In retrospect on image and life: the roller coaster project

Considering my previous parable post on image and a Facebook post from a page I follow, I am reminded of an event that happened to me in my final year of high school (grade 12 for me). In physics class there was this group project in which we had to build a marble track roller coaster. The maximum group size was 4 and the person I wanted to work with was already in a group. Groups were pick your own people and were based on people who are friends and people who were the strongest in the class. I wasn't particularly strong and I wanted to be with someone who was smart enough to get my grades up. Luckily there was one person in the group who fit, but just because the person really smart doesn't mean they're, well, smart. (Fun fact, in the end one of the groups kicked out a member because they didn't contribute at all to the group :p)

So I'm in the group that had 3 who were good friends. All were doing better than me in the class so I had high hopes that my mark for the class (not counting the individual marks from the written portion) with help from the project would go up a bit (because averages. Getting 80% on something while you're hanging around the 60% area would make that go up a tiny bit). Main meeting place was at high average group member's house. I should note that said member got a school week-long suspension for something. During the course of the group project we only met twice: First time was to plan and discuss, second was to assemble the roller coaster almost the night before it was due. In my mind I was thinking said member had the most time to work on the project since they were at home all day/not in school.
         Ideally the way to do some project is to build the thing early on so if something goes wrong then there's plenty of time to fix it. Most of us had after school activities such as martial arts, soccer, dance, and music lessons so of course that cuts into available time. When it came to the second time we met there was a frame for the track of the roller coaster and a large blown-up photo for the background. Part of the track was built but there was a problem with the material for the track as it was plastic tubing that liked to coil back up. In the end what was build was something that looked similar to a picture found on the internet (where the idea for the roller coaster came from) and it was decorated well enough in hopes that those marks will suffice.

The day came for evaluation and it ended up that the roller coaster my group made, well, sucked except for how it looked. I'd say about a large portion of the marks were for applying physics concepts learned in class and for the roller coaster to actually work. The ones from the other groups worked (and looked good too). While the smart person in terms of high marks brushed off the mark as nothing I apparently suffered because, as I've mentioned before, my marks were bad and this greatly upset me at the time. My way of getting back at the person? I refused to pay my share for the materials.

So what lessons are to be learned about this? Just because something looks good doesn't mean that it will work. If you put time and effort into something you'll have something good. If you work as a team you can pull both something flashy and something that works off (and by as a team I mean every single member of your team).
            Then there's also just because the person knows their shit (the theory and stuff) doesn't mean they're a person who enjoys doing work or committed to projects. Well, maybe they are but there could be things that are going on in their life that can hinder their willingness to work on something (maybe things like anxiety and depression, being pissed off,  I have no idea). Go ahead and express your frustration that said group member brought everyone down but not to the point where you hold a grudge against the person or harm them further. If you're still alive, have a job that's earning you money, something like this shouldn't bother you too much. That grade in high school is no longer important.

While I personally haven't always been the best person at group projects (and I have one story in particular for that but not really keen on telling) I just felt this fits in with the whole focusing on how things appear to people vs. what people actually need. Ah well.

Doughnuts (a parable)

Two doughnut shops stood across from each other on the same street in the same town. Both shops made the same kind of doughnut: a cake with no hole. The owner of the store on the south side didn't like the store on the north side because they were attracting more customers. The owner tried different things to make people come come to her shop. She tried making a bigger sign but that didn't make people come to her shop. She tried offering a discount on a dozen (12 for the price of 10) but that still didn't make more people come over. She then tried to change the interior of her shop and still that didn't make more people come over. One day she decided to visit the store across the street and when she looked through the window she saw that their doughnuts have sugar coating. It was then she decided that she needed to coat her doughnuts with sugar. It worked for a bit but she still wasn't matching the sales that the north had. Her employees offer her advice but she doesn't listen to them because she is Queen and she is God and thus is in control of everything. Anyone who opposed her got fired.

One day the owner of the north side store visited the south. She knows that the south owner doesn't like her but she still wanted to help her. South owner then asked, "What is it that you do to make customers come to you?"
"It's quite simple," North's owner answered. "It's not about how fancy the store or the doughnuts look but the quality of the service and quality of the doughnuts. My store may not be as attractive as yours but customers like my doughnuts because I'm always making something new. Customers have different tastes so I offer many different flavours of my product. I also seek to create new recipes to match my customer's needs whether they are allergic to something or not. I saw that you go by my shop every day to see what I do and I noticed that you got some ideas. Let me tell you this: there is no right way to eat a doughnut. You can just eat it straight away or lick the sugar off and eat the rest of the doughnut after. With your doughnuts you use the sugar coating to hide how bland your doughnuts are. With my doughnuts I add in something extra. I add in filling because after the sugar is gone there is surely a sweet surprise waiting for them." After sharing her secret the north owner left to return to her shop.

Now there are two possible endings to this story. First is South owner takes the advice and puts in effort to change the quality and her store's sales increase a lot. The second is she doesn't take the advice and her store continues to suffer to the point where she goes bankrupt.

The moral of this is quality trumps over quantity. You can have both quality and quantity but don't sacrifice quality for quantity. Oh yeah if you're a boss or some big head of something, your underlings may have good ideas even if they haven't been in the business long enough so listen to them as well.