My Sincerest Apologies.

Dear Fellow Group Assignment Members,

I trust since the last series of frantic emails and calls a half an hour ago you are all doing well. I have taken the time since our last exchange to reflect on what each of you had to express and I have realized I owe each of you some apologies.

First off, I apologize for suggesting the topic of focus for our group assignment. I admit the idea wasn't one of my best. To be honest, even I thought it sucked. It was born out of panic, to be honest. You see, we only had a half an hour to pitch our ideas to our lecturer and, after I realized we were all sitting in silence and staring around blankly for twenty minutes of that time, I think I let fear get the better of me and I simply blurted out the first thing that popped into my head. Believe me, had I known my decision to speak would lead to everyone else automatically turning off their brains and accepting my suggestion wholeheartedly (despite my opening the floor - nay - begging for other suggestions), I would have continued to remain silent with the rest of you.

I am so, SO sorry that everyone automatically assumed - without first confirming it with me - that, since I was the one who came up with the idea, that I would also be the one to prepare the whole draft paper for the lecturer to review and then go on to write the script as well (I hope you can understand my confusion at this point since another member of the group had already volunteered to do so but later, without giving us warning, seemed to have changed his mind). In hindsight, it made perfect sense that you all would just go about your lives for an entire week and think it was being handled by me, despite my not knowing I had to do it.

I'm also sorry for my job suddenly becoming so demanding. Had I known my being transferred to another office so far away, having to prepare a handover package for my replacement and subsequently having to miss a class due to the sheer exhaustion which resulted from all of this would have sent you all into such a state of panic, I would have acted in a more considerate manner.

I must also apologize for the lecturer shooting down our topic (the one I pitched and to which no one offered any alternative.) and that we now have to come up with and rewrite an entirely new paper. Had I known that during the week I was unreachable, some other member of the team would have altered my originally craptastic idea and made it, not only more craptastic, but put it outside the guidelines of the assignment, I would have made it my utmost priority to have handled things differently.

I am especially sorry to you, one-member-of-the-group-who-has-to-constantly-complain-that-you-are-the-only-one-who-is-actually-doing-anything. I know. I KNOW. It has been very hard on you. What, with your being completely silent and unreachable until the last minute and then emailing some shoddily prepared, almost unusable assembly of words, followed by calling and texting everyone in the group to make sure we see that you contributed. That ONLY YOU contributed.

I am perfectly willing to accept your behavior since you admitted to acting unreasonably when the mere thought of failing an assignment enters your head. I'm sure that was what prompted your very aggressive, albeit erroneous, email the other morning at 4 AM, telling us how you have to "put your foot down" and "we should consider ourselves lucky you didn't CC the lecturer on this email". For your sake, I am happy you did not CC our lecturer since, during your little rant, you clearly misrepresented how much you contributed to the group's work and how little everyone else did.

Mostly, I apologize for what comes next. I am afraid I can no longer sit idly by and trust everyone else to be the adults we all are supposed to be. I am truly sorry but, reluctantly, I am going to be taking stricter measures, assigning tasks and responsibilities, and making sure everyone communicates. Trust that I have no desire to do this but some level of leadership is needed going forward and, sadly, I see no one else stepping up to fill that role.

I hope you all can find it your hearts to forgive me for all I have done to contribute to every failure we've had as a group thus far. I will try my best from now on to be more of a team player and to be more considerate of everyone else's needs and commitments. I hope we can work past this and move forward from here.

Sincerely,

Vinny