What would you do if you're paired up with an unlikely person?

Try to keep personalities out of it and only work on the project. Stuff like this happens all the time in the working world.

I wouldn’t do anything other than what I was supposed to – which is get my work done. Personal feelings should never intrude on any work that needs to get done.

Make it a purely business-oriented relationship. Establish from the start who is responsible for what part of the project, any dates to meet and discuss or work on things, and so on. And make sure everyone knows what topic you’re doing, the approach, stuff like that.

Do you have a bad history with either of them, or are you just wary because of the personality they usually project?

Also, you didn’t mention if either person is a slacker, but there’s usually at least one person per group that ends up doing nothing. If this happens, this is a whole ‘nother issue to deal with, but since they’re both friends hopefully it won’t be an issue, because neither will want to drag down the other.

i’ve worked with plenty of difficult people, and the situation you’re proposing doesn’t sound like much of a big deal. someone being two-faced has little to nothing to do with getting a project done.
if they are lazy and want to put all the work on me, that’s when we have a problem.

@DrasticDreamer yeah i would do the same
@tiffyandthewall and @kyanblue like i said, i have never dealt with this situration before…
however it does remind me of a simliar situation in my spanish class. A group a four people have to write a four page children story (en espanol) with illustration. we only have tohe whole week to finish it or we lose haft credit. for past two days only two of us are working on project (myself included) while the other two didn’t do anything but talking. it’s not until the last minute they finally did something about it. :/

Talk about process before content. Talk about how long you have, what are the main parts of the project, how you are going to work together, who is going to do what part.

Get a sketch of an idea of how you are going to work together first.

Then, jump in and do your part (content) for the team (that’s all you can do).

My daughter has had precisely this situation happen to her, with the added wonderfulness that even if she did her part the grade would be based on what all of the students did together.

She ended up just doing the entire project, so all three of them got an A.

Focus on the work. Divide it fairly, and hold the other two people accountable for their parts of it.

Make the best of it..in the end it really is inconsequential.

Sometimes you end up doing all the work in a group, because the others don’t do much. It can be the only way to get a good grade. Oh, I see that’s what @Darwin said. Never mind!

I will say that this kind of problem is typical in working life. You have to deal with all kinds of people who might not necessarily want to do a good job. However, you have to put your animosities aside, and focus on the work. Don’t get into the habit of doing all the work. That won’t help in real life.

Do as @PerryDolia said, and talk about process first. That means talk about how to make decisions, and how you will communicate to make sure everything fits together well, and the other stuff he said.

@cwilbur‘s advice is good, too, although it can be hard to find an accountability mechanism. You can’t fire your partners. You can only encourage them to be excited about the project by talking about your goals and what you want (without being too perky about it).

Remember this “When you step in the classroom, everything that has to do with your life, it stays out of this room. In this classroom, you are a new student, full of life and potential, a person who is granted a second chance at life.”
Basically, just keep your mind on the project and try to be friendly.

I’d put them both in a big slingshot and hurl them into the sun…