This Is Going To Suck

We have a question that's really hard.  The kids are providing answers that we have not anticipated, and the guidelines have been unclear as to what parameters we need to set in order to score them accurately.

Partially as a result, two people on my team of ten are struggling.  There is a metric, and even though a lot of people on my team are barely nosing above it, these two are well below it.  I gave them a lot of feedback and I (sort of) gave them papers correcting their scores, and Wednesday morning I gave them a pep talk.

It doesn't seem like it's working, because at the tail end of work Wednesday my supervisor told me that she was going to remove both of them from that question.  She's been at this for a long time, so I will defer to her judgement.  But still, it's hard.  Maybe I'm reading too much into this; for all I know they might think it's a relief.  But for one thing this removes two people (let alone the several others that have not been up to snuff on this) on a very difficult question to score from the project, and we are grotesquely short on manpower as it is.

Moreover, it's a blow to their pride.  Through their frustrations Wednesday morning, I still believe that they care about doing a good job.  It really is the question.  It's hard to grade!  It just seems that my boss needs to get the numbers up, and she no longer can wait to see them turn it around.

This is going to suck.  She breaks the news to them, but I don't know how they'll react.  I also don't know if I'll get blowback.  I'm worried, in one of many examples I cannot foresee, that one or both of them will get very upset and then accuse me of either not telling them their numbers are low or not helping them lift them up.  I would need to provide documentation, and frankly, what meager feedback I have given these two I don't remember.  You know, maybe I didn't give them back any papers. ...  If I only knew then that she could and would take this step, maybe I would have done things differently

There is one thing.  Everybody is unable to grasp all of the permutations of answers now, so for most of Wednesday my boss and one of my co-workers appeared to have honed in on one of the many knots putting everybody in the room into fits over this question.  What has resulted are guidelines for two common and particularly nebulous types of answers many of the kids have given.  I don't know how far this solves our most vexing problems, but if my two weak ones get these and apply them when applicable, maybe that's the key to getting their numbers up.  Maybe my boss should give them one more try, a couple or three hours to go through the questions with this new page as a beacon.  Maybe it'll work, and if not, then she can make the decision.

But dammit, not like this.  I feel really bad for these two if and when they hear the news at work today.