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Addicted To The Apprentice Already And What A Mess!

Written by: Andrew Rondeau

Article Overview: Be warned – this posting reveals who has been ‘fired’ from the first episode and the rest of the post is only my observation and opinion based upon 60 minutes of edited TV, nothing more. Sir Alan Sugar with his two glum looking sidekicks are one side of the desk and 16 cocky looking candidates, the other, and the show begins. The Apprentice UK has started.

Addicted To The Apprentice Already And What A Mess!

What a show this is going to be!

I thought this week’s task was quite easy. Here is some fish, identify it, price it and sell it. You don’t have to source or buy it. Can it get simpler than that?

The problem they faced was there was no time for bonding beforehand.

Just ‘off you go and sell’.

We have two bunches of strangers with no-one jumping at the bit to be the leaders but all wanting to be talking, shouting and in front of the camera.

We ended up with sixteen very keen show-offs with no strategy and no plan and the outcome – a complete shambles – just as Sir Alan said.

The girls were slightly better than the boys.

I thought Claire (girls Team leader) made the best decision of the day, albeit far too late. She told her team “Let’s correct and understand the prices before we sell any more” Good decision, but why not do that at the beginning. I believe Claire gained respect because when she spoke the girls did listen.

Why the ‘boys’ took 4 hours before deciding upon a pitch I do not know.

I thought Alex (boys team Leader) had delegated well but he had no control mechanisms in place. It was just panic, panic and more panic. He could have gathered the majority of his team together at certain times throughout the day just for 10 minutes and discuss the good points and what needs changing. Simple!

A question for you. How many candidates does it take to agree and sell fish to a solicitors office at a 1/3 of the recommended price?

Six. That’s right six boys. Why not split up and sell the fish to restaurants. That’s what the girls did.

“F” for Fired

Then we had the boardroom session at the end when someone is fired.

Nicholas de Lacy-Brown was fired and rightly so. He is a Barrister and I was expecting him to defend himself extremely well and get his point across.

Well he didn’t and he started off talking about ‘Educated vs. Uneducated’ and he assumed certain individuals were uneducated due to their accents.

All in front of the most successful cockney businessperson around – Sir Alan Sugar. Nicholas couldn’t have dug a bigger hole if he tried.

It isn’t about accents and it isn’t about academic education. It’s about attitude, confidence, drive and applying yourself in business and the quicker Nicholas and a few of the ‘princes’ in this years show understand that, the more chance of them being successful in this world.

Cor Blimey Luv A Duck

I would rather have a ‘cor blimey’, hard-working, confident person working for me rather than someone who can just talk a good show.

All talk and no substance

Now I can’t finish without commenting on Raef and remember it is my opinion and observation based on the first edited TV show.

All talk and no substance. In fact, most of what he says doesn’t make sense anyway. He will talk his way though the first few weeks, do as little as possible and then get fired.

You can tell who didn’t impress me, can’t you?

I think Sir Alan has already made his mind up on Raef – he would never employ him. Only my opinion but let’s see.

No one impressed me from the first show but I am already looking forward to next weeks.

Who impressed you?

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Article Tags: accents, alex, barrister, boardroom, boys team, bunches, cock, control mechanisms, de lacy, fish, girls team, lacy brown, pitch, restaurants, shambles, show offs, sir alan, solicitors office, team leader



Related Forum Posts
The "Young" Apprentice - I think a cool new idea for "The Apprentice" would be to have all young contestants, rather than just selling sex (e.g. Season 6 in Los Angeles) or using celebrities for ratings. Maybe every applicant for the show would have to be between the ages of 15 to 18 or 18 to 22, since there've been seasons where younger contestants have been stereotyped and discriminated against for their age and limited business inexperience (e.g. Lee Bienstock in Season 5). So why not make the stomping ground fair? Why not have an Apprentice Season where only talented youngsters fight over a job with Trump? I mean, it gets kind of boring hearing the contestants say "I'm older and have more business experience than so and so.... and that's the reason you should hire me Mr. Trump." That's a ridiculous argument because many youths are smarter and more successful than people even twice their age.
Re: The Celebrity Apprentice - Episode 10 - [quote="litekepr":3ax40azh]I don't agree with Piers just calling his friends to buy things, but in sales you use what you have and he has a contact list. Its a shame they did so many of that sort of projects this season -- I don't think it added to the show in any real way. Maybe one or two weeks that would've been fun to watch - but not this often.[/quote:3ax40azh] Hi Shri, I agree with you that we can't fault Piers for using his connections to win, but I think this week's episode would've been so much better had they not been allowed to invite their contacts to purchase art. The Celebrity Apprentice contestants should've been restricted to only sell to people who randomly visited the gallery on that night (just like in the 1st season of "The Apprentice").
Re: The Celebrity Apprentice - Episode 5 - [quote="Tami Szabo":214vsguq]Vinny really shot himself in the foot by resigning and then saying something about Piers being a stronger leader. Really, this is about finding the best leader and Vinny just confessed he didn't think he was. He didn't really leave Donald Trump much room to fire Piers after that statement. On the bright side, I was very impressed with Carol as a leader. She is someone I would definitely want to work with. She was respectful of her team and seemed to really utilize the talents of each. I have to say she shone! I haven't watch The Apprentice in the past so it's great to see some "nice girl" do well after some of the previous episodes where nice girls got sent home without necessarily showing their true talents.[/quote:214vsguq] I think the major difference between this season of "The Apprentice" and the previous ones is the fact that Trump isn't looking for the best leader or person to hire. Being the winner of "The Celebrity Apprentice" is simply about doing whatever it takes to win the most amount of money for your respective charity (i.e. the last person standing has the honor of delivering a $250,000 bonus check to his/her designated charity). It's all about following the show, "Survivor's" tagline of "outwit, outplay and outlast" and that's why Piers is a strong contender.
Re: New Apprentice - will it be a bust? - [quote="Evan":12gjs7wz]Being a fan of the Apprentice I admit that the quality has decreased since the first season but I was sad to see that they canceled the show. I was excited to hear that the show would be making a comeback but it seems to be less and less focused on business tasks and more about bringing in celebrity guests. [/quote:12gjs7wz] I really enjoyed the first season of the apprentice and it has gone down each year since then. The commercialization hasn't helped his ratings -- maybe that should be an indicator to go back to the original premise. I'd like to see the left and right hand people in the board room not just be yes men and woman. If he had celebrities who actually had business experience, that would be one thing. But, haven't we seen enough reality shows flop even though they had past and present "celebrities"? I haven't missed an Apprentice episode yet, but that might change this year. Shri
Re: English TV Programme - I really like the Apprentice when it was running on SABC3 here in South Africa. It is the kind of programme that should be on our TV


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