
03-04-2013, 11:16 AM
University students that are addicted to games and don't do their work tend to be babies.

Lex350
03-04-2013, 11:21 AM
If nothing else this is a wonderful life lesson on what to expect when you are out working. So many times I have had useless skidmarks assigned to a project and in the end just ended up doing all the wotk.