Back in school  “Workshop” was a 4 unit course that was compulsory in order to advance to the next class. It didn’t matter how well you did in all the other courses; if you failed “Workshop” that was an automatic carryover.Workshop was the annual production, put together by the entire class. Easy peasy you would say, seeing as we were all theater arts undergrads. 

Thankfully the lecturers  overtime knew who contributed what and how much, and there were extra marks for outstanding performances, for the most part we would swim – or sink as a team. 

We had an entire semester to prepare for  1hour (on the average) performance.  An entire semester; anything from 3months to even a year depending on whether on not ASSU went on strike.
Every year, without fail, we would spend 3 quarters of that time bickering over “what” should be done, “who” would do it and “how”.

There were those who were gifted with ideas and skills and would give of them freely, while there were those who made it their ministry to shoot everything down without providing  an alternative plan.The word “unworkable” became a running joke…

“Okay… lets try this”. 

Them: “No”.”Why””Its not workable”

Ok why is it not workable?

Them: “It’s just not”

Ok, bring your own suggestion.

Them: We dont have one.

So let’s try this now.

Them: “No; its not workable”.

And on and on it would go. Three weeks to work shop

Indi “its not workable”  would fall in line, and the very ideas that THEY had dismissed as not workable are the ones adopted by all unilaterally. ideas that had been discarded weeks prior, that we could have been working. at the end of the day it didn’t matter much who did what. we were scored as a group. we would sink or swim… together.

The moral of the story – just get on with it.