If you follow my Instagram, you know that I have been stressing about some deadlines a while ago. I had two deadlines for the same course on a Wednesday and I never thought I would miss the deadline. Today, I am going to tell you why I missed my deadline.
As I said before, I had to hand in 2 assignments on the same day, on the same hour. It was for a course that I follow this semester and we have to hand in new assignments every week. One of the assignments that I had to hand in that day was a paper that I had to write on my own and the other was a (fake) file that you had to claim that I had to do with someone else. I think you can already guess which deadline I missed.
Let me tell you something about my partner. This course doesn’t have a lot of people, I think there are about 10 people in that class. The classes are obligatory, you need to attend them. If you don’t, you need a serious reason why you weren’t present and hand in a doctor’s note. After the first or second class, I logged in on BlackBoard and saw that there was a new kid in our group. Maybe he switched classes? Later, I would find out that he wasn’t new at all, he just skipped the first classes because he was on a vacation.
When our teacher picked the partners for every group, he put us together and I immediately asked him to add me on Facebook. We had 2 weeks to prepare ourselves for this assignment and we agreed to first do some research on our own and work on our own assignments. He added me 1,5 week later. I didn’t really mind, because I was busy with my own assignment and I thought the assignment that we had to do together wouldn’t be a lot of work.
I was wrong. The subject that was assigned to us didn’t have any jurisprudence and we also had a really hard time to find legal grounds to file the claim. We were doing research for 2 days straight but couldn’t find anything. Not to mention, I was also sick during that week and it was really hard to focus for me. What really annoyed me is that he would disappear for hours sometimes. I really needed his help, especially because I wasn’t feeling well.
On the last day before the deadline, we had done so much research but didn’t have a single letter on paper. At one point (or multiple, actually), my partner wanted to give up. He wanted to go to sleep and hand in nothing the next day. I couldn’t believe it. Was he out of his mind? Not handing in anything means we’d miss the deadline and fail! I talked him out of it; we had already done a lot of research and there were things that we could use.. In the evening before the deadline, we decided to just start writing something down. In this case, the claim has 3 parts: names of the client, lawyers, date, etc., the part where you lay out all the facts that led to the claim, and what you are going to ask the judge based on legal grounds.
He was going to the first part and I did the facts. We checked each other’s work and I found a lot of mistakes in his part that I had to correct. Then there was one part left: the hardest part. We already found some legal grounds and we knew what we were going to ask the judge but the question was: who was going to write it. We agreed that he would start first, just to write something down and that I was going to finish it later. I wanted to check my assignment one more time and print it in the mean time.
When I returned to our chat, I realized that he hadn’t done a thing so I had to write the whole thing. He told me he was tired so he went to sleep while I was finishing our assignment. I wrote the third part, added all of the parts in one document and I even made autographs. I sent it to him to check once it was finished. He received it in the morning and told me he needed to add one more thing. I trusted him to send it to our teacher before 10.30 which was the deadline. He said wasn’t going to school that day because he was suffering from migraine.
I mean, I can live with that. I wasn’t really feeling well myself so I understood that he felt too sick to come. We had worked really hard the day before so I could understand he wasn’t feeling well. I just trusted him to finish the assignment and hand it in (digitally).
I messaged him a couple of times when I was traveling to school but he didn’t reply. A little voice in me told me he fell asleep and that I should just hand in my own version. I pushed away those thoughts and told myself that he probably was too busy working or that he already handed it in.
He didn’t. When the class started at 10.30 AM, he still hadn’t replied and he had’t hand in the assignment. I had to explain the teacher why I didn’t have the assignment with me. I explained to him that I made an agreement with my partner that he was going to send it in but that he probably fell asleep because he was sick. I felt so betrayed. How could he go to sleep when we had an assignment to hand in? How could he go to sleep knowing that it would not only affect him but also his partner? How could he care so little about something this important? I stayed up until very late to finish our assignment, even though I was sick because I couldn’t let him and myself down. How could he?
The usual sanction for missing a deadline is failing the class. I am not sure yet if I failed the class because of this incident. I am very lucky that my teacher is such a nice person, otherwise I would have failed already. He definitely was not happy about it but he wasn’t mad. After the class, the teacher asked me if I could ask him to hand in doctor’s notes for the classes he missed so far. I think my teacher realizes that my partner is a bit lax, if I can put it that way.
I went to the university library after that and handed in my own version. My partner still hadn’t replied and I just had to hand in something. I went home, feeling horrible. When I got home, I finally received a message from my partner. He told me he fell asleep. However, he still hadn’t finished the job he was supposed to do. It took him the whole afternoon before it was finished and when I looked at the document, he only added one sentence that didn’t even matter. It was 5.00 PM. We missed the deadline by 6,5 hours. This really made me mad.
I sent the final version to the teacher and printed it so I could hand it in the next day. I’m not sure what is going to happen now, but I have to work twice as hard to prove myself now. I have to do a fake trial with my partner as well so I am going to handle the situation differently than last time. Last time I was afraid of coming across as bossy but now I realize that I have to take control of my own, be in charge, if I want to save my grade.
I realize that both me and my partner were at fault for missing our deadline. We should have started earlier because it was a really tough assignment. I should have taken action when he wasn’t responding to my messages on the day of the deadline. Of course I am frustrated but I do not blame my partner. The only thing I can do now is carry on and work harder next time.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Have you ever missed a deadline? Or have you ever been partnered up with someone that didn’t put as much effort in the project as you did? Leave your comments below!
This is absolutely INSANE! How did you not murder that guy? Do nice people like you even exist in the world? When I missed an assignment because of my friend I was furious to the point where we stopped speaking. Maybe I’m just a bit intense though.. ?
I just got partnered with a person who is absolutely like your partner today. I dont know how will i survive this upcoming project. I can see why this is so frustrating and rather, sad for you. I have been in situations like these multiple times and it surprises me how some people can be so irresponsible.
BOTH OF YOU WERE AT FAULT? … I think you’re top hardware on yourself. You’re human, you can make mistakes. This mistake was trusting your partner and not realizing that he Is a total piece od shit (sorry, but your story made mi do damn angry). Its not your fault. I think you would do just fine on your own. ?
Yes, i got it. You’re trying not to blame your partner, but damn, its his damn fault.
I wish you better health And partner for any other groupwork you will have to go through.
Warning Bad English))
Tbh, I’m in highschool but, Everytime we get presentation to do in group only 2 out of 6 that will work properly while the other will just read the presentation with such a confident than they will get more score than me and my close friend that already work hard.
It does pissing me off but I’m surprise how positive you can be. It must be really annoying but you manage to work it out. And I agree with the fact you need to take control sometimes. You’re already in college and college people shouldn’t do stupid stuff like he does and be more mature about their own work.
That’s my thought, sorry it’s quite weird or stuff
Ya I’ve been on your shoes once and it was terrible….atleast your partner responded after 5or 6hours ..my patener did not respond to for a whole week and I just handed in my version of assignment and the professor thought that we both had done it and she passed the exam without any actual effort …. But I just moved on and I said myself that I have helped someone to pass their test and iam a good human……
Ugh i hate partner work. Something always goes wrong, and one perso ends up doing all the work! I hope your prof gives you the grade you deserve
I know the feeling, just last month I had to do an essay of 20 pages on my own because my other 2 partners didn’t do a thing…I gave them both dad lines to email me there parts of the essay for me to edit the all paper but they didn’t, what result on me having to stay awake the all night before the do date…and what is worst is that when I told the professor what happened they said that I was lying, it was just a big mess.
But if I was in your position I would have done the same that you did, because even after all the papers that I did with partners that didn’t do their part of the job, I continue to believe in people, but I also learn to always have a backup plan.
P.S. sorry if my English isn’t the best because it’s not my main language ??.
I read everything that you wrote to explain the situation and I must say that, though it is really nice of you to think better of your partner a d putting some trust into him, doing that in real life isn’t the smartest idea. If you have to work with a partner so lazy like that, I say you better do all the work by yourself because he will only drag you down. No matter what his reasons are, you need to think of yourself firsf and your grade that dependes on it. And if the teacher objects that, you can simply explain the situation and why you don’t want to fail because someone doesn’t put any effort in the assignment. I had couple of experiences like these where the other person was just lazy and expected me to do everything, but I always had a firm stance and said to them that I am more than glad to do it alone, but I will take all tbe credit and they are going to fail the assingment themselves. Usually its a wake-up call for most people, but some don’t care so they chose to fail anyways.
Sorry for long rambling, but I think you should keep in mind not to let others use you like that and let them do the important part when you know they aren’t trustworthy in the first place.
This is one of the reasons why I hate group projects so much. The work is never evenly distributed, you always have to find time that’s convinient for everybody, it hardly ever turns out the way you want, …
Thank God, I never missed a deadline but that sometimes meant that I had to do a lot of the workload, stay up late and I always am the one uploading the document so that I can be 100% sure that it is done on time.
I hope you won’t fail and that your teacher will understand your predicament. Just focus on you and your work and don’t try to make him pass. It is just important that you do your work.
Heyy, aah ik herken dit verhaal zo erg. Ik zit dan nog wel om de middelbare school (gymnasium) dus dit soort gevallen komen wel iets minder voor maar ik had het laatst ook.. ugh. Ik moest voor natuurkunde een praktisch schoolexamen maken (dus een proef waarbij je van te voren een opzet maakt over wat je wilt doen, materiaallijsten, theoretische berekeningen, enz., daarna doe je je proef en daarna maak je er een heel verslag over). Ik heb uiteindelijk letterlijk alles zelf moeten doen, mijn partner heeft letterlijk 3 regels tekst aan dit alles toegevoegd.
Ook van te voren, toen we de hele methode zelf moesten bedenken (wat het moeilijkste deel is) deed ze niks, ik moest al het werk doen. Ik heb daarna de opzet zelf gemaakt omdat ze steeds heel laat reageerde, en wat ze aangeleverd had waren ongeveer 8 woorden die ze van een ander groepje had overgeschreven en niet eens klopte bij onze proef….
Na het verslag heb ik ook alles zelf moeten doen omdat ze weer niks deed en omdat ze er ook niks van snapte omdat ze zich nog helemaal niet hiermee had bemoeid. Uiteindelijk heb ik dus het allemaal zelf gedaan.
En ik vind het echt heel erg vervelend, omdat het super druk op school is en anderen dit allemaal met zn tweeën konden doen. Maar aan de andere kant wilde ik niet wachten tot zij haar deel had ingeleverd, omdat ze dat misschien niet eens zou doen en omdat het sowieso slecht was, aangezien ze er niks van snapte. Dit was heel dubbel, want ik wilde niet dat mijn schoolexamen cijfer door haar naar beneden ging dus daarom heb ik alles alleen gedaan en krijgt zij nu een cijfer waarvoor ze niks gedaan heeft….
Over een maand komt er weer een praktisch schoolexamen bij natuurkunde en zij is weer de enige waarmee ik samen kan werken (de rest van het cluster heeft ook al vaste tweetallen), dus dan kan ik weer alles alleen gaan doen. Ik vind het echt heel kut maar naar de leraar gaan vind ik ook wel weer ver gaan, omdat ik haar niet wil ‘verraden’ aangezien ze een soort vriendin van me is.
Maar iig, genoeg gezeken haha, succes nog en ik hoop heel erg dat er uiteindelijk geen slechte gevolgen voor jou zijn omdat je partner niks heeft gedaan!
xx
omg, Rose! I am so sorry that happened to you and if that ever happened in the program I was in, I would literally go after my partner ? depending on how much the assignment is worth then in my class we get a possible fail and need to retake the class ? and i wanna kick your partner’s butt how inconsiderate ughh
Oh my, I can totally relate to you. I just spent an entire semester with a partner who would do literally nothing for our weekly assignments. Funnily enough she was my partner in two courses at once lol. She also had like the most stupid excuses why she’d be unable to help me this time, and if she actually did something it was just completely incorrect. So… I feel you. Hope you’ll pass the class after all!
You sound just like me when I work in groups as I want to be bossy but actually do well. I understand that if one holds you back you all fail, but this will be reflected in their own grades when outside of the group showing teaching staff he’s not that great of team member. Don’t take this two seriously and don’t get side track and feel like you have to change something. I’m getting over this stage myself and really had enough of the BS they bring.
Thank you so much for taking effort and spending your precious on replying the comments …. It really means a lot I’ve seen a lot of people who won’t even care about the comments (including my bestie who is also a youtuber ) but I should say this you are my role model ….I really like way you take things and be positive.. thank you so much rose It really means a lot to everyone who commented coz it’s nice to see someone replying back to you..thank you and have a good day..
If I were you I would do the next assignment alone (even if you have to work more) and then sign it as if you had done it with him. You’ll have a great workload yes, but you know you won’t fail because of another person. Have a nice evening!
I get what you’ve gone through. I’m in a work group as well and right now i’m the only one who deals with the teacher, who gives part of the work to get corrected, the one who gets up earlier than the rest to pick up the corrected text at college… The only one who takes care, in conclusion. But, as you say, there’s nothing you can do about it but to work harder next time. Carry on!
It’s sad to say but you can trust NOBODY.
I mean, next time, make sure you have the WHOLE thing, and not waiting after anybody.
I’m sorry for you, because you just weren’t lucky, you’ve get a partner who didn’t care about school. It’s not completely your fault.
But, the saddest part is : when you are not “bossy” as you said, people don’t do anything. And being bossy is so unpleasant sometimes. On the other hand, when you have no choice and you wanna succeed, you have no choice.
I hope you will be ok with this tho, maybe you could ask your teacher to give you another assignment? I know in France we can do it.
I’m so sorry you had to go through this but I missed some online assignment before. Whenever we start a group project/assignment I try to see and feel what my group(partner) would be like. And then if they are the person who doesn’t take the assignment seriously then I take the matters on my own. Thats when I become a bit bossy(well I think I’m already natural in being bossy) Like emailing the teacher, letting the teacher know that he/she is not participating, not attending group meetings. In my college we usually make an agreement and sign it before we start a project like what would be the consequences if one member is not participating. Group projects can a be such a pain but so far I’ve been with a group of people who works hard on the assignment we are given.
I hope you never run in this problem again. And always let your professor know if something does arise.
I really find it so interesting to read these kind of blogpost, about real life university struggles! And reading the comments I feel like I’m not alone when it comes to dealing with bad partners. For my profielwerkstuk/school research project my good partner and I involuntarily suddenly got a new partner because she had no one (because everyone knows she isn’t a good partner). We said we didn’t want her because I had worked with her for more than 6 times already in my life and it wasn’t so pleasant so I thought I had all the right to refuse her but the teacher said we just had to deal with her -.- She never finished her part on time and she never communicated with us. The teacher said ‘you guys have a 7 and that’s really high despite the fact that you were with 3 people instead of 2’ -.- So we could have gone higher + she didn’t put reasonable amount of effort at all and received a 7 so it was totally unfair. I hope your teacher will be smooth on you and you should keep fighting for justice!!!! (like a lawyer!) I regret not objecting to the grade because some people did that and they got higher 🙁
OH GOD YES! I am currently working on a project that is 80% of the final grade and I have a lazy partner, I usually do all the work. But what makes me even more mad is thag we get the same scores 🙁
Yeah I have to agree! I would be so angry about this, I’m a nursing major and for one of my classes, we had a group assisgnment, this one girl and myself were the only ones out of the 4 of us who did the assignment and everyone has to participate to get points, ooooh I was so mad, we ended up getting an 8/12 on it. My professor ended up not doing this anymore since people kept coming up with excuses.
Throughly my whole Uni life I’ve always had these kind of partners! They don’t care about passing or failing. Hope you pass the module, but if not, speak to the professor of the course. My prof confronted my partners and found out that they didn’t know anything about the assignment. She told them that the next time she hears a complaint from them, she would not let them pass the course. Best day of my life!!!
The exact same thing happened to me three years before but it ended up really good …….I handed the assignment to the professor and he thought me and my patener did that so we both passed the test . a couple days after he called me he apologized to me for doing that…days passed and we talked a lot because he was my patener in the class and that was my last year of uni …..we became best friends and we started to date each other and now I’m going marry him in a couple of days…….iam really thankful for that incident….that was great experienc. hope you have good day…… thank you for posting this.it really remainder me of those days studying astrophysics
At my school I am able to get my own mark, if I labelled whatever was my work. But I understand that not all teachers are that way. I have had something similar happen to me before but it seems not so bad after reading this. Hope you get a good mark. Xx
P.s I would have knocked all his teeth out or something if I were you. HAHAHAH.
omg, i’ve never had that. but something else every time that i begin late with studying and preparing for a test i will always get a feeling that says “you’re not prepared” you didn’t study anough” and i hate that feeling so much. does anyone have some tips for getting that feeling away?
Wow! I’m feeling very angry at your partner. But I trust your potential and I know that this event only makes you stronger.
There have been times when I had to come across partners who didnt want to do anything, and I confess that I was already a part of my life, but I think that in the end, it depends on ourselves.
Ugh, group. At least having to work with others helps you prepare for the real world (that’s what I tell myself when I’m frustrated with a group project.
Also, I just wanted to say I really enjoy reading your blog. Your posts are always so well written and fun to read, and they also motivate me to stop procrastinating on the internet 🙂 .
Pfff het typische probleem van groepswerk…. Ik zit in het tweede jaar van de studie Food technology en dit is vrijwel alleen maar groepswerk. Practica, business plans etc. En het zijn altijd dezelfde mensen die hun tijd niet goed kunnen indelen en deadlines niet halen. Ik ben altijd eerlijk als ik het ergens niet mee eens ben en als iets niet werk. Vind dat je rond deze leeftijd volwassen genoeg moet zijn om de afgesproken deadlines te halen en een goed stuk tekst in te leveren. Snap niet hoe die mensen dat anders later op de werkvloer willen gaan doen. Ik bedoel, deadline niet gehaald omdat ik liever uit eten ging? Dat gaat er dan echt niet meer in. Tegenwoordig ben ik eerlijk en zeg ik ook tegen die mensen dat zij de groep benadelen door het feit dat ze dingen niet af hebben en dat dat niet meer kan gebeuren of ze moeten een ander groepje zoeken, dit helpt de laatste tijd wel haha! Vooral met practicum tentamens is het balen als je partner niet geleerd heeft en mee kan liften op jou kennis. Inmiddels heb ik maar geaccepteerd dat je niks kunt doen aan het gedrag van je partners, tenminste niets anders dan er iets van zeggen. Maar dat je wel je eigen gedachte en gedrag aan kan passen door er niet boos om te worden etc. Die mensen gaan we ons hele leven nog tegenkomen en het zijn er meer dan je denkt ?
i alwayyssss get paired with the laziest and most annoying partners because the teachers think pairing the mature people with the annoying people is good, well it isnt and in paired work I just end up doing it al and don’t bother about the fact that they take the credit, because in the end if they did actually do the work, we would have failed. 😐
I totally relate to this article! I’ve had difficult partners to work with on and off throughout my school career, and it has been to the point where it can get extremely overwhelming. However, I’ve learned to deal with it, and like you stated in the article, becoming frustrated at someone won’t really help you, or your partner.
Omg; maybe I’m a little bit late to this post but I couldn’t just stay quiet!
I feel like I always have to be pushing people in order to make it to the deadlines. Except for when I work with my boyfriend, the rest of the assignments are tedious and I always end up doing 90% of the work on my own.
I am so sorry this happened to you, I have missed a couple of deadlines and couldn’t sleep for days after, because I felt so discouraged and bad. Be the girl boss you are next time, and f him if he gets mad!
Love your channel and website, girl.
xoxo
I figured it destiny that led me to this post at this time. Just yesterday, I did very poorly on a major requirement for my Comparative Politics class. I was supposed to write a case study on the social changes in Argentina beginning from the 1800s. The guidelines were given as soon as the semester began last January, but I had to put off writing it until last weekend largely because I wasn’t motivated enough to write it earlier. My case study was only 80% done and I wasn’t able to prepare a Powerpoint presentation, but the professor allowed me to proceed with the reporting anyway. Towards the second half of my report, the professor looked really disappointed, which made my reporting even more terrible. To make matters worse, I couldn’t answer her follow up questions and even missed the most important regime she specifically instructed to focus on. I felt really embarrassed and disheartened, especially because I’ve had several classes with that professor and more than once, she has told me that writing is my strength. I cried during the whole lunch break and couldn’t focus on anything during my afternoon classes. I cried some more when I got back to my dorm, had dinner, then cried myself to sleep. I wanted that incident to simple be a one-off bump in the road that would motivate me to do better so I can redeem myself. However, judging by how I haven’t done anything since last night ’til today, it doesn’t seem to have that effect. 🙁
hey Rose. i wanted to ask how you created your website because I have been thinking about one for myself, I just can’t find a good website creator. thank you
btw I love your website and your youtube channel everything is so helpful and yeah thank you
keep up the good work
~clara
it’s ok, let them have your grade now so they can fail in the society later on