It happened once in the university when one of our accountant lecturers gave us a take away assignment. The lecturer had segregated us in groups of ten people and we were supposed to research on a certain topic in a period of one week. The group leader of our group thus assigned each member of the group his or her part of the topic to research on before the end of the following five days. We were supposed to meet after five days with each person having completed his or her work in order to compile a comprehensive final document that would be handed in to the lecturer upon the due date.
To my amazement when we met with the other group members, only the two of us had done the assigned work. That is, the group leader and myself. The other five had not even researched on the topic while the rest were not even present and thus we could not know if they had done it or not. What was even annoying was that this assignment was to be included in the final exams. In addition failure to hand in the assignment on time would lend us being awarded zero marks.
I cannot deny that I felt very angry, tensed and worried as we had only a day left to hand in the assignment and that meant that we had to look for extra time to research on the pending parts. I just took my work and left the room because I could not stand the fact of losing my marks on account of other members not taking their responsibility. I had to take the absent members’ work and do it to avoid the consequences. This meant that I had to sleep late at night doing the research as I was under time pressure. My thought about this kind of situation is that lack of taking one’s responsibility can subject other people to stressful situations.
It is at this point that stress management area should be developed to ensure that in the future one will be in a position to handle such stressful situations. I do believe if people build good relationships and teamwork among them, then such situations will be avoided in future and there will be smooth run of operations in the workplace as people are obliged to work together and act responsibly.