The Apprentice - Are You That Hard?

[pointydog]

Or am I soft?

I was watching the apprentice last night. At the end of it, Rory - who was a bit of a berk admittedly - was pretty much told he was a useless waste of space, a big failure, past bankcruptcy referred to.

I know he chose to go on the programme. But if I was told so publicly I was a fat zero I think all my confidence would be gone forever and the rest of my life would be in tatters.

Am I soft or am I missing something?

Yes, the 'after-show' is def. done more recently, poss on the night even as I'm not sure how you'd keep an entire audience quiet about who was going to get fired. Also, the contestants often look a bit different, have had their hair done or new glasses, as in the case of Ansell last year. (I did love Ansell though!).

Yes, I wondered if it was done on the night. They had given Gerri a bit of a makeover! But nobody can look as lovely as the luscious Karen from last year... sigh...

which one was karen? oh, i think i remember. was she a lawyer?

By speedymama "Ifti used the missing family excuse to hide his inadequacies and idleness...Also, I question his business credentials because he displayed the charisma, drive and tenacity of a dead ant. He is a business director but I would not be surprised if this was courtesy of his family, rather than down to his own efforts"
He is in our local paper this week, and guess what - he and his family live with his parents and brother and SIL, and he credits his dad with helping setting up his business (a tile shop).

Katie is like Alex Kingston's ugly sister

I waas trying to think who Katie reminded me of.

I'm amazed Ifti got that far - you'd think the screening process would weed out anyone who wasn't madly, crazily, psychotically 100% addicted to business and making money.

On the official website, Tre has "philosophy" listed as one of his hobbies. Rrrrrright....

Yes, Karen was the dark-haired lawyer from last year. She has a website! Karen Bremner Doesn't look as if it's often updated. Not that I'm cyberstalking her or anything....

Oh m'goodness UQD - you are obsessed with the poor woman? So what's she up to now?

Sadly don't think this time's lot are as good as last year...Ansell, Sahid, Ruth the Badger - ahhhhh they were fantastic.

Maybe this bunch'll grow on me, but sadly lacking in 3 dimensional characters at the mo. I do like Jadine, at least she fights her ground and I think she's got a good head on her shoulders but she's too unstable.

Re Karen - glad to say I'm not THAT obsessed, as I don't know!! I think she was business expert on a local radio station for a while. may even still be doing that.

re rory
i have met a lot of them
they think cos they are posh they care clevr
and it aint true

did i tell youa ll abotu dhs mate being on it this week?

in my experience, posh people are brought up to believe their clever. and confidence is at least 50% of cleverness so it does work a lot of the time.

obv, not for rory though.

dhs mate was hte fisrst kissgram

Didn't understand the kissing thing. Surely they could have washed cars? Or windows? Our windowcleaner charges £3 a go, but friends in Oxfordshire have one who charges £15! In Richmond they could have got away with that!

And mobile DJ-ing FFS - where did they expct to get the equipment and the expertise at 20 minutes' notice?? Although I bet these programmes are edited to make the deadlines look tighter.

Mintchocchippy, thanks for info about Ifti and I cannot say that I'm surprised. I'm staggered he passed the audition tbh.

The first series had the best contestents, imo. The verbal jousting between Saira and Paul was brilliant.

My favourite exchange was between Paul and Sralan (I paraphrase Paul's bit):

Paul "I'm a Roman Catholic and I swear that I did not say that"

Sralan "Well I'm Jewish and I don't give a damn".

The interesting theme that seems to run in all 3 series is that many of the posh folk are all gloss but no substance (granted that series 3 has just started but apart from Alpha woman, Naomi, the army officer, MBA cambridge grad - so far, have been underwhelming despite there accomplished educational background).

In the first series there was a posh MBA grad and not only was he devoid of personality, he demonstrated no business instinct or passion.

I think this show demonstrates that you can have the best education that money can buy but a head for business is something you either have or don't. That is probably why many successful entrepreneurs don't get on with school - it constrains their natural maverick tendencies and free thinking.

The task the other night just showed how little business sense they all had. I've only worked in sales once when I was out of college and I was crap at it, but even I thought staright away when sralan gave them the money that they should buy something then sell it at a profit.

Surely sales is an easier way to make money than services? Do you think they were banned from doing this, it's so bleedin obvious? I asked my mate who has his own business and he said he's have bought £200 worth of Revels at the cash&carry and sold them down the road from each of the local cinemas at a price above the wholesale but below the cinema's.

Had to be a service, Moomin.
(bit of a swizz really, as the prog was banging on about siralan selling £100-worth of stuff on his 1st day in business, and they were supposed to be emulating him)

SM agree with you about posh/educated types - they don't have the hunger to really succeed, having taken their privileged upbringing a bit for granted.
SIL works in the same company as the 'you're a lightweight, you're fired' girl in the last series. Unfortunately typical of the strategists who haven't a clue how to actually get things done.

ahhh right. that's me then not listening properly. ta!

The "you're a lightweight, you're fired" girl was absolutely atrocious iin series 2. She was a Cambridge grad but had no leadership skills, no management skills, no communication skills, was useless at implementing ideas and was totally devoid of natural business flair.

Unfortunately, large employers still insist on employing these drones just because they went to the Ivy league universities.

Why did the physicist come on this programme if she has issues with selling things she does not believe in? Glad she got the boot.

I would not be surprise if this is Sralan last series because the quality of most of the candidates is wanting.

I am beginning to really warm to Tre - wysiwyg. His strategy to target overweight people in order to sell the sweets was cringworthy but funny. Christine targetting the small children was a step to far for me but needs must as they say.

Think she's latching on to the "I'm so ethical" angle to save face.

Isn't Nick quite nice when he's being interviewed, bit of a twinkly-eyed softie.

Yes- like Nick. Agree that Sophie deserved the boot (though Adam was v lucky) but was quite shocked by the horridness of Katie on the aftermath show. Felt she came across as very nasty there. And Vanessa Feltz wasn't very nice on the panel, either.

the quality of the candidates in this and the last series is generally poor imho.

Ghazal (?) is appalling and should really have been the one to go (win or lose!).

Adam is no great leader but at least he kept calm under pressure not like Tre last week who seemed to have a rather limited vocabulary when harrassed

Didn't see after-show, what did Katie do that was so horrid? (I think I love her.)

Loved Margaret's face when Ghazal was stropping! She would definitely have gone if they'd lost.