Yup, mine was also 4 hours/week for 1 credit. The time really flew, though, and it seemed much easier and shorter than my genchem labs.
The partner stories make me laugh. So aggravating at the time, but pretty comical after the fact. There's no real strategy to picking someone, since it's usually done the first day. People can shock you with their stupidity/helplessness, so I would just hope, at a minimum, to find someone lazy enough to just let you do everything without arguing to do something different and completely WRONG. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if your ochem lab has a lot of (or all) individual work, or if your instructor is receptive to you working alone if you prefer. A few years out, I might be getting my memories mixed up, but I think mine was mix of individual and group projects (probably depending on the cost of the reagents or the amount of components in the procedure). My instructors were pretty forgiving when things didn't go well, though.