Yesterday, I had a small disagreement with my group mate regarding our report feedback. My take on the feedback form is to reflect my opinion on each member truthfully. His, however, is to falsely reflect that the project went smoothly and everyone put in equal contribution so that it shows that we have a good teamwork because if the tutor feels that there is no teamwork, he could deduct our score. So he’s saying that I should put a decent comment even on a member who refuse to participate, never listen, and produce rubbish work just to make others’ life more miserable. And he’s my group leader. This put me off completely. I felt like I should no longer need to put effort into the project anymore. Anyway, how high our grade goes is already limited by how much rubbish the person gave us. To him, it may be just a stupid feedback form for us to waste more time trying to show how good our group is but to me, it’s the only form of reflection that I have to show my view on this project and who is putting in effort and who’s not. Well, eventually, I stop caring so much about the whole project and just do my part and leave it be.
Through this small situation, I noticed something. This is actually one of the classic cases of ethical issue that happen in a project. Some people choose to hide the truth when they know the truth will hurt them. My question is: “is this ethical?” or “do you even care?” It also reminds me of something he mentioned back then on the death case of the NTU student. We were discussing about the many rumors that have been circulating around on whether he was attacker or a victim and whether the case is related to the suicide case of the NTU staff. He was blaming the school and the media for covering up the truth and exaggerating the facts. Then he said, “Why don’t they just tell us the truth? all I want to know is the truth.” And now he’s contradicting himself. If I were to re-quote his statement back to him, he’d probably just shrug and say that they are totally unrelated. Are they? Contextually, No, they are not related, but Ethically, Yes, they definitely are.
Through this small situation, I noticed something. This is actually one of the classic cases of ethical issue that happen in a project. Some people choose to hide the truth when they know the truth will hurt them. My question is: “is this ethical?” or “do you even care?” It also reminds me of something he mentioned back then on the death case of the NTU student. We were discussing about the many rumors that have been circulating around on whether he was attacker or a victim and whether the case is related to the suicide case of the NTU staff. He was blaming the school and the media for covering up the truth and exaggerating the facts. Then he said, “Why don’t they just tell us the truth? all I want to know is the truth.” And now he’s contradicting himself. If I were to re-quote his statement back to him, he’d probably just shrug and say that they are totally unrelated. Are they? Contextually, No, they are not related, but Ethically, Yes, they definitely are.
Comments (3)
In the first place, who elected him to be the leader? Hehehe..was it decided by lecturer?
This kind of people is everywhere...dun be surprised when you go to work and meet this rubbish people again...
You did a wise choice by doing your part and leave them be...but sometimes, you have to go that extra mile to tell (directly or indirectly) what you think about him...
Our Asian mentality will eventually force us to think that if we put negative feedbacks, we will get less marks etc...so if you want to save all the troubles , put neutral comments and when the project concluded, you can just tell you honest opinion e.g. "I feel that we could have done better if you put in more effort in your work", etc...
If not, you can go around convincing people to put their honest opinions in the feedback form...but again, our Asian mentality will be hard to change..
He was chosen to be the leader because rest die die don't want to be leader then I'm already leader in 2 other project group so I didn't want another 1.
Yeah man you're so right, sadly :(. Actually, I did went the extra mile to tell him directly. I also told him if you just keep on helping and covering up the person's rubbish, the person himself also will never learn anything through the project. But he said my logic is wrong because it we don't do that we will fail. Then I said "I'm asking you to not help improve his work what I'm saying is that we should let him know that he did not contribute anything much in this project so that afterward he can reflect on himself. Otherwise, he'll just continue sabotaging everything group that he's in thinking he's actually contributing his part well."
Well, he still insisted I was wrong because my method doesn't help the group to score. Then I got a bit frustrated so I asked him whether score is the only he actually cares about, which he said yes. So I was like alright, but I told him that he could write anything in his feedback form and just don't edit mine, which believe it or not, he intended to -.-". Then it ended off by him saying that he'd do it based on his logic and let me do based on mine. Actually, the best part is he actually totally agree on the fact that the person is screwing the project.
Hahaha I'm just speechless. Well, let's wait to see what grade we get. lol