When you think that you trusted your project partner

I dedicate this post to my partner that I was assigned for the Final Project of Front Office Operations


     It is a pain when one must do group projects. It is a known fact that this type of project is the least favorite of students and also the most risky to assign. I have been screwed over before by being the one who does too much of it, Letting some one take charge then not let me work on it/ say I didn't do work on it and take credit for what I have done. This latest atrocity that I have had is the last time I do a group project ever and will fight tooth and nail if this type is assigned again.
     The last project was to do the fallowing: Go to a hotel in Boston, Interview someone who is a Front Deck Manager or someone who works in Human Resources, write a paper on your findings. Easy and takes only twenty minutes for the interviewing and then three or four hours to compile and write. Not a difficult thing to accomplish. My partner and I went and did our hotel visit and conducted our interview with the Front Office Manager. Later we did our paper and the computer died with the paper still on it. Next thing was that Our Professor said on the due date that we needed to give him something before he left to go home and finish his grading. So we went to the Library and I started a Google doc to ensure that if the machine died again that we could go and retrieve it out of the cloud. Turns out that while we were writing my partner had his book out and was plagiarizing from it. It did not occur to me what he was doing because we just came back from class so of course he had his book and I thought that he was relating some of the interview to class discussions, Like a good student would to gain favor points for handing in a late Final Project. That night I received an email explaining why we both got a zero for our work.
     I almost cried. This was more stress than I needed on finals week and I immediately went through and highlighted what it was that I wrote exactly in the paper and sent it off, also requesting a meeting. The reply was swift and was much better than I thought it would be. It said that I should not worry too much as there was a frantic voice in my reply and to meet him in his office so he could give me his solution. My worst fear was that I was to be expelled because my name was on the paper and there fore guilty by association. This was not the case instead I had two weeks to redo the paper using a hotel in my area as I was going home that day. Thank god I am on such good terms with my professor and the dean of academic affairs. I would never steal somebody's work.
     Any how I HATE my partner for this insult and I never want to work with him again. He shouldn't have been that desperate and stupid to plagiarize from a book that the professor would know cover to cover as this is the book that he has used for years, keeping up with the updated version of course but they never change much.

Alone time and the lack of it.

Recently I have found that I can't get the room to myself to do some revision of my notes for finals this coming week. The problem is that I like to study with a mug of some sort of caffeinated warm liquid (espresso if you will). Now I don't like to bring this into a library because it is a general courtesy to the librarians that I like to keep up. I like to let them worry about important information things rather then putting their focus on the safety of the paper collection. Now I can study in a noisy room (thank you to the inventor of the headphone and the one who fallowed suit with the noise canceling version) but, I can't study in a dark room. Now I could flip the switch but then my pot zombie and hungover roommates would scream and start an argument that I don't feel like dealing with. As it is Friday I am willing to limit myself to a small chunk of revision but tomorrow and Sunday its lights on so they better deal. I thought that I would get the room tonight as one of them is leaving before finals as he is dropping out and this is his last weekend to live it up in Boston. One did go out and the the other two and one girlfriend decided to stay in and watch Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. This bothers me as all the one that is leaving has been talking only of his desire to go out and get so drunk that he would make out with women (yes he is gay). The others said that they would go out as usual they didn't invite me but that is because I don't like to get drunk in a bar with people that I don't trust. As usual they are all broke from ordering excessive amounts of Dominos Pizza and things that one buys in a discreet manner. So I am stuck with a room that only the blind would know how to navigate.
Till my next rant
Rob C