Who
else feels as if this past looong weekend was shorter than a normal weekend? Is
it just me? When is the next holiday? October 10th? Unfortunately
the ‘new’ constitutional dispensation(I knew one day I’ll use that big word!)
has no provision for Moi day. That means I’ll have to wait till Mashujaa day.
Meeeeen!!!! Does it even fall on a Thursday? Why am I even looking forward to a
public holiday? I was the kind of person who would ask, on the first day we
open school, when our midterm was scheduled. I just like the idea of being free
from the daily tight schedules that characterize my days. But, c’est la vie.
On
to the business of the day.
I
have been trying to find out why people behave the way they do. The reason
necessitating this question is my experience especially on joint assignments
popularly known as group work. Lately, we have been having loads of assignments
that must be submitted timely. The assignments pile up so fast that you do not
realize it until you log on the e-learning and you realize that you have 4
pending of which 3 of them are group work. Three different group work
assignments mean a lot of things. One, you have to submit 6 documents in total.
Each assignment requires a word document and a corresponding PowerPoint
presentation document. It also means that you have, more often than not, three
different sets of group members. If each group is comprised of an average of 5
people, now you need to work with 15 people. You have to ‘create’ a suitable
meeting time for each assignment that will accommodate every member of your
group. That is the genesis of trouble!
Allow
me to digress a bit. How many files are stacked in some office waiting to be
given attention? How many court cases are pending? Holding all other factors
constant, I tend to assume that the courtroom is pretty demanding especially
for the clerks. I’m thinking this is the kind of job description that a clerk
or is it registrar has. And by registrar I mean the office at Milimani Law
Courts that deals with paperwork. I am not sure whether that’s the correct term
for the guys who work in the courtroom. For instance, if you followed the
presidential petition, the guy who was in charge of the stopwatch. The kind
that are always scribbling furiously during a hearing. If I have a ‘learned
friend’ reading this post, kindly enlighten me at the comments section. I need
to know the job title that person because I think it is one of the busiest
professions.
This
semester is a beehive of activity. I have so much to do. When I have so much
work to do, I sometimes just sit there and do nothing. Simply because I can’t
figure out what to do first! The trouble with doing nothing is that you cannot
tell when you are done doing ‘nothing’. I cannot get myself to watch a movie. I
mean, I would feel so guilty. I feel like I’m wasting time as I write this blog
post because there’s a term paper waiting for my immediate undivided attention.
I’ll just turn up the music and listen to the awesome collaboration by Celine
Dion and the Bee Gees as they sing about immortality.
This
group work thing is still nagging. I wonder whether the work place is as complicated
as group work. I love and hate shared work in equal measure. I love the shared
risk. I also love the divided pressure. I love how people react when they are
under pressure. I love how some people are never available for the meetings.
One case in point goes way back to when I was in Year I, Semester I. So this
lecturer gave us a serious topic to research on and present. There was this guy
(identity withheld for obvious reasons) who was in our group. He never showed
up for any meeting where we deliberated on several issues concerning how to
divide the work. Two days to the deadline, I threatened to omit the guy’s name
in the final submission. He fumbled vehemently and produced a flash disk which
he claimed contained ‘the work’. After launching the explorer window, all I
could see in the flash disk were saved internet pages (I expected a word
document). To cut the story short, I omitted his name on purpose ‘by accident’
and published the final assignment! He found himself in a precarious position
and that is exactly what I wanted. Yeah. I cannot be frivolous with such a
critical matter.
Is
this what Micheal Jackson had seen in people when he recorded the track ‘human
nature’? I don’t think so. MJ was singing about a girl. Talking about girls, I
hear that a woman who is interested in a man wants to see that other women are
interested in him, too and she will be seething with jealousy. How true is it?
Have
a good evening y’all! Keep warm
