For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for January 27, 2025

True, that, Liz. It is a life skill.

You wanted to work with Candace, Dawn.

Dad’s right, Liz.

Anthony must have been reading “Blondie” comics where Bumstead always screws things up at the office—especially in committee.

It’s kind of like the way engineers like to work as consultants on project teams. That way, there’s no real work, blame is spread across the group when it fails, and you can crush any idea from marketing… And sometimes you get free donuts just for showing up!

Since when is 75% something to be ok with?

One thing I never had in (long ago) high school was a group project.

There is also a hidden life lesson here. Confucius says, when everybody else wears drab blue, gray, and black colored clothes. stand out in the crowd by wearing bright red sweater!

Leave it to Liz to enlighten everyone else.

From Lynn’s Comments: I have served on a number of committees, and just the word “committee” now gives me hives. Seems to me that a lot of committee members show up for the coffee and donuts and that’s about it. If anything gets done, it’s a surprise.

That happens a lot with senate and house committees when a bill is worded slightly different in each place.

Committees have meetings, meetings are the practical alternative to work.

I think I would be a rat, and let the teacher know. Candace needs a "lesson "

Translation: Being forced to work with lazy bums who “have better things to do” builds character!

And it is a good example of Socialism. You have the makers and you have the takers. Not “fair” at all.

Way, WAY too true…

“A committee is the only known form of life with a hundred bellies and no brain.” -Robert A. Heinlein

They would give us team projects in grad (MBA) school. Try getting 5 adults who have full time jobs and are attending school at night and raising families to find a single open time to get together. The results of these often reminded me of the adage that a camel is a horse that was put together by a committee.

English? Oh, must be Canada. I hear the U S schools have to teach Trumpish now.

I’ve been told, it’s really to understand.

It’s the root of socialism. Everyone is equal, even if you do nothing to contribute. Which makes everyone else work less because they don’t get more. That’s why it never works.

Does that tell you something about Candace, Dawn? Shades of Tiffany!

I don’t wanna hear any complainin’ !!!! She warned you, Candace is the Andy Capp of class work !!! And you wanted her, anyways !!! So shut up .

My daughter the genius was forced to work in groups while in middle and high school. Teachers usually put someone in the group who was not very good at being a student so that student would get a little ‘help’ from the group. Since my daughter was motivated to get the grade, she usually wound up doing most of the work. Eventually she went to a technical college in which she became a chemical engineer. When she was in a group there, they were all motivated to get the good grade and mostly split up the work quite well.

Well, Elizabeth told Dawn that Candace would pull that on them. A live and learn “I told you so” moment.

And 74% is only a middling ‘C’ and I would think Liz and Anthony would be better than that.

I sense Candace is about to be ‘canceled’…

The kids now know who to work with on next project.

" A camel is a horse designed by a committee! "

Try that working with electricity

Well since Anthony and Liz completed the project with two people, it stands to reason that Dawn and Shawna-Marie were also equal to the task, so the freeloader did no harm.

Also, is a score in the mid-70s really that impressive?

I always got the groups with Cheech and Chong

I had a college project with one team member who didn’t do any work. Thankfully, we had to rate every team member’s contribution to the final product…

Candace has lived down to expectations…

In other words, they’re trying to stamp out independent thought, just like Cru-Elly would have at the library. Every good idea she was given, her first response was “We could form a committee.”, and nothing ever got done.

At least when you get to grad school, the prof knows who did the work and final grades reflect that!

It’s to demonstrate why Socialism never works.

No protection from the Bozone Layer!? (With credit to The Far Side!)

I remember an artist posting that they once had to work with the class leech, so when she ended up doing the entire animation by herself she added two minutes of credits with her name after everything. IIRC The teacher ended up grading them separately.

The group projects are total BS. You can learn to work together at work. This group work in school is appalling. I encountered it in graduate school – I did all the work and everyone got the same grade. it teaches people that they can skate and still be successful – a terrible lesson. I think it is a way for overloaded teachers to have less work to do instead of reducing class size. By the way, I am not blaming teachers for this.

a real life skill would be “ratting” out the rat fink,no show to the teacher. Making her redo the project ….. solo.

I wish I could say it gets better when you get older.

“Not bad, eh?” 74% is considered not bad?? That’s only a C! It’s pretty bad.

Straight C’s, what a bunch of dumbtards.

I worked on a group project. The professor saw that we were getting along so poorly (not as bad as we made it sound, actually) that she nearly flunked us. One guy got an A because he did his part well. Then on the second project that guy was locked out and flunked the class. The groups were put together based on how well we did on the first project, and no one in my group was in a group with anyone else from my group. And my group nearly flunked. Partly my fault because i observed something they were doing wrong shortly before a deadline after which we couldn’t change certain things, and I realized later we had done something very wrong because I didn’t point that out.

The only class I ever had to take over. I also flunked the final. we were told to read something at the library, which I didn’t because we were told we didn’t have to.

Yes, very good practice for that. In Pottsylvania, we have old saying: a camel is a horse designed by a committee. We are making sure everyone laughs when Fearless Leader tells this joke.

I always prefer to do my own work. Tell me when it is due and leave me alone. Nothing worse than teamwork.

Since 75% is pretty much a C, grade-wise (that is, average), it’s interesting that they seem okay with that.

In my high school, 70% was failing, so they barely passed.