I have had the privilege of leading two cohorts of wonderful Lambda students through their Labs journey.
Of the 16 students I oversaw, many have experienced a variety of roadblocks and setbacks, technical and otherwise. One student had emergency surgery. One student’s grandfather passed away. One student’s aunt had a heart attack. One student experienced almost constant slowdowns because of computer issues. One student was (and still is) battling cancer.
All of these students have struggled through those trials and tribulations to contribute to our project at an incredibly high degree. It is because of these students and their work ethic that our project at the end of two four weeks stints is so incredible. It is because of these students that I really have faith that being a Lambda graduate means something.
Unfortunately, although I could write tomes praising them, due to extenuating circumstances, this writing will not be about those students; it will be about another. This was never meant to be published, as it was written as a form of catharsis. Now that she has used identifying information in her public blog and refused to remove it despite my repeated requests, however, I have no choice but to reveal the unflinching truth of what actually transpired.
It is hard NOT to sympathize with this student. This student has experienced a constant slew of problems, from internet, to computer, to Zoom, to GitHub, to her partner experiencing a medical emergency, to her brother passing away, to her pulling out her back, to bad weather. Through all this, I have remained empathetic, even while I had my moments of doubt with regard to the veracity of some of these claims, especially where inconsistencies surfaced. I often sat with this student over Slack long after the rest of our team had disbanded for the night, reading and responding to her messages that discussed the variety of reasons why she did not work or would not be able to contribute. Sometimes this involved having the same conversations I had with the rest of the team in the daytime that she did not partake in because she was, once again, missing for this reason or that. I’ve talked with the student on weekends, and have spent dedicated hours providing individual feedback, both “in-person” over Zoom and as comments on her actual submissions, to her Sprint Challenges that were not up to par with the standards set by Lambda School.
When I have sensed the — completely justified and understandable — frustration and inklings of discontent from other students who have had to pick up the slack from her prolonged absences and inability to contribute, I have tried to re-shift the team focus to the project instead of the person, encouraging kindness and compassion to whatever she may be going through. Thankfully, we have innately wonderful and kind and compassionate people on our team, and as a result, team morale remained high and she was never excluded from our jollity. Even on the last day of our project, when there was no more work left and no mandate to stay after our regularly-scheduled standup, we spent two hours together over Zoom, excitedly chatting about what the future has to offer.
This is why it hit me like a ton of bricks when I received, past midnight on our last Tuesday together, a message from this student addressed to me, our Labs manager, our Student Success coordinator, and Lambda’s CEO, alleging that I had (1) “been discriminating [her] from the beginning because [she] did not participate in bashing a sitting President,” that (2) I have “[talked] about [her] behind [her] back to other team members,” and that (3) I “showed no sympathy about the death of [her] brother where [she] even had to do CPR on him.” Two and a half hours later, she came back to add that (4) I have “a real potty mouth.” Later that same day, she cheerfully announced to our product channel that it was her birthday, and informed us she had thrown a 70s themed party over the weekend in celebration.
Where do I start with this? My immediate reaction was confusion — surely this could not have been coming from the student I had spent the most energy and effort on, for whom I have sacrificed time with my family on nights and weekends. And (1) when did our team have the time to bash ANY person, President or otherwise, in our frenzied scramble to create and build the product we did? At this point, my initial confusion turned into disappointment and frustration — she was not only pointing fingers at me, but at our entire team as well. If she was so uncomfortable with all of us, why does she always talk about how great our team is? If I had been discriminating against her since the beginning, why did we joke together constantly via DM? Why did she constantly compliment me, telling me that I am “amazing,” that I “always bring a smile to [her] face,” and that I remind her of another project lead she has, someone she “loves to pieces”?
(2) The ONLY times I have talked about her to any other student were, as mentioned above, to encourage understanding and compassion from those who have had to pick up the slack from her frequent and prolonged absences, in order to get over and move on from any potential pent-up feelings quickly. Otherwise, again, our team was far too busy to ever really be concerned with one missing individual. Focusing on any negativity in our precious time together would only have put a damper on our productivity in the four short weeks we had. To assume that I spent any time with the rest of the team to talk about one person, negatively or otherwise, is absurd and incredibly self-centered. She even claims to have a corroborator — I highly suspect that this person also happens to be the source of the vast majority of the complaints I’ve received about her, while also playing the duplicitous role of her most ardent supporter.
(3) My immediate messages to her Sunday notice about the death of her brother and pulling out her back were “I’m so sorry to hear that, [student]. Do you need some time to grieve? I really don’t want you to take on too much. You should focus on healing, both mentally and physically. The team (and Lambda) will understand if you need to take some time off. I can help you write a frontdesk ticket if you would like. I don’t want you to worry about the project.” Do these messages really evince no sympathy? My suggestion of taking some time off to heal was intentionally and grossly misconstrued in the most egregious way. When she expressed her desire to stay on with the team, I absolutely supported her decision while remaining firm in my conviction that each individual on our team should offer similar levels of contribution to our project in order to stay fair and equitable to everyone.
(4) I own up to cursing a few times while I attempt to maintain a casual environment with my team to keep morale high and atmosphere light in the very dense four weeks they have in Labs — and this is about as factual as these allegations get.
So where is this coming from? Why did this student decide to launch this invective against my team and me, to spew vitriol against people she has time and again complimented and praised? It’s difficult to ascertain exactly what she could be thinking, considering the disconnect between her words + actions and… well, her other words + actions. One thing is clear: she wants to pass Labs, and is willing to do anything to ensure that happens, integrity notwithstanding. She has written a slightly less damaging series of articles on Medium, where the only finger pointed is at me. Many major facts are left out in those public facing articles, not the least of which was that she was the person that initiated all correspondences with Student Success, in direct contradiction to her claim that I tried to flex her. Instead, the actual truth is that she used the intentional misrepresentation of facts and even blatant lies to sell me, and my entire team, down the river to try to get her way.
Without contributing a single pull request or committing a single line of code to our project, she wanted to join the ranks of the Lambda graduates on our team who have worked tirelessly over the course of the four weeks we were together to build a product that they can be proud of. What is the horrible alternate that she is trying so hard to avoid, and is willing to drag the rest of her beloved team down for? Another four weeks of Labs. Heaven forbid!
My conscience is clear, for myself and the other members of my team. In her last Sprint Challenge revisions, she doubled down on her original claims and added new baseless allegations against all of us. There is nothing left for me to do. I offered my unadulterated DMs with this student to Student Success, because I have absolutely nothing to hide. Her allegations, against both myself and our team that she purports to love so much, are patently false.
Thankfully, I have over a dozen other wonderful students whom I now call my friends since I am no longer their team lead. When I think back to my two months as a Labs TPL, it will be with great fondness because of the rapport that we built together as members of such amazing and hardworking teams. Heck, maybe I will end up writing tomes about my positive experience with them!
I wish this remaining member, despite her attempt to discredit and disparage the entire team and me, only the best for her future, and hope that whatever she may be going through is resolved. To avoid any further animosity or false claims of prejudicial grading, I requested that her assignments be taken over by another person. Thus, it was out of my hands whether this student had to repeat Labs, but it appears that she did end up having to take Labs over and was put on the same project, evidently having actually been flexed despite her best efforts.
Although my contract with Lambda had been maxed, I was asked if I had I any interest in coming back for another term as a TPL. As much as I would have loved to, I needed to shift my energy back on the job search and make up the time I’ve missed with my family, so I declined the offer to continue on. What I’ve learned from this experience is that as long as you act with integrity, the truth will prevail. Even when kindness backfires, the only thing to do is continue to act with kindness.
