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November 12, 2004
The Apprentice
The Apprentice - Week 10
Posted by Nadine Heintz at 3:45 PM
Where do I even begin? Apex is a complete disaster. Even though I've never thought much of Chris, I was shocked by how bad he was as PM. First of all, his language is terrible. His crass behavior makes Heidi look like Mary Poppins. I'm not totally against cursing, but he's out of control. Of course, his biggest mistake last night was giving up as soon as he heard that the challenge was to set up a bridal salon. I couldn't believe that, especially considering his comments last week and his vow to rally the team. The whole point of the show is to prove that you can successfully complete a business challenge, whether that means massaging dogs or creating a new toy.
While Chris should take most of the blame for last night's disaster, the rest of the team was awful as well. Once again, they just gave up when their PM started having a breakdown. If they wanted to win, they should have taken control of the situation. That said, I have to give Jennifer some credit. I wasn't surprised that Chris sent her back up to the penthouse last night. At least she convinced some vendors to sign on. But, even though they wound up enticing some vendors and stocking up their sale with some dresses, their marketing idea was ridiculous. Handing out flyers and painting a sign on the front window. That was so amateurish.
I can't say that the Mosaic team members did much better. If it wasn't for Sandy, they probably wouldn't have known about the Knot.com, or that many bridal shops have discontinued dresses that they're eager to get rid of at cost. Even with Sandy's help, Maria and Wes blew the marketing task by forgetting to include a phone number on the email. It wound up working out in the end, but Maria was caught lying. This isn't the first time her disregard for detail has led to a major blunder. The only time she didn't act like a total ditz was during the fashion show episode...maybe because her head was on the chopping block that time? Hmmm. Maybe there's a little sabotage going on.
As time goes by, Kelly seems like a bigger and bigger jerk. His cocky attitude is really bothering me. And Wes was right on. I was hoping the Donald would take away Kelly's exemption and give it to Sandy last night. Wes was so right when he pointed out that Kelly chose to shadow Sandy instead of helping out with the marketing efforts. He was in full CYA mode. That's no way to lead a team.
Andy was a real goofball last night. That was pretty funny when Caroline asked him if it was his first time "doing this." That Ferrari comment was pretty cheesy. Andy has a lot to learn about the nuances of doing business. I just can't imagine him being a president of a Trump company. Maybe an intern?
Needless to say, Ivana is in real jeopardy. The Donald doesn't like her at all. Neither do I. As the Donald mentioned, that whole team seems totally apathetic. They're a stark contrast to last season's contestants. But maybe the Donald's comments in the boardroom last night will light a fire under them. I guess we'll find out next week...
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So who was fired?
Chris was fired, and rightly so. There isn't much to add to this. No one in the group has anything to offer...well, I suppose I'd like to see Jennifer's rack, but that's all I see she has to offer. It's really boring and I think I'm going to start watching the recaps and skip the show.
Anyone else see this one coming from a mile away? Last week’s foreshadowing, this week’s Trump advice, and general karma said this was a Chris-loser. Have to agree with Nadine on Apex.
The project managers in the last two tasks seem to have just given up. Watching this show week-in-week-out, we tend to forget this is an ongoing 15-week job interview for them. I went through six interviews to get the job I currently have. It was grueling – and I got to go home between interviews. Processes like this are about who can survive – much like being the C_O executive to which the Aspiring Corporate Weasels (TM another “Apprentice†forum) wish to be elevated.
I think what bugs me the most about the giving up, however, is that last year when the team realized they couldn’t win a task, they set about to have fun at the task anyway. Witness Kwame, Troy, Heidi et al with the rickshaw task. This year they don’t even try to have fun when they still think they have a chance to win! The contestants spend so much pre-task effort in covering their own butts and inventing excuses in case they lose that they just don’t approach the tasks with the élan and flair last year’s candidates exhibited.
It was nice to finally see at least one person actually show some competence at what they said they were expert. Jenn and Raj blew on real estate tasks. Maria has proven to be a Marketing and public speaking disaster. But Sandy actually seems to be very good at the bridal shop business. Even if she eventually loses, she can go back to her shop and employees/coworkers and customers unashamed of her performance (unlike Stacy R. or Maria).
Another shout out to Sandy on taking Kelly (project manager) outside to complain about the team’s attitude and behavior – instead of complaining in front of everyone. And her complaints were presented in a well-constructed and reasonable manner.
A little bit of advice for Apex: When you go to a business to ask them to commit their inventory to your venture, WEAR A SUIT! Cargo shorts or capri pants and a polo shirt do not scream (or even hint at) professionalism.
I was on the Kelly-hate train until this episode, when I realized something. He is a competent Type-A person and is feels he is surrounded by mostly-incompetent people. I think he’s just reached a point where he doesn’t want to play games anymore and feels like it won’t get done right if he doesn’t do it. However, he needs to realize that Andy has grown in this process and has proven to be pretty competent (phone loss aside), so stop trying to undermine him.
One could argue that Kelly is pushy and does not allow for different people being competent at different things (i.e., you don’t ask an artist to do your taxes, likewise a CPA would be a poor choice to design a bridge). But Kelly does seem to realize differing competences exist. He left Sandy to handle her area of competence, bridal retailing, and left Marketing up to Maria and Wes (Maria’s forte – if we believe her resume and not past experience with her). He is just one of those arrogant people that feels that he is best at being in charge and doesn’t understand when someone else doesn’t agree with his assessment of his own leadership skills.
Kelly does need to learn to accept the chain of command when he is not at the top of it and step up to help with projects that aren’t being run by him (like Bill, Kwame, Troy, and Amy did last year).
Maria got the blame for the e-mail fiasco this week, but wasn’t Wes sitting by her side the entire time? Wasn’t Wes the one who was assigned Marketing duties in the ice cream task (also with Kelly as PM) and was unable to drum up even a restaurant or distributor appointment? Although the Schizophrenic Blink Monkey annoys me to no end, she doesn’t deserve ALL the blame on this one.
But she should take it in the shorts for LYING about the phone number. As a graduate of Pensacola CHRISTIAN College, she should least once have run across a copy of the Ten Commandments. Check out Number 8, dear.
Twice Wes has described Kelly’s delegation of task responsibilities as a CYA blame-dodging ploy. Wes did that on this task and on the ice cream task. Being a Private Wealth Manager and not a people/project manager, Wes may not be familiar with the fact that a good executive or project manager breaks a project into tasks and delegates responsibilities in order to get the project completed in the time allotted.
That said, Kelly does do an awful lot of covering his own butt. Too bad he doesn't cover the rest of himself in the morning while answering the phone.
Ivana the Terrible seems to be somewhat competent – if you assign her a task and point her in the right direction. Left to her own devices, she seems to self-destruct and take others down with her. Where Ivana fails is in putting the disparate pieces into a cohesive whole. Witness her inability as budget manager to think strategically and alert the PM of Maria’s potential budget problem in advance so adjustments could be made.
Trump seems (repeat “seemsâ€) to have caught on to Jennifer’s Jekyll-Hyde (nice-in-the-boardroom but nasty-in-the-suite) nature. Although, knowing the Burnett/Trump “we think we’re being clever†schtick, that could just be a tease and the Jekyll-ette could make it to the final four.
While Kelly and Andy duke it out for alpha-wolf status on Mosaic, Kevin’s withdrawal after the NYPD task has left Jennifer the de facto BSD of Apex. Big mistake. Jennifer seems to operate under the mistaken notion that if you get rid of all the “un-cool losers†on your team, your team will be full of “cool†people and thus, invincible. Following Jennifer’s play-to-the-boardroom-and-not-the-task strategy, Apex has lost a player in each of the last three weeks and has gone from playing six-against-five to playing three-against-five. In succession, Apex has lost Elizabeth, Raj, and Chris (two of them solid, if not spectacular, contributors). And Apex has not gotten better.
What we all assumed was JenM staying above the fray and out of the StacyR-Ivana-Maria-JennC coven, was actually her letting them grind each other down so she could step in and conquer.
Best moment: Andy comparing a bridal gown to a Ferrari and Carolyn’s “you’ve never done this before†comment.
The reward this week: WOW! $50,000 to spend at a jewelry store. I’ll grant a last-minute pardon to DT for the Denise Rich stinker.
I don’t really see a single candidate this year that could hold a candle to last year’s final five (had to include Troy since I thought he should have been in and Nick out). My fave’s for making the final four have to be Kelly (a Type-A a**hole, but a competent one), Andy (came of age on the NYPD and house renovation tasks), Kevin (has shown enthusiasm and professionalism in the past but is now stuck on a sinking ship and knows it), and Sandy (I’ve got no one else – and she has stepped up as a team player two weeks in a row).
I'm knocking out Wes (too much of a follower and has been riding under the radar so far), Jen (for reasons stated above), Ivana (no leadership or strategic thinking skills), and the Schizophrenic Blink Monkey (for obvious reasons).
Given their animosity, a final two pitting Kelly against Andy would be interesting.
I'm interested in seeing who was in charge of the marketing for this task. But I think Jennifer did deserve an exemption no matter what Trump said. He obsesses too much about bringing 3 people into the boardroom rather than 2 (and I don't understand why). Jennifer took a bad situation where Chris was sitting on the floor with his head between his legs and helped to get the product into the store. If it hadn't been for having just the flyer distribution in their marketing efforts (which George caught right away), the team might have pulled out a win. This time, it was Chris who deserved to go. He single-handedly almost sunk the team without even putting up a fight.
Sandy put in a great effort and came up with great ideas. I can't blame the team and Kelly for coasting a little bit on her expertise. He probably should have focused on the marketing efforts, but his team didn't have a mutiny or fall into shambles with him at the helm. I think she overstressed about some small details that really had no effect on the outcome of the contest (the missing phone number on the email and the other people on her team not working hard enough). Maria is definitely not detail-oriented enough to work on the marketing pieces (like with the toothpaste marketing overage problem). But the weak links will be exposed soon enough.
The challenges of this season have related to getting customers in the door. It's a real challenge to get the word out when you only have a day or two per task. In this case, Sandy's inside knowledge about having an email blast to theknot.com brought her team a win just as much as the surplus idea.
My predictions for who's going to get fired for the rest of the season (with the number of boardrooms in parentheses): Ivana (3), Kevin (3), Andy (3), Maria (2), Wes (1), Sandy (0), Jennifer (0), Kelly (0).
Boardrooms:
Pamela, Rob and Andy
Ivana, Stacie J., Bradford and Jennifer C.
Elizabeth, Maria and Stacie J.
Jennifer C. Stacy R. and Elizabeth
Pamela, Stacy R. and Maria
John, Andy and Kevin
Wes, Andy and Stacy R.
Elizabeth, Raj and Chris
Kevin, Ivana and Raj
Chris, Ivana and Kevin
The Donald is great. All the other rip-off Apprentice shows can't compete. The Benefactor? Flop!
Guys,
On apprentice.yahoo.com there's extra footage that doesn't make it to prime time. In this one, you get to see Andy pull rank on Kelly for not giving him credit when credit is due. Kelly was really nonchalent by saying that what Andy comes up with is not rocket science. Also, Jen screwed up with the marketing for Apex. I agree, the Apprentice rip offs cannot compete.
I would agree whole-heartedly with the thumbs-down on The Apprentice copycats.
...With the caveat that "My Big, Fat, Obnoxious Boss" on Fox isn't a copycat, but a parody.
And it's a real hoot! In some ways, perhaps by having the luxury of being a parody and not aiming for the same target as Apprentice, it actually reaches truths that Apprentice et al don't.
“He obsesses too much about bringing 3 people into the boardroom rather than 2 (and I don't understand why).”
“Wait, this is my new rule that is meant to make the show better. You must follow it, I am the real estate diety!” The Donald
After he keeps saying “Why did you bring this other person in” I would flaunt the rules and say “I’ll take one person!” which I sure they would edit out and say, No, you have to take two or Burnett will have a fit.
Kelly needs to learn politics of working in business a bit better and be less West Point – esque “I am the Commander here!” You have to politically work with the members of any business team and not be too overbearing or you risk alienating team members and cutting overall morale. I do believe though that with everyone’s nerves frayed by this point, we have to expect people to give in and lose their composure a bit. I am certainly lost it under much less stress so I guess it is unfair to blame some people for not keeping their cool. However, as in business stress situations, people’s true capabilities come out. Maria has probably coasted at her job for years with no major upheaval but when the going gets tough, the blink monkey folds and pulls Omarosa style CYA like “I told her to do it, why didn’t she”
I am much more impressed by Sandy, especially from pulling off the real estate challenge smoothly and also her grace under fire for this challenge.
My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss is funny, but not uproariously so. I don’t know if it’s the editing or what but I expected bigger laughs for pulling the wool over some snide Type – As eyes. I’d rather see the crew from this Apprentice on that show, all the egos would REALLY make it funny.
This is a pretty sad commentary if this is all that Mr. Trump has to choose from. I run my own business, and the only candidate I would even consider would be Kevin, and based on his performance, would not hire him. There is not a true businessman in the bunch. Donald has to be pulling out the rest of his hair at this moment.
What do expect, most of the contestants this year are attorney's or in law school. This leads to fireworks, not sound business decisions. Definitely not as fun to watch as last season.
I just watched "my big fat boss" just because it was a parody.
It was not funny, and at no time held my interest. I'm a bit harder to fool and I can't believe that these people are not suspecting candid camera.
agree with jeteye. there's many in the bunch who can be called a rolemodel. Though i like Andy, he sure is young and lacks experience, but he's the only one who has some strength of character and will improve if goes in the right direction. Kelly was impressive in the beginning but his overbearing will alienate more people than generate business and relationship.
chas - Of course "these people are not suspecting candid camera". Haven't you read the preceding comments about what a sorry lot of candidates even The Apprentice fields? These folk have two things on their mind, and two things only: 1.$$ payoff, and 2. making themselves look better than their competitors. The last thing that would occur to any of them is rocking the boat.
Reggie,
that's pretty much my point.
In this day and age, with all the crap on TV; the hoax shows, the practical jokes, fake weddings, scams, candid camera type shows, you been "punked"; I can't believe that these morons can go as long as they do without suspecting a scam. The look on their faces indicate that they can not believe what they are hearing/seeing. How can one of them not jump up and say, "I think this is a joke."
I mean, Even I won't fall for a fake lottery ticket when my friends give me one......
This week we get to see some modeling...so hopefully a rack or two fill be flashed! Sha-wing!
================================================
Gratuitous Prediction:
Whoever is the first losing PM to take three people into the boardroom (better be soon! time/contestants are running out), Trump will not fire. Trump will be so pleased that someone used his little twist that DT would spare the losing PM.
================================================
Too bad the Apex PM can't use that trick.
Ivanna took three people into the board room.
Does anyone remember if Carolyn said "Send HIM home" or "Send 'EM home" ? I get the feeling she's tired of the whole bunch.
Previews might seem to indicate that Kelly and Jen are now on the same team... A shake up tonight, perhaps.
If I were on Mosaic, it would require a grant of immunity (or another shopping spree) to get me to go gently into that dark night of the soul that is Apex.
OTOH, Kelly is just arrogant enough to go voluntarily - thinking that he and Jennifer, with some minor assistance from Kevin, can beat Andy, Wes, Maria, and Sandy. And Kelly's just competent enough that he might be right.
Other than when they played in Sandy's area of expertise, I don't think Kelly thinks anyone on his team is good enough to play at his level. With Maria he is right. Although still out on Sandy, the jury is leaning strongly in a certain direction.
If another team shuffle is done this week and is two captains picking people (like last year), look for the teams to break accordingly:
Kelly
Jennifer
Sandy
Maria/Ivana (does it really matter?)
Kevin
Andy
Wes
Ivana/Maria (does it really matter?)
Kelly views Jennifer as the other team's him and wants her on his team. He was cozy with Sandy in the helicopter so he will probably push for her to be on the team. He dislikes Andy and will probably push to choose Maria over Ivana (better the devil you know). Jennifer won't mind having Maria on the team over Ivana since she detests Ivana. Sandy and Ivana won't have much of a vote on who gets selected.
Andy and Wes seemed to gel well in the NYPD project. Wes seems to be the only Mosaic-ite that doesn't automatically dismiss Andy for being younger. Andy was the only one of the Apprenti who welcomed Ivana back so he'll probably favor her over Maria. Kelly and Jennifer will not pick Kevin quickly enough to save him from being chosen by this team - which will be good for Kevin because he really needs a change (of scenery and attitude).
Although at first glance the Jennifer-Kelly axis looks stronger, egos will clash. Sandy, coming off two strong performances, will not like being pushed aside. Kelly and Jennifer, desperate to maintain their streak of being the only people to never have been in the boardroom will be playing CYA against each other - all the while assuming that because the other one is on their team, they'll win ("...because, like, don't the cool people ALWAYS win?").
The Andy-Kelly-Wes axis will be more cooperative and easy-going than the Jennifer-Kelly axis. Although Wes and Ivana's error-prone behavior will cause problems, this team should perform respectably.
Well if you really want a funny Apprentice parody, it was Andy Dick's "The Assistant". But of course, that was more comedy show than reality show--some of that stuff was set up. (As opposed to reality TV??? Hmmmm....)
connan,
What the hell are you babbeling about?
Can someone tell me who was eliminated last night?
I saw it right up until the part where the losing team was coming into the board room. Did Maria finally look as bad as she really is? Wes was supposed to put Maria in her place. She showed that she has some real issues. God help the fool that marries her!!! When is someone going to say that Kevin is probably the most mature and well rounded of the whole bunch and he is the only person more concerned with winning than appearances. Andy would be good to hire as a manager or junior exec but I would not put him in charge of my company.
I lost interest when Pamela was fired. A bit hard-shelled, but the only go-getter of the bunch.
if you lost interest, then why are you in here posting about it?
pamela was an egotistical, penis envied bully. She was not hard shelled, she was hard headed.
Can someone tell me who was eliminated last night and why?
With the Maria/Wes double-firing last night, I can see that my predicting ability is terribly lacking.
Maria and Wes were eliminated, because they sucked!
Don't like bullies huh? How ironic.
No, ...Ironic is someone that has no interest in something, yet spends time on that something.
Pointing out bullies is not ironic.
Acting like a bully, and condeming bullies is called hypocrisy.
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