sadness...

I have never been so depressed with a project...

I am hating almost every minute of this.

Like I possibly said before, this project would've been perfect for me, but because it's groupwork, I feel a foreboding sense of loss as to what could have been if only this awful group project had been individual. That sad fact makes my misery more profound.

It is entirely frustrating working with people who seem not to want to work, nad who have no apparent concept of time. Halfheartedness doesn't work, you have to devote energy to a thing to make it good, and then you can rest. Work hard, play hard. I work hard. And usually i have so much work that i don't have the time to play. I wouldn't mind this if i felt like we were all pulling our weight/contributing. But i just don't feel that. Maybe they are, but if so, it's in secret. But if so, why ignore my messages continually, and then make it clear they're ignoring them on purpose by paying immediate attention to the messages of others?
    I willl not do it all on my own. I believe I've been entirely reasonable. Point in question?

     We were all supposed to do our own profiles, then post them on facebook so the rest of us could see. So I went home, created a fb group so we could post stuff easily to just us, and subsequently, as a baptism to my creation, posted my profile.
    Immediately it got a good response and two days later I was asked to do all the profiles, as well as my original job, which was to write the history pages. I said I would, and i didn't mind doing them, and using my typewriter, which was very stiff from rarely being used, and running low on ink, JUST AS LONG AS PEOPLE SENT ME THEIR INFORMATION ON THE WEDNESDAY.
   Because how can I write histories for creatures I know nothing about? It would defeat the purpose to have me make it up. I tried that with one and it was completely bland. I needed to kjnow, OBVIOUSLY.
    But did anyone send me their info on weds?
     Yes, Tetley did. And so I did his page, no problem. Took about two hours, altogether. That weds was suppsoed to be the hard day of work, and we were all going to meet on thurs to show stuff and put it together. But half the group was absent when we made that plan on tuesday. I was being very reassonable by posting what we'd decided they needed to do on fb, and by his promptly doing so, Tetley proved it was possible. My message had not been lost in cyberspace, or encrypted, and it was not invisible. I continued to pester the others that day and the following days for their info, but got no response.
     On thurs? tetley came in for the first time, which was great, cos he'd been really ill, so it was good to see him. camilla came in after, and we got a bit of talking done before they had their tutorials. The others didn't turn up at all. One may have, but by that stage I'd had to leave so I could go home and continue working. Why ignore my message? It was very clear:

see you all tomorrow. 10:30 in the studio.

those were my actual words...don't know why font has gone funny. Sorry. So I wasted a morning by coming in when I thought we'd be having a meeting. 

Still, nobody was posting their info on fb. It really ought to have been very simple, as I know two of them have fb on their phones. And I'm not sure what phones the others have, but if i can log onto my slow computer every five seconds as a responsible group worker would do, so could they. Were they just reading my messages, laughing and ignoring them??  I was very busy, and I was working with fb on, so it would be like we were working in a group. None of my time was taken from work by being on fb, listening for the little beepy noise that would alert me to my being taken out of Coventry. I heard no such beep.

A couple days ago, I again, for the third or maybe fourth/fifth time posted that they give me their info now. Becasue otehrwise i wasn't going to be able to do it. IN another mesage i explained clearly that the process of authoring their content, and then typing it on the typewriter was a long one. Still I was ignored.

Today, after yet again none of my group showed up or stayed to talk with each other- a sad fact made more poignant by the sight of at least three other groups in the room, working on their manifestos, some having finished and just needing to fold and finish-   I felt awfully dismayed and miserable. What had my group done? Despite my efforts, we still hadn't even met once as a full group. We'd met just once with 5 out of 6 of us there (good enough for that day, cos tetley was ill) and that was in the ideas stage. I didn't and don't know what's been done, cos there's been no communication, even when I ask individuals what they've done. We haven't started to plan exaclty how we'll bind it. We've talked, and drawn it out, but not bought materials or anything cos that had to wait unitl we had the content all sorted. Is the content sorted? No. When's the deadline? two days from now.

Which brings me to my biggest bugbear.

Today, after I got home, i was determined to forget the reset of the highly-useless-from-my-point-of-view group, and do my own manifesto. But then i got home and discovered one more person had posted their info. I had to respond and say too late. There was no longer any time.

  Yes i was annoyed by the whole thing, but i don't want to jeopardise the look of the manifesto by making them find their own way of typing it, but sorry, i warned them. Now it really was too late. This girl had a bit of a problem about that. Kept saying can't i do it tomorrow? can't i do it on wednesday? they've all been busy, she said. (Why not say so then? And busy doing what since she's missed a lot of our meetings?) We've got till thurs, can't i  do it later?

   NO, i said, cos i've got three ppl who didn't send me their stuff. Making up a whole biography for them when i know nothing of their creature is unrealistic and pointless. Writing up a profile even when i knew the info took about 45 mins, that was how long it took to commputer-type tetley's, and he sent me brilliant info. If i had nothing, it would take far longer. And i was not working slowly.  Then typing always takes longer. About an hour. So, as i nicely explained, working ridiculously fast (and risking typiong mistakes with the typewriter) it would take me 6 hours. Couldn't do it today, I was doing other jobs today. can't do it tomo, we have a packed schedule tomo. Wednesday, we'd need to be putting it together, not still writing individual pages. Not forgetting binding, printing, and repreoducing two more copies. There just wasn't the time. There isn't the time.

I felt she was being very sarky. I don't know if this is the point of this blog, but i need to write it all out, as a cathartic exercise. She was making out like 'everyone is busy, so we all ahve to do what we said we would'. I gave them opportunities, didn't i? I'm not trying to be awkward, there simply isn't the time!!

   She said i could have creative license. I pracically laughed. Still the point wasn't reaching home. Plus she started asking if I done the other things i was supposed to, to which i proudly answered yes, cos i've gone A and B the C of D, if you know what i mean. (above and beyond the call of duty). Then she started accusing me, saying maybe i should hve just written one history for all of us, as an organisation. HELLO? This is why seh should have met up more often, and read my messages? I did that a week and a half ago!!

She suggested, under my 'creative license', the profiles could be much shorter than the others. I said if they are, and we have the time, no probs. But still, making it all up from scratch is too hard. As a compromise, I asked what she was doing today. She could write her own short thing, and that would make it a lot easier for me to simply type it. Her response?

No she was too busy doing the things she'd agreed to do. 

I live a christian life, so i won't swear. I never swear. But my-oh-my... the CHEEK!!! I was going to just leave it. She'd said see you tomorrow and ended our convo with two kisses. Odd. But my self-respect wouldn't let me and  so i said that was a shame, because we were all supposed to write our pwn profiles originally but WHATEVER. xx