JETHRO HOROWITZ

Due to the increasing number of college students that have found my blog, I have been forced to withhold stories that would get me into trouble. This fact has caused me to consider opening another blog under a fake name. Rather than do that, I am just going to tell all on this site. My justification is: Whatever.

If people have a problem, they can start their own blog and retell stories of how I ruined their life. If this happens, I can reassure jethrohorowitz.com fans they can access the website in my links section. Let me begin by relieving this kidney stone of a story.

The university continues to insist we must complete projects in group work. After my official complaint about this matter, I was assured they would rectify the problem and I would get someone that could speak English next time. To their credit, this semester, I have been fortunate enough to have group members that can speak English. What I didn’t realise, however, is there exists a much more debilitating pain which would plague my days and nights. This pain is caused by a distinct set of actions from one who is completely and totally incompetent.

I do consider myself a connoisseur of stupidity and have lately branched out into studying the incompetent too. I challenge anyone to find a more perfect specimen than the one I have captured.

This particular girl, I believe, has sub-consciously been working on furthering herself in this field. If it was a conscious effort, it would quite simply be genius. I know, I know what you thinking, ‘but Jethro, please define incompetence for us’. Typically, incompetence is used to describe an insufficient level of skill, knowledge or experience. I’m going to further the definition to describe it as an inability to perform as a human being. I wouldn’t say a Doctor is incompetent if he gave me the wrong drug; even if he did so because he dropped out of his last year of medical school. I would shake his hand for trying and congratulate him for finishing 5 years of a very difficult degree.

After numerous no-replies to e-mails, phone calls, text messages and no-shows to group meetings, she finally turns up to a group meeting half an hour late.

Jethro: So Sandra what have you done?
Sandra: Hands me 4 pages of a typed essay
Jethro: Right… you know we have to give a speech?
Sandra: Yes.
Jethro: You know this is an essay, and it’s got nothing to do with our topic or subject?
Sandra: ummm….
Jethro: Can you just tell the group how you’re going to answer the question you were supposed to write.
Sandra: ummm….. shuffles through papers

An hour later

Jethro: So can you answer the question now?
Sandra: Yes.
Jethro: Ok, so how do peer groups communicate with each other?
Sandra: On the Internet and in blogs.
Jethro: Yup, anything else?
Sandra: puzzled look ‘No’.
Jethro: ok, and how do companies communicate to the public?
Sandra: Through ads.
Jethro: Yup, anything else?
Sandra.Puzzled look ‘No’.
Jethro: Excellent, thanks for your time.

The next day and with two hours to go until the speech, we convene for a meeting which she again doesn’t turn up to (I later found out she was spotted chatting to friends). With half an hour to go until our speech, she messages that she is running late and will be there in 15 minutes. With 10 minutes until our speech she calls and asks where we are. I explain that she knows where we are and we’ve been there the whole time waiting for her. She complains that it’s too far for her to walk (even though it’s 2 minutes away) and she will meet us in class. With 5 minutes to go until the speech and on our way to the classroom she makes two angry calls that we haven’t arrived yet and she has had to wait for us.

Needless to say, we were advised that we will be getting marked down for her portion of the speech which was mumbled word for word from her A4 sized paper.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 11th, 2009 at 11:40 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.