Rant alert! [/color]

So, I'm about to graduate, and I'm finally fed up with idiots - more specifically, the brand of idiot who gets by on the hard work of others.

These people are mind-blowingly dumb. These are the people who, 3/4 of the way through a UNIX course, don't know what piping is. These are the people who, in a senior-level course about web-based DBMS development, don't know what POST and GET are. These are the people who think that LDAP is some sort of Perl module. These are the people who think that SSL can be done using PHP. (Note: this is all one person).

They can't function by themselves. They have no applicable skills, because they're too dumb to figure out these basic things and don't understand when they're told that they are wrong. They refuse to actually learn how to do anything for themselves (I'm simply talking about looking things up on Google). Instead, it's people like me[/b] who end up having to pick up their slack and finish the project on-time.

So, onward they go, making talented people's lives hectic by providing nothing - not design ideas, not helping to even write any algorithms. They sit on their asses and browse Facebook. And we're stuck with the consequences of their stupidity.

The only consolation I can take is that, in the real world, these people pose no real competition for the jobs I want because anyone who interviews them will realize within the span of 10 minutes that they are an idiot who knows nothing at all about what they profess to have studied in college.

A recent example...

Recently, I was placed in a group to build a server with a basic service requirements list (LAMP server + LDAP & e-mail server). I get placed a guy who I shall refer to as John and a guy who I shall refer to as Khan.

Khan is a 50+ year-old man from India. I had not worked with him previously, but I was told by friends who had worked with him that he never got his portions done on time and was generally not-competent. I approached this group with apprehension - I selected the distribution (Kubuntu) and ran apt-get a few times to install Apache, MySQL, PHP, PHPMyAdmin, OpenSSH, and denyhosts. I edit a .conf file here and there, instruct my two members on the wonders of apt-get, and delegate the final responsibilities: e-mail server (with spam filter and A/V) to John and setting up LDAP authentication (using PAM) as well as SSL access to PHPMyAdmin.

John and I work together on setting the e-mail server up (again, it's merely running apt-get a couple of times) and I give Khan a couple of tutorials that I've searched and say, "Go ahead and e-mail me any specific questions you may have about these tutorials." He nods, and we leave.

Come back two days later into class, and he hasn't touched his part at all. Whatever - we've got a week until it's due. I help him with a couple of problems (he tried to use Apache directives as commands, confused as to why they weren't working, and then couldn't figure out why /usr/local/.../secure.crt didn't exist where the tutorial said it would (try looking for it!) ). Now he won't stop pestering me about how he and I need to meet, and I'm doing my best to avoid it, because I know it's going to be me holding his hand throughout the whole process; I simply tell him that I'm busy, but that I can answer any specific questions he has about the tutorials via e-mail.

You know what I hate? People who enjoys making fun of other people behind their back and without them knowing it. They're the lowest of all, in my opinion. I mean, if you're going to make fun of someone, it's best if it's in their face, right? Where they actually have a chance to be rude back.

As such Mr. Wolfy here in #massassi with the name Anovass.

I expected better out of you :\

When I have a group project and I am stuck with the cream of the crap, I don't whine an complain about it. It is just easier to do all the work myself and get the A, instead of letting my team drag me down. Honestly, almost every project I have worked throughout my college career has turned out like that.

One difference though is that I actually made an effort to help my struggling team mates, instead of being a dick and e-mailing awful tutorials to them. Even though they may not contribute anything worthwhile, I feel a lot better if I can help them get something out of it.

Don't be so harsh on him, he's just ranting. :-)

He's not being a dick by only conversing by e-mail, he's doing the right thing. If these lazy asses do not take the initiative to learn the material themselves necessary for them to have a successful career, then they should be ignored.
Now, if they are genuinely trying to figure out the material but need your help, then you are being a dick. But, from what I understood from your response, they just don't care.

This thread just makes you sound like a giant douchebag.

"Unwashed PEONS. HOW DARE YOU ASK SOMEONE FOR HELP PSSSSSH!"

Not everyone gets this **** as well as you do.

Grow up.

You could wait until he screws something up, and then be like KAAAAAHHHHHN!

But yeah, it doesn't sound like this Kahn guy is actually doing anything wrong. It just sounds like he doesn't get it like you do.

Have you ever had one of these people before? They are a significant drain on your time and resources. If you are up a deadline and you need to pick up the slack of others, that's hard. Especially if you have other projects for other classes. This bloke should have realized that he couldn't do jack **** in that class and yet he's mooching off others hard work so he can pass. That's messed up and four kinds of dishonorable to the other students. So, Wolfy done good by tearing him a new *******.

1st, he's ranting, not making fun of someone. 2and, the guys are incompetent and it's all totally their own fault. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I'm not in my senior year of learning it, and I'm not bringing down other people's grade due to laziness.

What the hell are you guys talking about?

It's my rant at Wolfy for having a nick in #massassi Anovass.

****.

...first off, it's a senior-level course. If you haven't figured out how to look things up on your own, stop bothering me. I've researched some tutorials for him and said that he is free to e-mail me about any specific questions he has about these tutorials, noting that I would be glad to answer those specific questions. If I join him for one of these "meetings", I'm going to end up holding his hand through the whole process, and that's not my job, nor my responsibility. I've done it for multiple projects, and I'm tired of it.

Secondly, I'm not simply leaving him to the tutorials - I've said that if he has any specific questions about the tutorials I send him, to e-mail those questions to me. However, his questions are typically along the lines of "How do I do this broad and general topic that requires multiple steps?" instead of asking "What exactly does step 12 mean of this tutorial?"

I'm more than willing to work with the guy, but I'm not going to do the work for[/b] him. He tends to simply sit with his thumb up his *** when I'm not there to hold his hand along the way.

(Furthermore, this guy's failure to do his part has little to no impact on my grade, so I can't honestly say that I care about it if he's not going to do the simple task of working through the tutorials I've sent him and asking me specific questions whenever he encounters a problem)



I'm not talking about lack of knowledge; I'm talking about competence (two very different things). If someone is ignorant, they will try to learn so that they will no longer be ignorant. If someone is incompetent, they will follow instructions given to them until they reach a point that they don't understand and, instead of trying to figure out the problem, they'll simply rely on others to solve the problem for them. John was ignorant and was willing to do the research necessary to finish his part of the project; Khan is not.

It's not my responsibility to help those who won't help themselves. God forbid should someone actually develop some self-reliance and motivation to actually do their part of a job.

I tell Khan, "Please e-mail about any specific problems you encounter with the tutorials I've sent, and I will be glad to help you with them." He doesn't. How am I at fault for the fact that he's not willing to do some simple work up until he reaches a point that he can not continue and e-mail me? For reference, I e-mailed him this tutorial, explaining that I've already installed and configured SAMBA. If he runs into any problems, I've asked him to e-mail me. He has not. It is not my responsibility to hover over him and make sure that he's okay 24/7. It is my responsibility to help him with specific problems, not the entirety of the assignment. This is a fourth-year class, meaning he's supposed to have been building the skills required for this project over the past four years. Quite obviously, he hasn't.

God forbid someone stop being a douchebag and help someone when they ask for it, regardless of reason.

But oh hey, I forgot. Those aren't regular human values anymore.

Secondary education is wholly voluntary, which implicitly requires a motivation to help yourself. If you're not willing to meet the basic requirements of it, then there's no reason for me to assist you.

This isn't about "regular human values". Someone who's gotten laid off or just hit a stroke of bad luck, that's understandable and worthy of charity. Someone who has coasted for four years through school and is unwilling to put forth the effort required in a voluntarily-entered situation is not worthy of charity.

Being a total assjack is also apparently totally voluntary.

But whatever.

I really don't get why people now of days bother going through the hassle of getting a college education if they aren't going to put their full effort into it. Seriously, they're PAYING for this education OUT OF THEIR OWN POCKET yet they get lazy and not take it seriously.

Perhaps for some people they only do it because their folks are funding the education and/or they're just forced to go just to please their folks. If that is the case, they're being horribly inconsiderate of their parent's hard earn cash and don't deserve their help at all. If you're not going to put a 110% effort into learning the skills needed to succeed in a given field in the workforce, just drop out and go work at McDonalds.

The world doesn't need anymore incompetent half-wits getting jobs they don't deserve. Lord knows I'm getting quite sick of running into them all the time.

/rant

I don't know what any of those things are D:

I bet if Khan was a hit brazillian woman you'd hold her hand and walk her through it

I think you're all being overly harsh on Wolfy. He's not complaining about people who are willing to give it a good shot and try even if they don't have natural talent for the subject. He's complaining about people who can't be bothered even to make an effort to put themselves in a position where they might have a half decent chance of doing well. Its not like he's not offered his help at all.

Also, most of you seem to have missed the fact that the example given was a recent example. Perhaps Wolfy is slightly overreacting in this situation but that doesn't change the fact that its probably happened quite a few times before and by now hes pretty sick of it. Correct me if i'm wrong Wolfy.

I'm not stuck in this situation in my current group but I know people in my class who are exactly like that and its pretty annoying even if its not me they're leeching off. Theres this girl who doesn't make any effort at all to understand anything. She basically gets all of her code written for her by computing whizz's. Being 1 of 5 girls in a 80 person class does help so no one really seems to care that much. I can tolerate people like that because I feel no obligation to write their code for them in individual assignments however in a group project someone like that can tick you off very easily

You haven't taken four years of programming, software engineering, networking, database, and information security courses, have you? Because that guy (note: that is NOT the same guy as Khan) has, and it's all things you learn within those courses. But he spends so much time on Facebook and buying bull-testosterone energy drinks (not making that up) off of eBay that he misses all of the material in the course and then expects his teammates to be responsible for bringing him up to date.

Er did you also do a course on mind reading?.

You seem to know 100% what he is thinking and why he is like he is. Did it occur to you there may be another reason for his actions?.

You can be the best server dude in the world but if you have no confidence (People treat you like an idiot) you wont be the best you could be.

A sentance with the words Book, Judge and Cover comes to mind.

There is a massive difference between people who WANT to learn and people want an easy way out.

I had a classic example of coat-tail riding last year on a project and it showed the difference between one guy who couldn't do much but at least tried and another who was a lazy POS. Of the five of us, two were foreign students: a Chinese guy we'll call Hao and a Thai guy we'll call Bas.

Hao rarely turned up to meetings, when he did, he'd take 45 minute cigarette breaks, when we'd all go home expecting to see each other again in a couple of days with some concept drawings, he'd not have even bothered to make even one basic sketch when we next met.

Bas had a much harder time with English than Hao but at least he tried to help whenever and however he could. Without the language barrier he would've been a freakin awesome team member. He turned up to all the meetings and when it came to finally machining the motor we'd been designing he pitched in as well as any of us.

We eventually assigned Bas and Hao the fairly simple task of writing the materials selection sheet and the procedure guide for building the motor. They did this while the rest of us were in the CAD lab with them. It quickly became obvious that Hao wasn't doing anything once again and was constantly asking what was going on about the most basic parts of the design as we approached the twilight hours of the project. Eventually Bas wrote nearly all of it, bar the odd bit of Engrish that needed editing it was perfect. By this point Hao had already come up with an excuse to go home and we were printing off the project for submission. We quickly wrote a note on it giving a suggested apportion of marks that gave Hao very little credit for the project. He seemed a bit baffled when final marks came back where we had around 80% and he about 35%.

Back at my last job, there was this guy who went to the same university I do. (Let's call him Kevin) Kevin is a business or accounting major (I forget which one) and I am an English major, specializing in rhetoric and composition.

Kevin came up to me one day and asked me how much I charged for writing term papers. I flat-out asked him why he was even going to a university instead of a diploma mill if he was just going to cheat his way through it. That's the last I ever heard from him on that topic.

This is the kind of guy who (according to him) once took the license plates off of his car and regularly parks at the meters at Uni without paying. He said he did this to avoid paying the $100 university fees for a parking permit. Apparently the parking enforcement people at Uni never check the VIN numbers, since he had never been busted by the time I quit that job. If he does get busted, it's going to cost him a LOT more than $100, so I'm not sure what he's trying to gain.

I've spoken with people who've worked with the two people I've cited in this thread, and it's a long-standing habit of theirs. Consistently late or just non-present on the duties and responsibilities they are given and accept.

Kill them, then tell the instructor, "Hey, the other two guys died... but here's my part of the project!"

The lecturer for my subsidiary told us that if anyone wasn't pulling their weight in the group then we could just not write down their name on the little sheet of paper we had to hand in with our presentation. Seemed a pretty good way of handling it to me, since anyone who didn't work ended up getting a big fat 0.

Most of the group projects I had to do so far at my college included handing in a paper describing what the other members of your team did.

This worked well in multiple ways. One, the three working members would rat out the one loser who only showed up on project day. Two, when he turned in the paper about the other member's work, it wouldn't make any sense. "Well, Matt did stuff with this, and he did stuff with that."

The human species is blessed with the ability to interpret and attribute casues and values to the actions of others. We've known this for millenia. Incredibly in-depth and well disciplined fields of philosophy were established in ancient times in all the hotbeds of civilization, such as Greece, India and China. The majority of human social functioning is based around the fact we can attibute thoughts to other people. In fact, we develop this Theory of Other Minds early in infancy (see Alan Leslie's work with infants and austistic children). In this case, the book is easy to judge by the cover. He's slacking off in class, not doing his work and not making an attempt to do otherwise. He's simply being a lazy ****. Even if he did have a reason for not doing his work (say, he needs to work 50 hours a week to support his family after some sort of tragedy), he still has a responsibility as a member of that class to pull his weight, which he is obviously not doing.

Why did you post that in this thread then? Don't get mad at us for your own ambiguity.

Never throw a book at a Judge without the cover?

I've had to work with people like that too, all through highschool and now in college. I was usually the one that had to pick up the slack and work twice as hard to get everything done. Teachers are almost always willing to listen when you tell them someone isn't working or isn't pulling their weight.