Group Projects | Shawna's Blog of Doom

Howdy, howdy! What’s everyone up to on this lovely day? Not much going on here. I’ve been hermitting hard. I’m not really avoiding people, but I’m not initiating contact much. Sorry! But anyway… tomorrow is Jenae’s birthday, so I have to take a minute to squee! Happy early birthday, Sis! Love yous! And now back to our regularly scheduled program: the ask me about stuff. I’ve done 13, 31, and 41. Today is 54. Next week is 7. Feel free to pick a number or two to add to the list. The prompts are in the post for 13. Today, apparently we’re going all the way back to school with… “Ask me about what I hate most about school.”

School was a long time ago. Like 8.5 years ago. That’s weird to think about. But I suppose what I hated the most were group projects. I’m very much the kind of person who sits back and let’s the group decide on the hierarchy, then I volunteer for the key elements (mostly putting together the slideshows on top of whatever section I’m assigned), so that I have a reason to relentlessly prod people to finish their part in a timely manner and get it to me. And if the leader was useless, I’d gently usurp the role because no one else actually cared. I wasn’t about to get a bad grade because other people sucked. The only group project I didn’t mind was for a research methods class. We had to work together on the experiment, but were only graded on our individual papers. That was a nice assignment.

I also despised prissy professors. The ones who acted like they were superior to everyone and if they didn’t like something, it was drivel. Those people in general annoy me, but teachers like that were the worst. Like the first year creative writing professor I had at SMU who told me I was a great writer, but that genre fiction was an unworthy pursuit. Like… my dude. All those authors of old that you worship were the pop fiction writers of their time. Chill. My classmates seemed to enjoy my stories, weirdness and all, so it was like fifteen people vs. one. I think I did okay with pleasing my audience.

And teachers who don’t clearly tell you their needs/expectations then blame you when they screw up. Like the statistics teacher who “didn’t know” that I would need to take my tests in the disability center despite the email I sent before the semester even started, the letter I hand delivered the first day of class outlining my accommodations, and the first test that I took in the disability office with no issues whatsoever. She just forgot and got mad at me for “not telling” her. If she needed reminders, she should’ve admitted it. None of my other teachers ever needed them, so I didn’t think about it. Needless to say, I inundated her with reminders for every test afterwards to the point where I knew I was being annoying and asked every teacher after that semester up front if they would like me to remind them about tests. Don’t yell at your students because you forgot something. Ugh.

I got lucky. There wasn’t too much to hate about school in general. I like learning. Most of my issues had to do with accessibility on the campuses, which varied from school to school. What did you hate about school? As always, feel free to share your responses and whatnot here or on my social media pages!

Hello, hello! How’s everyone doing this week? Enjoying your September and pumpkin spice? It’s still in the 90s here, so I have no interest in autumn drinks yet. But it’s time for the last ‘get to know me’ post unless someone picks another prompt or I decide to cheat and pick one myself next week. I might even look for new lists like this. I saw one about books the other day. Maybe I’ll hunt that one down for October or November. It’s just so much easier to write a post from a prompt. Anyway, if you’ve been following along, you’ll know that we’ve covered 47, 13, 43, 33, and 11. Today, Jen chose 27. The prompt is ‘work from home or office culture.’ I have no office experience, but I’ll try to think of something to say.

I’ve never really thought about office culture before. If I compare it to college, I probably wouldn’t mind it. Being in a company where I’m doing my own assignment/job and mostly interacting with co-workers in need be or even semi-social situations doesn’t sound entirely horrible. Now, if it’s a group project, hell no. I hated them in school and would hate them at work. I was usually the one doing most of the work because I valued my grades. Put a paycheck on the line and I’d end up doing all of the work. No thanks. But yeah… as long as I could keep my head down and do my own work, I wouldn’t be opposed to a mundane office job. Pre-plague anyway. I wouldn’t want one now.

Working from home is fine. It’d be easier on me because my computer and everything is already set up for me. Being able to do things via email instead of face to face is divine. I would hate it if I was required to make phone calls. And random Zoom meetings would be horrible. But working from home sounds like a better choice overall. Which is why writing seemed like a good fit for me. I do the bulk of things on my own and (so far) everything else is done through emails and submission portals. No one has to hear my voice and that makes me very happy.

However, working implies that I get paid regularly, which I don’t. So, I can’t really tell you which of these scenarios I would prefer. I have to be super careful about any paying job I get because I have to worry about losing my benefits. It’s a whole thing. I mean, they took away my SSI and made me apply for a different version of Medicaid because the government started paying me a whole $12 extra a month which put me above the SSI cutoff. Not that anyone could actually live on what the government gives me. But I require Medicaid in order to survive, so my options are get a super high paying job with excellent benefits even though I have zero work experience, marry a multimillionaire and hope the prenup gives me a few million to live on just in case, or stay poor. So, yeah. Easy-peasy, right?

There you go. I’m not opposed to office work, but work from home sounds much better. What about you? Are you an office minion or do you prefer doing your work in your underwear? As always, feel free to leave your thoughts or questions here or on my social media pages!