"The Apprentice" (no spoilers)

Not much this week - a recap of the last ten weeks.

For the record, Omarosa's comment was "you're emotionally unstable" to which Ereka replied "that's the pot calling the kettle black."
After Omarosa's performance in the boardroom, that comment was pretty prescient.

ROFLMAO!!! Trump retaliates against Omarosa's allegations by going over her medical treatment (nurse in the suite, then to the hospital)
When she went up to the suite there wasn't a drop of blood. Now many of you probably guessed, but I've been hit on the head a few times. One time I stood up under some metal shelving and hit my head on the corner. I had blood running down the side of my face as I headed to medical. No stitches and I went right back to work.

So I'm calling "malingerer" on Omarosa.

Ouch. Didn't mean to focus on the O'ster so much. Sorry. But no other real revelations.

Philo

Philo
Friday, March 19, 2004

One thing that was pretty clear, seeing every week back-to-back, was that Katrina's so hypocritical. She blasted Nick for using her looks to sell the pedicab rides, yet whenever she had to sell something in the earlier tasks, she broke out the mini-skirts and spiky heels.
Ain't nothing wrong with using your looks to sell, just don't get all indignant about it when you're called on it.

Mike Dunn
Friday, March 19, 2004

I missed the show today, who got fired?

John Rosenberg
Friday, March 19, 2004

Is this your first 10 weeks at Microsoft Philo or some TV show?
Lost...

Pietro
Friday, March 19, 2004

Omarosa's drama was interesting. She didn't lie about going to the hospital. I told my girlfriend about her comments about Mark Burnette shows being racially baised, and she said "But what about Kwame?" Okay, he doesn't look like he *does* anything, but I've never seen anything negative about him. Besides, clever editing can make you look bad, but it can't actually put words in your mouth. Besides, I don't think Kwame does anything. Did he do anything at all besides sign basketballs when he managed Planet Hollywood?

The introductions were good. It's hard to sum up a career, and some people did a good job of it, others gave just fluff. Some were conspicous by what they left out. Omarosa worked in the White House, but never said what she did. Tammy had absolutely nothing to say better than "I'm excited to be here."

The recap was also nice. You can really see the emotional ups and downs of the people involved, and the reasons/character flaws behind their "stupid mistakes," and start to see what Trump is looking for from someone both in the boardroom & out. It really shows that proper management is often just not getting in the way of your employees.

You can also spot trends easier. In addition to the Kwame "Let's give $100 to whoever sells $10 first" I noticed that Troy, by selling advance tickets for his pedicabs was trying to duplicate his Trump Ice success of selling future deliveries instead of just the one for that week.

You will also notice that Trump referred to these people as the cream of the crop (my words not his), and that they will all be successful, or are successful. Taking this statement at face value, you'll notice that all these people have... let's call them quirks. With the exception of Bill & possibly Amy, they all seem to be somehow waiting to be judged. They're either on the attack, or on the defensive most of the time.

To put it another way, when you put a tough question to any of them, only Bill and Amy seem to be able to actually weigh the facts and come to a logical conclusion. I wouldn't trust any of the others to not have some other self-motivated agenda.

www.MarkTAW.com
Friday, March 19, 2004

> Taking this statement at face value, you'll notice that all these people have... let's call them quirks.

I got sidetracked and never finished this thought.

I think it goes to show - if Trump is right (again taking this statement at face value) that all the character assassination that goes on here from people who aren't as successful (presumably) doesn't really mean much, and perhaps we should be learning from their example, as much as we think they're all morons and children.

But I suspect this isn't going to be a popular idea and I'm going to get a chorus of "they're inept & it's just a tv show" comments...

www.MarkTAW.com
Friday, March 19, 2004

Well I'd hope that in criticizing others we learn from their mistakes.

For myself, I keep working on objective justification - being able to say *why* I'm choosing or recommending something instead of just "it's good"

Philo

Philo
Friday, March 19, 2004

Mike - Katrina didn't blast Bill for using her looks; she blasted him for *only* using her looks. She was complaining that he didn't listen to her suggestions, never solicited her advice, but when he needed someone in a tight t-shirt then it was "Let's get Katrina"

Which IMHO is a very fair complaint.

Philo

Philo
Friday, March 19, 2004

I'm not sure if you all caught it, but George and Carolyn were on Fox and Friends yesterday morning.  While George was quite unimpressive, Carolyn was very articulate, bright, and witty.  It was interesting to see them outside of the boardroom setting.

Lou
Friday, March 19, 2004

Fair complaint....

But Katrina, Ericka, and Amy are all hot.  So you can't blame the guys....

me
Friday, March 19, 2004

Well, his point is: yes, you can blame them. Hot or not, you should at least be listening to their ideas. Move your eyes above nipple level and see what happens. :-p

Brad Wilson (dotnetguy.techieswithcats.com)
Friday, March 19, 2004

"Hot or not, you should at least be listening to their ideas."

Obviously there is no doubt that caveman sexists have no place in modern society; however I think the sexism complaint was thoroughly ungrounded and was a red herring. In that particular episode Katrino threw out some ideas concurrent with other discussions, and then immediately withdrew and cast herself as the unheard victim.

This is a classic control technique when someone doesn't want to be an equal party, and instead they wan't be a "more equal than others" party. The lesson is that in the future you'd better all go silent and carefully assess and listen to every nugget that they spew out, otherwise they'll sulk in a corner (kids learn this technique early on).

Dennis Forbes
Friday, March 19, 2004

Funny moment: when the doctor visited Omarosa in the suite and couldn't even find a bump on her head.

I could never figure out if Omarosa was just lining up ammunition to sue or if she's just a nut-job.

Clutch Cargo
Friday, March 19, 2004

Recapping all the episodes, I came away more and more impressed with Troy - despite being unimpressed with his boardroom floundering after the rickshaw contest.  The guy is always brainstorming and stepping into leadership roles.

All in all, this recap episode was less interesting than finding out yesterday that:
(1) Trump is trademaking the phrase "You're Fired". (See http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0318041trump1.html )
(2) Omarosa is negotiating a book deal and a talk show. (See http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/goto/?getPage=http%3A%2F%2Fmsnbc%2Emsn%2Ecom%2Fid%2F4556914%2F&return=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Edrudgereportarchives%2Ecom%2Fdsp%2Flinks%5Frecap%2Ehtm ).
(3) Omarosa was actually just a secretary/receptionists for Gore, and that lasted only a few months.  (Can't find the links that I had read).

Nick
Friday, March 19, 2004

I find it interesting that when it was men vs. women, the men lost four times straight.  Then when the teams were mixed, only women were fired (six times straight).  I'm not sure what it is yet, but that says something about male/female work dynamics.

Friday, March 19, 2004

All it says is that women kicked the guys butts in the tasks that they were assigned in the beginning; but the show must stay ballanced, so they fired some women to keep it ballanced.

If you read the credits, Trump gets consulted by the producers with respect to firing people. There are 3 objectives here: 1) make the show interesting by keeping interesting people as long as possible 2) make the show credible by not firing people for no reason (which is easy 3) don't fire the person whom Trump wants to be the apprentice.

In this case, the show is more viewable with a ballanced mix of men and women on the team.

genius
Friday, March 19, 2004

Whats "The Apprentice"?

Karthik
Friday, March 19, 2004

The women kicked ass early on because many of the tasks allowed them to leverage their looks, and they did so.

I realized something - in the airline ad they did NOT leverage their looks. They pitched a sexy ad, but there is no reason whatsoever the guys couldn't have pitched the exact same ad campaign.

I think the reason we've seen so many women fired since is that the men have already had their ranks thinned - the "easy fires" are gone, leaving the "easy fires" on the women's team as targets.

Philo

Philo
Friday, March 19, 2004

Karthik:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=the+apprentice

Emperor Norton
Friday, March 19, 2004

> Well I'd hope that in criticizing others we learn from their mistakes.

I absolutely agree. My point is that we should also recognize our own flaws and work with them. Reading around here it seems everyone on this forum is a superman. Super competent, humble in all the right areas, and gets along with everyone... except the a-hole in the next cube, the a-hole boss, and ... you get the idea.

Again, Dennis Forbes is right on the money. Katrina, for whatever reason, got into a power struggle with Bill when none needed to exist. Though I do have to wonder what part Bill played that we didn't see, and i'm not too crazy about how he handled himself when she confronted him.

Over all, I'd say as a team, the women seemed less inhibited, and I'm not just talking sexually. The men were mired in B-School thinking. They did things by the book, and as a consequence, were less dynamic. The women were more able to adapt to the situation.

As mixed teams I see a lot of the women having problems acting out of authority when dealing with the men. Kristi constantly deferred to the men when she was project manager (flea market episode). Katrina seems to have issues with Bill not paying enough attention to her (pedicab episode). She also let Bill negotiate the apartment when she was PM, even though she's in the top 3% of Realtors nationwide.

Tammy came up with the airline ad. The women all groaned and didn't like it, but went along with it. "The women" without Tammy would've chosen something else, but who wants to bet that it would involve sex in one way or another?

I agree that early on the men "easy fires" were taken care of. David & Sam were obvious. Jason & Bowie a little less so. The first woman fire, Kristi wasn't an obvious choice, but the next set - Jessie, Tammy, Omarosa and Heidi... You could see those coming. Ereka performed at least as well as Jason as PM, probably better.

The more I think about it, the more I don't see anything special out of Troy. He was PM on the Lemonade Stand & Pedicab episodes and really didn't shine either time. He stuck to the straight & narrow and didn't win. Kwame didn't do anything at all when he was PM of Planet Hollywood.

Nick lead his team to victory twice. At this point I'm thinking Nick, Bill, Amy in a close race, but I've yet to really see Amy stick her neck out. I think one of the things that set Nick apart is that he sold his business and can probably relax for the rest of his life if he wants. Out of all the candidates, he's the one that really doesn't need this job.

Trump was on the Tonight Show a couple of weeks ago in a skit. He showed up in a box. You wheeled him around and set him loose on anyone you wanted fired. He can be programmed to use a variety of hand gestures too. Just stick him in the doorway of anyone you want fired, and he does the work for you. Available for 3 easy payments of $19.95.

www.MarkTAW.com
Friday, March 19, 2004

> that set Nick apart

"that sets Bill apart"

I always make that mistake. I hope for the Apprentice 2 they choose better names. Nick and Bill are so common, Kristi and Katrini, Tammy and Amy... All so similar.

www.MarkTAW.com
Friday, March 19, 2004

The major problem I see with Nick is that he is all about Nick, and it shows. He sat out the Planet Hollywood Kwame signing to make a point that he has morals and darn it, he wasn't going to stoop to their level (or do anything else, apparently)
Making the refund in person was also all about Nick making the refund - "*I* am going to do the right thing, no matter what, because that's who I am"

You do NOT want that in a subordinate in your company. Especially when he's that junior. For one thing, we've seen that he's incapable of admitting when he makes a mistake. Not good.

As for learning from the show, I am spending a LOT of time forcing myself to justify statements and provide evidence for recommendations - the show has definitely taught me I need more work at that.

I've also reinforced the understanding that just because something seems obvious to me doesn't mean it is the ground truth or it will work in the real world. Of course, sometimes you just have to try it and see...

Philo

Philo
Friday, March 19, 2004

As I noted before the favorite is Amy followed by Troy.

Everyone else is very far behind.

It will be interesting to see what they do in the Casino as that's the one Trump business that's doing very poorly.

The Ronald
Saturday, March 20, 2004

I agree, Nick is all about The Nick. I think I've made the case over the past weeks that the best candidates are the ones who are the least self involved. Nick is very self involved. I think Katrina, Troy and Kwame are as well, listed in descending order. Amy, we have yet to really see in the spotlight, and I'd love to see what the spotlight does to her.

It would be fun, but probably a very bad idea for the winner of this Apprentice to be one of Trump's advisors for the next Apprentice.

www.MarkTAW.com
Saturday, March 20, 2004

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