I haven't posted about this much, but I'm currently partnered with the world's laziest law student on a very important and time-sensitive project. It's for our law clinic and we have a real client-- nothing about this is practice, it's very real. We are preparing our client for a very important hearing next Tuesday.
She is constantly late, turns in the bare minimum of work, is unresponsive to emails/texts/phone calls, and cancels or reschedules important meetings at the last minute. She has a list of excuses as long as her arm. My prof and I have both talked to her about it gently, to no avail.
Well, the past day or two was really the final straw. She turned in this completely shoddy document, late. The prof emailed both of us to say it wasn't enough and she asked for a list of other documents. My partner was MIA all morning. Finally I just picked up the slack and did what I could.
I called her around noon and she was vague about what she was doing all morning. Then she emailed me to say she forgot to mention on the phone that she can't get much work done this week because she has a paper due tomorrow (fair enough) and two banquets to attend. I lost my fucking shit. Really? Fine, take tonight off and do your paper. But you can't get "much" work done all week because you have two banquets to attend?
I swear I heard Knottie voices in my head saying it was time for a come to Jesus talk. I emailed her and I just told her, we are all busy but time management is a skill you just have to learn. I have a lot of stuff on my plate (academic stuff, unlike her social events). Heck, I'm the Notes editor for my law journal and our notes competition is running this week! It's the busiest week of the year for me! But I just DO IT, because we have a client.
She was not very receptive. She got sort of passive-aggressive. Then: the paper magically isn't due tomorrow after all, it's due next week so she should have more time.
And the cherry on top. After all of this, in our meeting with our prof this afternoon, Prof asks if we can turn around a doc by tonight to send to the client. Partner says that she can't start it until 9pm because she has to go to a basketball game and the party at the bar before the game starts at 6pm. You should have seen my prof's face. It was hilarious. I told my partner 9pm was too late and we need to just get it done before she goes to the game, then the prof added that "there will be plenty of celebration at the game, you don't need to pre-game too."
At least I got this off my chest to her (and now to you ladies), and the professor seems to know what's going on.
Seriously? How does somebody like this get into law school? And a good one at that?
(Edited to remove some extraneous stuff, I realized this was way too long)
"I'm not a rude bitch. I'm ten rude bitches in a large coat."