Group Work

The way I work is pretty unconventional and so I have a tendency to work alone and as with most, I feel I work more efficiently alone. However, there are times when working alone becomes overwhelming and having a group support is much better. While working alone have its definite benefits, so too does working in groups. The workload can be distributed accordingly and each member assumes a role that he or she becomes responsible for. In its ideal form, working in a group is much easier than working alone because more work can be done and can be done efficiently. For our “Kiem An” Project, we were put into several smaller groups to get the work done and for the most part I believe that it went quite well. All of our deadlines were met and the quality of our work was good. We distributed the work among ourselves and for the most part we all did about equal amount of works. However, with every group, I have experienced that there is always at least one individual who can be described as the “weakest link.” This individual does very little or no work at all and relies heavily on the contributions of others.

For my group in particular, overall we did pretty well and the work was distributed equally, with the exception of one which I will discuss later. Initially, we interviewed our first two occupations in larger numbers which actually turned out to be less efficient. There would be three or four of us interviewing which I felt intimidated the interviewee and make him/her feel uncomfortable, which in turn affected the answers we were given. After that initial trial and error phase we were able to refine our approach and so naturally our team divided into two smaller teams of two. However, bear in mind we have five members total in our group. Working in teams of two for the interview, we were able to get more out of the interviewee and the conversation was very casual. The transcribing and translating was done according to the group as well, however, group members of another group would assist as well. Everyone would try to attribute to the editing and proofreading of the work.

As previously mentioned, the group work was not without problems. The one individual in particular did very little to contribute in the beginning. In fact, this individual did not go to any interviews nor assist in any transcribing, translation, or proofreading of the work. While many of the group members were angered by this, we passed it off because we knew that this lack of work and effort would reflect in the grade this individual received. However, as soon as it was reiterated in class that part of the grade would be based upon peer evaluation of the group work, there was a miraculous turnaround in this individual and this person wanted to do all the work and for a lack of a better term “kiss everyone’s ass.” For the last couple interviews, this individual made an effort to be at every interview and do all the transcribing and translating. While I applaud the individual’s effort, my response is: too little too late. What infuriates me more is the fact that I have confronted this individual and this person did not deny it. My peer evaluation will take into consideration the work she has done now, but it will definitely reflect the lack of work done at the beginning. With that said, beside the bad apple, working with this group has been a fun and rewarding experience. We helped each other even though we were divided into smaller groups and the communication was for the most part open and direct. As a result, we got much of the work done and done well.