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How to deal with manipulative "game-playing" at university?

This will be a very long textwall, but I'd really appreciate any good inputs that you guys have to give, so please bear with me.

I'm currently a chemistry student at uni, and for the past two years, I've had to deal with an incredibly annoying member of my tutorial group (7 people).

He's incredibly manipulative and prone to hypocrisy and temper tantrums (I will call him person A). To help you get an idea of what I mean, I will list out of the problems both I/we (the PT group) have had to deal with.

Year 1:

During all our organic chemistry practicals where we've had to work in twos and threes, he's incredibly anal, he insists on working at the fastest possible pace for him (not allowing me a couple of minutes to think the experiment through), as a slightly clumsy person in nature, when dealing with test-tubes, etc, I like to take my time (reasonably, I don't mean stalling or anything), however, he has, on several occasions, shoved me off, telling me to sit at the bench.

I have told him that paired practicals are a team thing, but he simply states that I'm too slow for him (we usually finish around 1pm on a practical that has a timeslot between 10-3pm, most others finish at 2pm). This has lead to me being chastised by the supervisor on most occasions, thankfully, the group pairings were shuffled, however, we are often shuffled between members of the tutorial anyway.

This is further exacerbated during the lab report submission, typically, when we are discussing this work as a group, he will quite often sit in the corner absorbing all our contributions, and then walk off. On further occasions, when I am discussing the lab with my partner (within the tutorial), he often ditches his own partner (during the practical), and asks us what the answers are, how to do them, etc. In reverse, if we ask him to help us out as we did him, he will often just shrug/not reply/or give an angry reply, often throwing in a small insult such as "ffs, why do you guys always ask me?"



During a group presentation task for a seminar, we are asked to explain a topic based on personal research, we had previously tried to organise ourselves, but as five of the tutorial live near each other, and me and another member live much further away. He put this off until the final week stating: "we can do it closer the time because we're very close to each other". Me and two others had tried to do this two and three weeks before, but were unable to get him to join in, as he was either locked in his room/unresponsive to texts/or plain unwilling.

In the final week, he finally asked us all to do this, we managed to do this the night before and got away with low firsts. The tutor asked us to post contributions, and we found out that instead of each putting 15% (as 6 of us had agreed), Person A put in 30% (stating that he had leadership of the tasks and was the only who "organised" us to get started). As a result, the six of his agreed to change our contribution %ages so that it matched: he received a mid first.



This was all during Y1, there are other minor events but this is roughly the flavour of the manipulative nature we've had to put up with. Unfortunately, in Y2, he's living with 4 of the tutorial, me and 2 others found other accomodation.

He has not developed his character at all:

Year 2

He has repeated all his antics with the practicals, although now he is using misinformation, he is close to one particular tutorial member (although said tutorial member still works with us), and he will tell him how to do the essay in one format, when the rest of us discuss it, he tells us something different altogether (actually, wrong in many cases) or a watered down version of it.

On an essay task where we were given the option of choosing a title, previously, for 4 consecutive weeks, we were given smaller assignments with other tutors from a group of topics. For the essay, we had insisted on doing something novel, but he insisted on something that he had already covered in one of his assignments (which we hadn't). We disagreed and decided to discuss this again tomorrow, we found out on the night that he had emailed the tutor, stating we had "all decided that [his topic] was best for us". He, then simply resubmitted that assignment task he did weeks before with some minor changes, and forced us to do, effectively, his assignment choice. We had asked him for some assistance for understanding it, but he simply just told us to read the papers that he did, saying it was "easy".




I am now 100% sick of this, we have had to put up with him for 2 years, and whenever I visit the tutorial in his flat, he often just barges into my friend's room (its one of his habits, and he's also in the tutorial). He has also had temper problems, he will often banter at us, but if we banter back, he will tell us to "**** off", and then go back to his room.

The tutorial living with him cannot do that anymore as they're reliant on his VW Beetle for transport (quite often they cannot go to some lectures, as he refuses to go at the last minute).

Please give me advice on what to do, changing tutorial is not an option. And I really do not wish to resort to playing politics as it would end badly for all parties involved.
Reply 1
It doesn't look like there is an answer.
Reply 2
In most cases, just don't help him either. If he asks why, give examples. Other than that, if he goes over your heads with an essay title or marking his contributions, don't roll over but instead e-mail your tutor and explain the situation. The people living with him should be looking to make alternative travel arrangements if he's unreliable, anyway.
Seems like you're afraid of standing up for yourself, and as a result you're letting a bully walk all over you.

As an individual, it sounds like you need to deal with an apparent fear of confrontation. As a group, provided you all feel the same way about "A", couldn't you approach him together to challenge him? Generally, bullies crumble in such situations.
Reply 4
Original post by Cropped Shaggy
Seems like you're afraid of standing up for yourself, and as a result you're letting a bully walk all over you.

As an individual, it sounds like you need to deal with an apparent fear of confrontation. As a group, provided you all feel the same way about "A", couldn't you approach him together to challenge him? Generally, bullies crumble in such situations.


A lot of the tutorial "share" his car for travel to uni, shopping, etc. Even though they split the petrol (but A makes him pay for all parking costs everywhere presumably as a premium for being driven), they're reluctant to go against him as they don't want to go and buy bus passes halfway thru the year and to shopping etc. We have spoken up several times (like in the essay topic), but he will just stall/delay, and then make the decision behind our backs. As a result, we're then forced to bring out tutor into this, and he's quite happy just to turn a blind eye to this kind of stuff.
Your tutorial sounds pretty retarded, if they're willing to risk the performance of the group in aid of a lazier lifestyle and possibly saving a few quid every week (but do they even manage that after petrol and parking?). As for your tutor, could you make a complaint against him/her if he/she keeps ignoring what's going on?

Other than that, I don't know what to suggest. You have my sympathy.

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