Library School Hazing

I've been a little short with people lately. I just wanted to tell you all what's been going on, because I frankly feel like I'm getting hazed.

This all starts weeks ago when we get assigned a group project. I will call my groupmates for this project Flighty Funds and Super Woman. We were the only three people in our class not to make it to orientation, so naturally, none of us knew what was going on, and we're the odd group of three in the class where every other group has 4. Well, we all decided, what the heck? We're going to do this project and kick it's butt anyways. We decide to do our research and regroup at the next weekend class.

Flash forward to a week later. Another group member, Absent Anonymous, is added to our group. She posts to our group page and we explain the project and plan to her.

Flash forward to the next weekend class. Super Woman and I are there; Flighty and Absent are not. Where are they? I ask our counselor, and she says Flighty has been having some trouble getting government funding to pay for the program (he's a veteran, so he should be getting it). She has no clue about absent. Now 2 weeks out from the due date of the project, S.W. and I are trying desperately to contact the other half of our missing group. In the mean time, we decide we're in it alone (just in case) and divy up the heavy workload between the 2 of us. I'm writing the paper, and S.W. is doing the power point, and she's got some friends to pick up the slack on the interviews and observations Flighty was supposed to do.

One week to go. No word from Flighty or Absent. I write the professor, and she says she'll try to contact them for us and acknowledges how hard we must be working. The next day, Flighty sends a brief email saying how sorry he is--his funding has finally gone through and now that he's certain he's in the class, what can he do? Well, the paper and power point are finished, and S.W. and I are fizzed out on stress and hard work. We tell him he can redeem himself doing the interviews and observations he initially volunteered for, relieved that our hard work is over.

Four days out, Flighty writes back--he can't do the observations and interviews. He doesn't get off of work until 4:30 every day. S.W. loses it that he waited so long to say this, and sends him a tactful email stating her frustrations. She's asking me if we should just boot him from the team, because now we're super rushed trying to get the interviews done because we put our faith in unreliable Flighty again. I tell her to write the professor; I understand her concern that Flighty really shouldn't get credit for the assignment the two of us put together alone, but at the same time I don't want to get Flighty kicked out of the program.

S.W. writes a spirited email to the professor, which I have not seen. What I have seen is the professor's response where she sounds extremely concerned for S.W.'s mental health and is asking if either of us would like to call her to talk it over. I volunteer to take on half of the interviews (doesn't matter, we're 2 days out now and people we're calling aren't calling back). I write the professor--sure, I'd love to talk to her if only to assure her we're not suicidal over the project.

So now I'm sitting here, waiting for a call back that I'm not positive is coming and trying to organize my thoughts on what I'm going to say about Flighty. This project is worth 40% of our grade. He will not pass without it, because you don't get credit if you get less than a B in any class. S.W. just wants to watch him fry for what he did to us, and part of me agrees with her. He told us nothing of his situation until the one week out one sentence apology and expects that we would just let him back with no qualms. And in my brain, this somehow equates to the 72 hour shift they make medical interns go through.

I got punked on this assignment.

Alula