How to address Cohort mates who aren’t coming to their TA job

[Bayesian1701]

As a part of my assistantship, I would in a tutoring center for a few hours a week.  Most of my cohort does the same thing.  Multiple people work at the same time, but some of my coworkers are regularly skipping or coming in extremely late (20 minutes out of two hours).  When people don’t show up the students have to wait and they have gotten frustrated.  It’s also caused me stress because I have to help more people than I would if my coworkers were actually there.  I’m busy too as a fellow first year dealing with three difficult classes.  I’m frustated but I don’t want to make them mad because they are in my cohort and I will be spending 4-6 years with these people.  Any suggestions on how to deal with this? Should I keep quiet or is it time to contact the professor in charge after a week of 5 no shows and only 2 people out of 6 there for the first 20 minutes three days in a row. 

[PokePsych]

Do you have some sort of supervisor?

[ResilientDreams]

I don't think you need to tiptoe around telling people to actually do their job. I would confront your fellow students first and then if they still continue to be late/skip, notify the professor. They committed to this job, and if they suffer the consequences from not following through on their responsibilities, they have no one to blame but themselves.

[Bayesian1701]

8 hours ago, Psygeek said:

Do you have some sort of supervisor?

Just the professor in charge of all TAs.

[Sigaba]

7 hours ago, ResilientDreams said:

I don't think you need to tiptoe around telling people to actually do their job. I would confront your fellow students first and then if they still continue to be late/skip, notify the professor. They committed to this job, and if they suffer the consequences from not following through on their responsibilities, they have no one to blame but themselves.

It's not a worker bee's place to tell other worker bees to do their jobs. It is a good way to lose one's job.

1 hour ago, Bayesian1701 said:

Just the professor in charge of all TAs.

If you're going to say anything, say it to this professor. It would not hurt to have in reserve some sort of documentation of the number of students you're assisting.

As an alternative, if the rules of the road allow, would it be possible to support several students at a time? (I would not ask one student if it's okay to include additional students in the session because there's a disparity of power.)

[PokePsych]

I'd talk with the professor - or if there's some sort of person in charge of TA-ships (my uni has that), you could also talk with them. I'd explore these options first before directing talking to the other students

[dr. t]

If you do go to the professor in charge, go to them saying that you have a heavy workload and are getting too many students. Let them figure out why. Otherwise, it won't go well.