Does anyone else find Kate really annoying?

[messalina]

I was ambivalent about Kate before the interviews yesterday night. I thought she seemed fine if slightly uninspiring. Then she made all those bitchy remarks about women teams at work being what was it?...Bitchy? Emotional? I was very glad that her complete lack of personality was brought up as something that counted against her. Having a mega-watt smile does not count as character. Nor does speaking emphatically with her Barbie doll lips. Jasmina has got some spirit at least, even if she did come across as a fraud in one of the interviews.

BOF,

I'm just saying imo, that's all.
persionally i found kates sexist comments about she doesn't like working with woman a bit offensive,as a woman and mother of a dd, i hate it when i hear someone branding woman as all the same.
esp when it's whiney moaney and bitchy.

as i have said, i do not think she is good looking, but theres not much point keeping repeating that!.
paula the one with the auburn curly hair, i thought she was stunning, but i certainly would not treat her ANY differently due to looks!

people who tend to think everyone is jelous of them because of looks, wealth, sucess or whatever, tend to be very arrogant and egostatistical imo and ime.

anyway, i'm just repeating myself now really.

BoF I don't know why you say that it's unpopular being beautiful and intelligent.

That's never been my experience.

Kate is just too controlled, she's almost robotic.

Yasmina to win!

Can't we just be happy that two women are in the final?

Okay she may be a bit too pretty for my liking but has she really done anything wrong?

i actually thought she looked prettier without make up (at the beginning of the show when they were all getting ready for the interviews, she was putting cream or something on her face before her make up). I too think she is overly made up.

I am going to (carefully and tentatively) back her up on the women point though. Only because i am currently on mat leave from a team of 8 women. It is a constant battle of wills (and it may just be the women i work with) but they are all very competitive and bitchy and by god i am scared to go and make a cuppa as i know that i am going to be bitched about (me and all the others to be fair). I preferred my last team which was a mix of men and women. So i could kind of see where she was coming from.

She is only 27, maybe she has had a similar experience to me and just didnt put it across very well

just a suggestion

Sounds just like you've got a horrible team summerbird.

I've worked in all-women teams a lot and I've only once come across this (and that was 2 other women and me so not a whole load of women together, so I'm assuming these particular women were just horrible because they were horrible, rather than because they were women).

I'm for Yasmina to win too. She can also be a bit of a bitch, but she seems more straight. With Kate, I am not sure what you will get. She will certainly do a good job, she is frighteningly ambitious, every bit as much as Debra.

I would quite liked to have seen Lorraine and Debra in the final. The interview stage always annoys me. The Apprentice should all be about putting candidates through a series of tasks to select a candidate that would not necessarily get through a standard recruitment procedure. Therefore, it annoys me that at interview the standard graduate trainee candidate goes through to the final. I think SurAlun is missing something, and it might be why he invariably hires the wrong candidate.

I work with men and they can be just as underhanded and bitchy as women.

Criticising a woman just because she is pretty is usually done by insecure jealous types. If a woman has a loathesome character, she will attract negative comments, just like a man. If she is pleasant, she will attract positive attention. That has been my experience anyway.

Kate is hollow, devoid of character and only knows how to function and speak according to the rule book on management. From task 1 she has sniped at the competency of other members but never put herself forward until it was a task where she was in her comfort zone. DH and I took an instant dislike to her when she tried to undermine Mona in task 1. Mona put herself forward to be PM but all Kate did was question if she was competent enough for the role without actually offering to put herself forward. Similarly with task 2. She does not take risk where her limited skills will be exposed and she is good at hiding behind others who are far better than she is.

She has demonstrated no flair, no insight, no creativity in her tasks. She is good at managing safe tasks but leading with vision and inspiration as well as taking risk? Definitely not.

She may think that people, especially women, do no like her because she is pretty but it has been clear from the show, that she is quite happy to use it to her advantage. Therefore she cannot then complain if some take a dislike to her because she exploits her perceived good looks to gain favour in the work place.

IMO, her disdain towards women in the work place is because she cannot manipulate them like she can manipulate men. She is the one who is lacking in business integrity and professionalism, not groups of women. Also, I think she will discriminate against having women in her team because she has a problem with women. If she does have a woman on her team who then has the temerity to fall pregnant, she is the type of person who will view her colleague as weak, unprofessional, uncommitted to her career and marginalise her out of the team.

If Sralan hires her, he is a muppet.

I kinda knew BoF would be defending cos she's had people be mean to her for being too pretty. So beautiful it's a curse.

It's not right but I bet she has had some bad experiences, with envious women people claiming that she flirts her way to the top or onyl got where she is because of her looks. So I expect her anti-women stance is in reaction to that.

She does need to lay off the glittery makeup though.

She is rather dull isn't she?
Yasmina seems much more decisive and in charge

yet she did annoy me when she was in the taxi with Ben and Philip flirting with the pair of them when they sold nothing. and then last week when she sniped at Lorraine for commiting the cardinal sin of telling Howard that he presented really well.

Summerbird,Kate likes to be the centre of attention hence her ire with Lorraine. Kate is shallow, shallow, shallow!

indeed

Very pleased to see that so many of you agree with my feelings about Kate. And that withering assassination from Spokette was a class act. Frankly, Kate is welcome to the job, if she gets it. I wouldn't fancy working for someone who looked like a ferret-badger hybrid.

LOL I'm glad you put into words all my discomfort with Kate Spokette!

It's so bizarre, I dislike both of the remaining candidates and don't care which one wins. All the way through I thought Debra was utterly ghastly but towards the end I thought she had learned a few things and also wondered if the editing had been v. extreme. I would rather she was in the final than either of the other 2, if it's possible Yasmeena is even more ghastly than Debra.

Spokette has hit the nail on the head here.
Interesting points about Kate, although I agree, it's her 'robotic'/borderline unpleasant personality that I don't like, as I couldn't give a monkeys what she looks like, although it does seem to be an issue for her. The most interesting point was, as already said, when she reacted very badly to Lorraine for praising Howard as a presenter - for some reason she also makes me think of Heather Mills, which is never a good memory to evoke.

Re working with women, I used to feel the same way, that they could be a right bitchy pain in the backside, all based on experience (and not because of my beauty, which errr, I don't have!). However, in my last job, it was an entirely female team and we were amazing together, despite a broad range of personalities and looks. So it really is down to personalities not gender - as proved when we were joined by an old-school woman with a problem with younger, intelligent, attractive (again, not me) women. It destroyed the team in about 6 weeks.

Kate is conventionally beautiful (straightened blond hair, fake tan etc, etc) and she is clearly very good at what she does. Men are going to love her aswell but from what she said about women at work then she is not a girl's girl. I know that she would do my head in at work.
I was really rooting for Yasmina until the interview when it was discovered she lied about the restaraunt takings.
Still Lee Mcqueen lied on his cv and still got hired. It's not saying much about modern business is it?
I think Yasmina also made a few more mistakes such as the mess up with figures in the cosmetics task. I think that she is more firey than Kate and has more character. So on balance- Yasmina to win!

Great thread - yuck to Kate, I'm backing Yasmina (sp?) all the way. Haven't been able to bear Kate ever since that whol 'Phillip business'.

I think Kate's looks will indeed make life difficult for her working with some women. And easy for her working with some men.

Can't stand Yasmina tbh. She made shit food even though she has "an award winning restaurant" and gave hopeless interview answers about her company. She is also very aggressive and I would say not particularly bright.

I am sure Suralan will hire her. He loves his little blondes. Michelle Dewberry, anyone? Cut from the same mould. I have definitely experienced some bitching at work, as I'm sure most women have. My dislike for Kate is her total lack of personality and spark. Debra was very attractive too, and imo, an apprentice, raw and unpolished but with oodles of potential.

@Zeb - my DH calls her Heather Mills as well. I do not think she is that good looking - just well (overly?) groomed. Paula as someone else said is much more beautiful. And Lorraine scrubbed up well on You're Fired.

I do like (ironically) Kate's porno-business woman look as well...that TIE!

I still laugh at that Lorraine line in the selling task: "I wonder if it is because of Kate's beauty?" I liked her until that point when all she did was flirt and act like a silly little girl who goes along with Philip.

I don't like personally Deborah...but if I was a sales director I would give her a job - she was aggressive to her colleagues but never to the customers. She should have won. It was clear that her attitude was directed to the other apprentices - it's a competition after all - and in a client-facing environment she would be great with a bit of direction / management.

LOL at porno-business woman look!

tbh, they are both shit imo

The best girl won!

Still with the porno-business look again.

I knew Yasmina would win because she instinctively understands figures, margins, price architecture and market segmentation.

Kate doesn't.