Editorials

#YEAR10PROBLEMS

3 December 2014

By Lauren E. White

Working in a Group

This week’s #YEAR10PROBLEMS is centered around something that we have all had to do at least once in our life. I am all for team work and group participation as many situations in life involve working together. It’s not the concept of working in a group that annoys me – it’s the roles within the group that annoy me.

Usually there’s one person who has to take charge of the whole thing (most likely myself) and sort everyone else out as nobody is willing to do it themselves. Without being biased, I have to say that the role of the ‘leader’ is the most difficult one as you often end up doing the majority of the work yourself. After the leader, there’s the one person who actually tries to help, but isn’t very good at it. Well done for trying, but without any common sense you won’t get very far. Then there’s the ultimate slacker – the person who stands back and lets everyone else get on with the work. If you have a group of more than three, chances are that there will be more slackers. For whatever reason, they decide to leave it all down to other people and stand around like a lemon. Why they think it’s perfectly reasonable to do this is absolutely beyond me.

Unfortunately, though, for anyone who is not in Year 10, I regret to inform you that these issues don’t get better. Even when you’re doing your GCSE ISA practical, there will always be at least one slacker. It grinds on me that these people rely on others to do their work and get them some results to input on a graph that they will most likely copy off of someone else anyway.

If you’re the slacker in a group, take a step back (you’re good at it) and look at the other people working to get you a good grade because they care too much to let you and everyone else fall behind. Don’t be the slacker as one day, there won’t be a leader or the person who tries to help. One day, it will be just you.

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