I think a student is lying, help!

Parent Cafe
21

<p>For the first 10 years, I worked in publishing, as a editor. There, people could be a little – well, a lot – strange. But except for two people, they were generally not psychopaths.</p>

<p>For the last 30 or so years, I’ve worked in Fortune 500s and consulting firms, handling employee benefits. I have encountered many wackos (that’s a technical term we in human resources use): </p>

<p>My boss who was only at work 60% of the time – literally; I started keeping track – because she had panic attacks every time she took the bus through one of the tunnels from NJ to NY, and who was seriously threatened by me. She announced to me once, after I provided my opinion on something, “We do know something about this, you know.”</p>

<p>The consultant who was senior to me and started yelling at me and being sarcastic every chance he got. Once when we were to meet in NYC for a client meeting, he called me on my cell phone right after I got off the train in Grand Central (one-hour trip) to tell me he couldn’t make it and he canceled the meeting. He started taking my work away and giving it to his live-in GF, who was also a consultant at the same firm. When I complained, I was fired. </p>

<p>The woman who was my peer at another consulting firm who (in the days before voicemail) stole the pink message slips from my slot by the receptionist. She would call back prospects who had gotten in touch with me, and tell them I wasn’t available but she could work on their projects.</p>

<p>(In case you don’t know, in consulting it matters how much work you bring in, and how many hours you bill to a client project.)</p>

<p>And most recently, the woman who was so obvously threatened by me: After a meeting of 8 or 10 people, she asked me to stay behind and then closed the door. She then ripped me a new one by telling me that I was undermining her authority and that my behavior was unacceptable. No one I asked who had been at the meeting knew what she was talking about. A month or so later, she made extremely crude bathroom comments to me, in front of one of my staff members. She did it not once, but twice The second time was, in my book, over the line, and I complained to HR. She lied about it – swore she never said what she did say – and thankfully I had a witness! For that, I asked for and received a nice severance package – I did NOT want to continue working for her. Unfortunately, she’s still at that company, but I think it’s just a matter of time.</p>

<p>I’m only giving the highlights of some of my situations. Obviously one needs to interact with these people day after day to realize the extent of their illness.</p>

<p>ETA: Hey, maybe it’s me!</p>

22

<p>Worrying about whether the stduent is lying about a project that is due a few days is toying in drama.</p>

<p>Because it doesn’t matter whether the student is lying or not.</p>

<p>The student will either do something for the event or not.</p>

<p>If not, they obviously didn’t use the time between the (possibly fake) computer disaster and now to perform the task.</p>

<p>If they do present, give 'em a grade on that presentation.</p>

<p>If they protest the grade based on the event, calmly ask for verification of that event (due by COB that day) and then . . . AFTER the student demonstrates the disaster . . . decide whether to take that into account. </p>

<p>No rumination without demonstration :-)</p>

23

<p>“This is my favorite phrase, “Just make it happen.” I don’t really care to know when, how or where. Only let me know if there is an issue.”</p>

<p>Agreed. You don’t need to know the story, or the circumstance. If the student lost the data, for whatever reason, he needs to deal with it. I think I read there wasn’t a specific deadline? Maybe it’s time to make one.</p>

<p>It is very possible that the excuse is honest. We’ve had a number of hard drives wiped clean, but always backed them up when the data on it was important. Sometimes we’d get told that it costs $100 to back it up…but they probably wouldn’t lose it, so it’s whether we wanted to take the chance. So now we do it ourselves, but my son did have to buy an external hard drive to do it, and you have to be a little tech savvy.</p>

<p>My dog did eat my checkbook, and has eaten all sorts of paper items, so I’d also buy the dog ate my homework excuse.</p>

24

<p>“Because it doesn’t matter whether the student is lying or not.”</p>

<p>I agree. The results matter.</p>

<p>You’re doomed if you tell undergrads there is no hard deadline. Always give them a hard deadline. The next round of editing has to begin on date X. Either they meet that deadline or they don’t. But you’re going to have endless trouble if you just say “as soon as you can after break” or whatever the soft deadline was.</p>

25

<p>Fabulous advice above. CC at its best!</p>

<p>We’re a long-time Apple family. RacnBeaver is right that occasionally a computer in for repair get pithed. But Apple repair instructions are pretty clear. And on more than one occasion the repair site called to confirm that they could reformat the hard disk “if necessary.”</p>

<p>Still, I agree with posters who say “so what?” The dog ate it, the hard disk crashed, the computer was stolen, coffee poured on the keyboard, electric surge, boot sector corrupted, accidental deletion, key reference disappeared, spell-check program froze the underlying document, blah, blah, blah. The kid needs to get his part done. Don’t feel guilty telling him/her that!</p>

26

<p>

</p>

<p>No.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Yes.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Correct.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Inconsistent with what you just said.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Not your responsibility.</p>

27

<p>So I misjudged the advisor. She actually -did- ask for proof for the laptop being sent into Apple, and he said they did not provide him with anything. Her husband is familiar with Apple products, so she wanted to help him try to recover the lost files. Now he’s frustrated with both of us for saying that Apple may be able provide some sort of documentation of having work done on his laptop what exactly was done on his laptop. I also suggested that he just ask the last intern to get her completed part of the project, so he only has to start on his part from scratch, rather than starting the whole project over. He didn’t like my suggestion. Oh well.</p>

<p>On the upside, as long as he can do something and pass it on to the last intern, this will all be over by the end of next week.</p>

28

<p>Apple most definitely did, they give a print out receipt. And besides, they are APPLE!, they have records accessible for all repairs on line.</p>

29

<p>agree w Hanna and many previous posters, that since he isn’t late now, the computer story is irrelevant. BUT, I’d remind this student -clearly- that all of the group’s work still must be completed on time, lost documents or not. This very specific reminder would close a loophole just in case the student is lying and is attempting to set up an alibi now for a late paper.</p>

30

<p>“She actually -did- ask for proof for the laptop being sent into Apple, and he said they did not provide him with anything.”</p>

<p>Uh oh. He’s in trouble now. A professor is entitled to set ethical standards for her students. If she (as opposed to the grad student) wants to focus on the lying rather than on the deadline, that’s her prerogative. Does the college have an honor code?</p>

<p>I asked for exactly one extension in college – when my grandmother died. It was a big class. The professor asked me to provide an obit, and I thought that was perfectly reasonable. He should be able to get an email from Apple confirming the repair.</p>