This past week has been a wild one so far. Lately it seems I've been having more of those, especially from the start of my 3rd year of pharmacy school. We've had an enormous increase of exposure to working in groups this semester, and through this, I've learned a lot more about myself and how to work with people.
I generally think of myself as someone who is quite passive when it comes to being in groups, usually accepting the ideas of others. My last and current group really tested my skills in that area. The last group I was involved in consisted of members that I intuitively did not trust because I perceived them as "slackers," although I tried -- at first -- to not let that judgment get in the way of being able to work as a team. I discovered that one of my group members did not contribute at all to the job he was entitled to doing, so I was the one who took initiative to pick up his slack. We had to stick with our same group working on two different assigned cases, and with the second case, I did not trust that my group would do the amount of work that I thought was sufficient to get the grade that I wanted, so I took it upon myself to do most of the work for them. We all knew in the back of our heads that I was doing this because I did not trust them to do it, so during the evaluations, I don't really know what kind of score they gave me, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was low because of this.
My current group turned out to be quite the opposite; karma came around and kicked my ass. One of our group members basically took upon the same role I did in the previous group, although I believe she was much more controlling... but who knows; I could be biased. All of our group members complained behind her back about how insignificant it was to argue over the words "can" and "proposed," how she seemed to never accept others' ideas unless it was her own, and how she constantly changed the parameters of our project when we thought we had already come to a consensus. I was extremely stressed out about this and I finally took it upon myself to write an email to her on behalf of the group, which at first, she did not take very well. I consulted with others before I sent the email to make sure it was not too harsh, and they told me that it actually seemed pretty civil. I replied to her response in a private email, explaining that my previous email was not intended to be taken the way it was and that I was only trying to provide her with constructive criticism. She responded back with thanks and appreciation, wishing that I would've addressed it more nicely in the first place (which I didn't think was harsh at all in the first place), and mentioned that she actually likes me very much and that she is working on bettering herself. She also mentioned that she has respect for people who speak up on behalf of those who can't or won't and that she was actually taken aback that someone had actually stood up to her because that usually doesn't happen... heh.
The one thing she said though that I really took away from it all was this:
"Thank you for speaking up and letting me know how you feel, it says alot about your character"
Since pharmacy school, I have been feeling like my character has been deteriorating somehow, even if it may not be true to the perceptions of others. I feel as though I'm learning how to be fake to people when we are taught how to be empathetic, although I don't want to be that way and I don't want others to think that of me. For my group member to imply that I have a great moral character truly helps assure me that I am still the person I see myself to be... and it makes me feel really good about myself.
[insert feelings of happiness here]
I am a dork. =P But I am happy that I did what I did. Now I know how it feels to be on both sides. I just wish situations like this would always end well.
