The Apprentice – Week 8 & Week 9

Before I get started, I would just like to share a discovery that I made last night – one of this year’s candidates has already been on our television screens…looking very different:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FcAUjlgS8s

Week 8 – Derekgate

Week 8 was the inevitable ‘into the country’ task. They were charged with going to a country fair and selling 2 products that had never been sold there before, and one established product. Sounds simple doesn’t it?

(source: thetelegraph.co.uk)

With there still being some tension in Team Summit, it seemed like a good decision that Felipe would be Project Manager, usually being able to calm a tense situation. However, as seen in the episode – there wasn’t much he could do to calm the most abrasive candidate, Daniel Lassman. His feud with fellow candidate Mark Wright continued, with Mark being told to sell the hot tubs that Daniel had worked so hard for the previous day. Based on his past selling in the tasks, as if they would let Daniel go for the important products, when Mark has won pitches and sold large amounts. Did he take this out on Mark? No. He took it out on Felipe and bickered with him all day – in front of customers. There was a shot where customers walked past laughing and making awkward faces…would you battle through that to buy a hat that can also be a bag? Would you buy one anyway? Didn’t think so.

James Hill was Project Manager of Tenacity, oh brilliant. His immaturity reached new levels this week.

Sending other candidates to learn about the products they had chosen and work hard to negotiate good discounts, he then decided to completely brush that aside, making their work irrelevant; and chose completely different products. Pairing himself with cool-headed Roisin also caused some friction, as when they lost the pitch for the hot tubs because he called the man Derek instead of Anthony, he determined not to tell the sub team why. “I’ve made a business decision to go with the lawn mowers.” He claimed it was to save them so that they wouldn’t be demotivated…really? Or was it to save yourself the embarrassment and backlash? There was also his apparent lack of knowledge on the products – James had to ask the customer if they can see the price on it because he didn’t know. A lot of attention to detail there. Good job.

It transpired that Mark managed to sell 7 hot tubs to one man. So as you can imagine, Summit won, leaving PM of Tenacity, James to defend himself in the boardroom. Bringing Roisin back into the boardroom could not have been a worst decision as she destroyed him with facts and cold business observations. FINALLY James was fired. He was just on the show 4 years too early, I genuinely believe that the producers have let him down by letting him on now. He needed time to mature, but hopefully the lessons he learnt in the process will stop him from being an immature moron in the real world.

Week 9 – Skeletongate

This task was traumatic for all of us. I don’t want to drop this bombshell at the end, so I shall tell you now – Felipe was fired. I won’t lie, after this week’s episode, I considered not watching it again. It is my favourite show of all time, and I considered never watching again. Let that sink in. I don’t believe that he deserved to go, and I’ll explain why.

It was the discount buying task, there’s one every season. All the products had been things that previous series’ candidates had had to buy/sell. The most irritating part (other than Felipe being fired) was the apparent ignorance of the candidates to previous seasons.

If you were going on the Apprentice, wouldn’t the first thing you would do, be to watch the previous seasons, and get some useful tips? They didn’t know what nigella seeds were, Roisin didn’t even know that Hatton Garden was the ‘diamond district.’ Are you serious? Nigella seeds were in season three and diamonds in season 1 – I knew that from memory, so why didn’t they?

(source: www.bbc.co.uk)

As usual, each PM went for the two different tactics, with Sanjay deciding to wait and gather information, whilst Daniel decided to just go straight out onto the streets. It’s difficult to document this task team by team, so I shall just tell you the most important bits. Felipe and Daniel read the specification for the skeleton, which no-where did it say ‘built’ or the material that it was supposed to be built from. All it said was full sized and anatomical. Felipe found a paper version costing £14, saving them over £200. Yes it did need to be built, yes it came in a packet; but on the specification it never said that it wasn’t allowed to be. Katie and Mark were understandably wary, but as Daniel said “it’s on me and Felipe”…well apparently not. Like Judas, Daniel turned on Felipe, saying that he had doubts all along and that it was all Felipe’s idea, even being pulled up on that by Nick Heuer, who said that he was all for it. If I didn’t already hate Daniel, I would now.

So in the boardroom, Daniel’s team managed to get all of the items, including the paper skeleton, whilst Sanjay’s missed 2 off. The figures were read out, Daniel had won. Excellent. But then, in a sick twist by Lord Sugar, he decided that there should be an extra fine of £310. The fact that the other team was run like a shambles, they missed two of the products off and we had Solomon naming his skeleton instead of negotiating, didn’t come into it. Nope. Daniel’s team lost, and Felipe was fired for trying to get away with bending the rules. It wasn’t bending the rules, it was working through the limits he was given. #skeletongate trended on twitter, and I’m not surprised. Lord Sugar, we’re not happy.