When I first realized I would be doing my research project with Hannah, Yi Lei and Yuk Lum, alarm bells were going off like crazy in my head! The few other occasions in which I had had to work with girls had ended on the brink of disaster, and now I was the lone male in a group with three other females! Shock! Horror!
I had foreseen the voting of the research topic as a possible topic of disagreement. Much to my surprise, everyone in the group proved to be very receptive of each other’s opinions, and the research topic was agreed smoothly and peacefully. This was a team with three girls! I had been expecting lots of bitching and catfights, but there were none whatsoever! It was not supposed to be like this! Things were almost too good to be true and I was starting to suspect serious foul play.
However, over the course of the project, I realized that I was blessed with extremely patient and cooperative group members. Although the three of them were already close friends from junior college, they were careful about involving me and not appearing clique-ish so that I would not feel excluded. An irrelevant yet particularly delightful memory involved all three of them all putting their legs up on their chairs simultaneously when they saw a cat approaching. The negative perception of working with girls developed from previous experiences was quickly dissipating.
Hannah, Yuk Lum and Yi Lei, I would like to thank you for changing my attitude towards working with girls. I was also able to draw upon this experience to reflect positively upon past failed working relationships. However, I am still unable to comprehend your obsession with having meetings at Macs!
六弄咖啡館
7 years ago
8 comments:
It's interesting as you related in this post, Benjamin, that your prior experience was so different. I guess stereotyping is just not possible. The team chemistry depends on the people as individuals more so than on gender, or so it would seem.
Thanks for your reflection!
Hey Ben! You posted the cat thing on your blog? Haha. And I think we have meetings at Macs because there is food and we can talk loudly, unlike the library.
Anyway, we had lots of fun working with you too and thanks for being a very very good group leader!
yuklum :)
Hi,
It is a very interesting experience that you had there. It must have been a very dreadful experience that would make you think that working with girls is a disaster. Well I’m glad that you had a change of views on this now rather than when you have started working.
WS
Hi Ben! It's great that you have changed your impression of working with girls. Unfortunately for me, I have not. I feel girls and guys work in very different ways. Now, I am going to relate some stereotypes I have based on my previous working experiences. Girls, please don't kill me! I find that girls tend to concentrate too much on the little details of the project and overlook the big picture. On the other hand, guys look at the big picture and tend to overlook some details. In year 1, I was in a female dominated project group. I found it really hard to work with them as we would spend hours discussing on certain issues of the project, reach some obstacles here and there, and end up with no results at the end of the meeting. In this same project group, I naturally took on the role of group leader (like Ben did), and delegated certain portions of the project to different people. At the particular meeting where this delegation of work happened, there was a notable female absentee. I naturally assigned her some work as well, and later informed her of this. However, she was very unhappy that she did not get to choose what to do, and refused to contribute to the project from that day onwards. I then had to cover her workload as well, all this for failing to consider her feelings.
I hope that some girls whom i work with in the future can change my stereotype.
Hey everyone! thanks for your comments.
Brad, i agree that team chemistry depends on individuals, though i do feel gender does also play a big part.
Yuk Lum, don't mention it. It was really a pleasure working with you gals.
Susanto, you have no idea how bad the previous experiences were. Once, the girl cried, though to be frank i really felt like crying too.
Hey Zhiyi,I can definitely empathize with your situation, though sometimes i do wonder whether OUR previous inability to work with all-girl groups might have something to do with coming from all-boys schools. i definitely agree that guys tend to look at the big picture and overlook finer details, and girls vice versa. Then again, this is another example of stereotyping. How do you think then, we could have handled the situation better?
Perhaps you'll gain a better impression of working with girls if you work with Hannah, Yuk Lum and Yi Lei.
Haha your post made me laugh out loud. We really had a lot of fun when working on the report! :D
It is really surprising to know that you were in fact alarmed when we were grouped together because you looked so calm and steady.
And I totally agree with ah lum that you are an excellent group leader!
Hey Yilei, sitting together in class and having to work together on a big project are two very different things. You have no idea how afraid I used to be of working with girls. Thank you very much for your comment,but to be frank it was simply a very memorable team experience.
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