The Apprentice: week 2

The loud response to last week's episode (good gracious, I could hear the furious typing from half way across the country) suggests that I'm not the only person who considers Sir Alan's gaggle of candidates to be less than inspiring; comments included a range of phrases like "haven't a clue", "vacuous" and "unpleasant bunch of incompetents".

More than a few other people argued that I was missing the point of business-based reality television by expecting either business or reality. I should, of course, have been enjoying it simply as a piece of television.

However, as I didn't enjoy it even in those terms, I've managed to get out of watching it tonight by dumping the job on someone else  delegating responsibility for this evening's review. Emily Ford, one of Career's reporters, carelessly mentioned that two of her housemates sort of know some of the contestants (the barrister and a woman who has had a boob job). This clearly makes her much more of an expert, even in a friends of friends way, so she'll be the one continuing this post at 9pm. Everything you read from here on in is her fine work...

Ah, The Apprentice. As a rule I barely watch TV and can't stand reality shows. But ever since Saira, Tim and Co first blagged, bluffed and bargained their way into the boardroom and onto our screens four years ago, I've been shamefully hooked. Yes, they are immensely irritating - and that's precisely why I love them.

This year, I can claim a tenuous connection to one of the contestants - Helene Speight, my housemate's brother's girlfriend. She emerged from the first episode unscathed, but now I feel inexplicably nervous - as if I'm about to watch a child in her first school play. Episode two, here we go...

9.06pm The task is pure genius. Contestants are given a laundry to manage and have until 2am to get through as much washing as possible. Unlike the first week, there is little debate when choosing project managers. It seems everyone is keen to prove their worth.

9.15pm Erm, isn't charging £4.99 for a couple of sheets quite a lot, ladies? Even if you do have a '24-hour hotline'. Simon on the boys' team claims to have "experience of laundry equipment in Bosnia". I'm intrigued.

9.26pm Uh oh. Now the girls are giving away £60 worth of clean clothes for £15 and are hopelessly behind. It's not looking good. Meanwhile the boys - aka 'Renaissance Laundry' - seem to be doing well out of a mix of door-to-door sales and a big contract.

9.33pm It's 2am in Apprenticeland. Jenny, the red haired leader of the girls' team, is sensing defeat and wastes no time laying into Lucinda. The words "ludicrous" and "stupid" are bad enough - but "fungus"? I'm starting to feel pretty sorry for the girl.

9.40pm Asking people for tips when they're giving you money is embarrassing enough. But when it transpires the girls have lost some of their customers' clothes, it's almost too painful to watch.  Helene looks particularly distressed. Ouch.

9.46pm "You lost some fella's shirts?" We're in the boardroom and Sir Alan can barely hide his amusement as he deducts £50 from the girls' total. Unsurprisingly, they lose, £195 to the boys' £328. The laundry puns come thick and fast. "You've taken the ladies to the cleaners, ain't ya?"

9.53pm The 24-hour hotline isn't convincing Sir Alan. In fact, it's bringing out some distinctly sexist humour. "Am I really going to call up and say 'hello girls how are my pants doing?'" He's not buying their management speak either. "I don't know of anyone 'progressing' their laundry," he sniffs.

9.58pm No! Shazia's (pictured) been fired while the poison-tongued Jenny and Lucinda (Katie Hopkins mark 2, anyone?) escaped scot free. It seems a strange result, but I can't help but be secretly glad - Jenny has all the makings of a classic boardroom villain. I'm looking forward to next week already.

(Picture from the BBC The Apprentice website)

EMILY FORD

Comments

[Adrienne]

I too am addicted to this programme but as each episode and series progresses I can't believe how awful this pick of a 20000+ bunch really are!!!! However they make good viewing and I have to think that Sir A only kept Jenny because he enjoys someone who can spit backly quickly. However, the blonde should have gone because she couldn't get up in the morning!!!!

[Bam]

I thought the fungus comment came out of leftfield too. I would have liked to see more puns though, a bit of 'money laundering' wouldn't have gone amiss!

[Kathy]

Jenny should have been fired. Untrustworthy and the typical back stabber. Heavens knows why one would want anyone like that in a company.Shazia shouldnt have gone, I think the whole nation agrees.

[Gerry]

An appalling bunch of look-a-like footballers opposing a pot-pourri of pouting wags. Makes for amusing television, I suppose, but are they really the best the BBC could find? Don't think so, somehow.

[Johno]

Whilst it makes for great ratings leaving Helen and Lucinda in, as the PM, Jenny should have gone...c'mon she should have been fired for coming up with the ridiculous £4.99 per item pricing that she made up off the top of her head..you would really want her in control of your company now wouldn't you!! Then fire Lindi for agreeing with everything that Jenny said!! The boys kicked ass..Gold.

[Dennis]

Jenny's escape from dismissal confirms what most of us who work in the corporate/business world already know: in the short term, it's not what you do, it's what you say that's important, i.e perception is more influential than reality.

Jenny demonstrated this perfectly by talking the talk in the boardroom but being totally unable to walk the walk as project manager during the task. She made a number of fundamental misjudgements, for example
- wasting the first hour giving a sales lesson,
- getting the pricing strategy horribly wrong (it was her suggestion of £4.99 per item) and missing out the obvious step of ringing laundry services to determine realistic pricing,
- not organising the team to start doing the laundry until far too late but instead spending the time winning more work that couldn't be finished before the laundry closed,
- and finally sending the one person who had planned and organised the labelling of clothes bundles back to the house before the task had been completed. And why did she do this? Because that same person made the very good point that as they would not be able to complete the ironing in time, someone would need to go back to the house to grab the irons (whilst hot) before the other team.

Of course a cynic might suggest that Sir Alan made that decision on entertainment grounds rather than on merit. As last years series showed, nothing makes better TV than a villain seemingly getting away with it until they get the comeuppance right at the last.

[Matt Jones]

Anyone watching this week’s episode of The Apprentice could be forgiven for turning it off half way through to take a couple of paracetemol, such was the din caused by the girls’ team this week. I won’t be the first and definitely not the last to point out that they were shambolic.

[oldasiahand]

A bunch of insufferable, jumped up arrogant toadstools. I think the show needs a different ending where Sir Alan says 'you're fired' and the contestant and his chair fall down a black hole, Godfather style.

[Mathew]

Well, that was a surprising result. Maybe Sir Alan has a childhood hatred of washer women, one having lost his favourite Arsenal pyjamas. A heinous offense was how he described losing a man's shirt. These are some of the definitions of heinous; hateful; odious; abominable; totally reprehensible. I would love to hear Sir Alan describe a murder, what words could he possibly conjure up. This result was a travesty, more to do with ratings than the selection of a new employee.

[Andy Cooper]

Having seen Sir Alan Sugar briefly on a charity quiz show, I am surprised that he knows enough about the REAL world to tie his own shoelaces. The Apprentice itself is in my opinion low-slung drivel, the apprentices sorrowful grovelling wannabees, and their mentor a narrow-minded rottwieler.
I want a licence refund!

[Sue]

Jenny should have been fired. She has no idea how to manage a team. She is so rude and arrogant. She has no comprehension of the value of money - £4.99 to launder a pillow case.

Shazia did leave the laundry knowing that no one else would be able to sort the laundry out. She was respomsible for losing laundry for the customers.

[nicola]

Sir Alan has made himself look a bit silly with this decision. Anyone having seen the footage we saw (and surely he did?) would have got rid of that odious backstabbing incompetent team leader. Anyone calling her team members "stupid" and "ludicrous" (especially in front of other team members) will never be a good apprentice for Sit Alan.

[Andrew Waldron]

So who's going to win? On the boys side I don't care as long as it's not Raef the Rank.

As for the girls, any normal person wants Leslie the Lash to live forever but I reckon a dark horse for victory calls herself, "Niamh".

"Who?", you ask. Exactly. Her ploy is to remain invisible, despite her name being virtually identical to that of a rechargeable AA battery.

[Richard Lancaster]

He sacked the wrong person. That Jenny girl is something from another planet. That is not how you manage a team.

[Chris]

I'm intrigued at the suggestion SA's legitimate mockery of the girls' ridiculous 24-hour hotline is somehow "distinctly sexist humour". It struck me as a joke that would have had entirely equal value if it had been the boys who had the idea, which surely removes any aspect of sexism at all?

[Lazaf]

Riveting stuff.
Sack almost all of them. Granted, the idea is to come back with more money that the other team, however, the boys agreeing to wash and iron one THOUSAND items of hotel laundry for £200 is appalling. Could you afford to run a business at those rates in the real world? Non.
Hats off, however, the the boys that were selling the duvet washing service. Very innovative and on an effort to profit ratio, brought it far more money than the hotel super contract. That those idiots agreed to drop to £200 from the £550 mark is pure stupidity. Nothing less

[roger]

Sir Alan was completely foolish in his assesment, Shazia was the one women that had demonstrated ability. Its time for him to be replaced by Peter Jones.

[Mark Sheppard]

If I were an employer I would not employ some masochistic whimp, willing to bend over an lick their bosses boots. As an employee one would have to be prety sad to want to work for what appears to be a bullying dinosaur like Alan Sugar.

I'm not convinced this show has anything to do with either entertainment or reality but more a reflection of the path into cheep and easy, mindless nonsense the BBC has chosen.

[VJB]

Bullies like Jenny can be found in most offices, nice as pie to some but sneaky and vicious to other staff.

[Clive]

I turned it off, it`s more like a sit-com these now

[CJ, London]

I wouldn't spend too much time weeping for Ms Wahab. History has a tendency of repeating itself. In Ms Wahab's case she starts spitting when she doesn't succeed at something (see today's whinging in the Daily Mail). Alan Sugar beware; Ms Wahab did take a company to a tribunal for a whole host of untrue reasons, and only won one of 11 claims on a minor technicality. Perhaps she should take some time to really evaluate her abilities before trying yet another venture, or stick to making mosaics.

[Greg]

Utter garbage full of arrogant know-alls.

Sugar and his stooges are just as bad, acting for the camera and trying to be superior all the time.

None of them could do a proper job to save their lives. I can see any of them running Terminal 5 or some other useless organisation like Northern and getting a big pay off to resign.

[Bob Bruce]

Puns?
How about "Cor imagine 'ow much 'Arry Monk there must be on these sheets if you shone a UV light on 'em?"

[Mark Atkins Carmel CA USA]

This prog is all about TV ratings and nothing to do with anyting else..
Careful Mr Sugar you could end up looking seriously incompetent for agreeing to work with this shower!

Talk about dumbed down applicants ...at this level most of the unemployed of the third world would be considered for work at Amstrad
I have never watch more appalling contrived drivel....

Appalling "apprentices" Appalling "ideas" Appalling "decisions" ...yes and I mean you too Alan

[Paul Gilvey]

On the boardroom performance Sir Alan was right to sack Shazia,it was up to Shazia to make her play and she blew it, but come on Jenny should have been sacked for her poisonous treatment and the language tone she used to belittle her team members.

[Neil]

The general set-up of the show is refreshingly intelligent given the endless backlog of 'tabloid-tv' such as Channel 4's Big Brother.

The problem with The Apprentice lies, as you all know, with the calibure of prospective employees who appear on the show (or would want to appear on the show. Every week Sir Alan establishes one thing; who is the most useless. We reach the end of the series and are presented with a winner who holds the great accolade of being the least useless of a bunch of very useless people.

This show has proved that anyone who is good enough to suceed on The Apprentice must already have a job.

[MB London]

Thought it was surprising that Shazia got fired and also made me wonder whether the other two remained soley for entertainment purpose and to keep up viewing figures for next week. Also I like Raef, thought he was surprisingly good and much to my husband's disgust, I think Raef is good looking- more likely to be a cause for keeping up viewing figures!

[Jeanette Evans]

Oh ladies! or should I say bitches. What on earth were you thinking?To spend the whole of a morning listening to Jenny rabbiting on. Role your sleeves up and get cracking.Pitching is always important in this game and no week will be any different.
You have all made statements saying how good you are but last night was nothing short of a fiasco.Education is not the be all and end all, common sense prevails.
Shazia was the unfortunate one to be fired at the expense of Jenny.
Typical situation in the working environment. Always believe the manager not the worker.Shazia hold your head high as you did as you were instructed.
Sir Alan, if you want an apprentice go out into the real world that you keep preaching about and give them a chance,instead of big headed, arrogant individuals.

[gh38]

It's ridiculous to suggest that the candidates are incompetent - most of them have highly paid and highly responsible jobs. So the programme is edited for TV; so the candidates are manipulated; so Sir Alan only sees what happens in the boardroom so may make a wrong decision or two. That doesn't negate the fact that these people are mostly intelligent businessmen and women, probably with better jobs than *yours* Greg and Mark.
Stop slagging other people off and get your facts straight! And if you don't like the programme, try this: *turn it off*

[Richard Chatwin]

Does no-one else think the editing on this show is appalling? Every comment from Sir Alan's advisors is met with a complementary clip of the candidates doing something stupid, and all the situations seem to be staged. 'Toffs' vs 'commoners' again last night? I have a feeling that a lot goes on behind the scenes to make sure that this is less an actual '9 week job interview' and more a 9 week circus show. I know it's TV, but come on.

[Marky Mark]

Is the class issue between the boys as an issue winning related?

The 'princes and paupers' cleavage that caused so must consternation in week one was just as prevalent last night. Or is that just my imagination?

The regional accented lads were shipped off to the laundry to get on with the graft, while those that sounded like 1950s BBC announcers swanned about complaining about the oiks' repeated requests for assistance supping their lattes.

Hopefully, the revolution will be televised.

[JohnHartley]

The Apprentice should of stayed on BBC2 not swapped over to the more mainstreamed channel of BBC1!!

[Ray Massart]

After recently having seen " " Der untergang" relating to Hitler's last days,visions of Sir Alan popped up in my ensuing nightmares.

[Mark Atkins Carmel CA USA]

In response GH38.. This episode was the first of ANY "Apprentice" series I've ever watched..and despite being drawn in to its "appallingness" last night will not bother to watch in future..

My point is.. If you can't find the right calibre of people to produce and direct this kind of show then what comes out the other end will undoubtedly be "appalling drivel"
I actually don't blame the "Apprentices" I blame those who selected them; those who concepted the show & those who write it....
"Der Untergang"...Last days of Alan Suger? I doubt it..he is a very capable businessman..why the hell does he bother to put his name to this c**p?

[Dan Hobday]

Is it just me or has everyone forgotten that you actually have to be 'Employed' in order to be 'Fired'? Also, what actually happens when you become a… ‘It’s my Bladdy Manny’ apprentice anyway? Six figure salary...work for a year…disappear… great. What’s the job description anyway? Must be able to iron clothes and sell fish? Sounds like Alan needs a Pauline Fowler wannabe who works on Billingsgate Market. Good TV though …

[Ray]

I must agree with certain sentiments expressed previously, in that this show is mindless drivel, a "chip and a putt" from Big Brother. Cheap TV!

[David]

The only person in the UK who believes that this show is about business must be Alan Suger. He is now in showbusiness and will no doubt have a long list of bookings for panto at year end as a better Widow Twanky there is not.

[Vicram Sohal]

I am not to sure why some people think Raef is a bit of a tofee-nosed snob. I knew that he would be a contender from day one. His calmness is an asset to the boys, although winning the apprentice might be a bit far fetched he will certainly be in the last 5. A calmer and more civilized version of Syed and Tre.

[Chris]

Jenny should deffinately have went, it should have been packed with more puns than you can shake a stick at.
must be said i'm confused with the swap to bbc1?

is it just me or do these people really have all the business acumen of an extreemly average fruit fly?

[Tony Capriano]

I have to question the validity of this program now - of the 3 in the boardroom, Shazia had demonstrated more ability - but was potentially less controversial than the other 2 - and as we all know, controversy equals viewing figures.
The original concept of the apprentice was great - now its more of a soap opera.

[Andrew Gallant]

If both the teams had any sense, they would use their free time in the house to familiarise themselves with their personal skills, specialised skills (i.e. fluency in another language etc) and even select the next two team leaders rather than wasting time making this decision on the actual day of the task. But, I suspect, judging by this lot, their egos are too big to be open to their peers.

[Robert]

Having been in the 'hiring and firing' end of well-paid business for a considerable number of years (but now retired), and having watched the performances of the 'applicants', I very much doubt if I would have hired any of them. I certainly don't care what happens to them in the future.

[Mimi]

What I dislike the most is this year's editing. It is too incoherent.

How about a series called "How do you find an editor for the Apprentice?"? We should vote to eliminate the rubbish ones.

[ashlea]

Pure drivel. Why don't they get a real job and actually produce something? I always did despise marketing - but most people fall for it hook, line and sinker, one fad after another. Pure deception. I've never purchased anything just because it's advertized.

[Henry Percy]

I don t watch The Apprentice except in switching, but when I do I can t help thinking that Sir Alan is lucky he didn t have to take part in such a competitive examination when he was a young man.

[Maurice Smith]

Whenever I see the opening shots of The Apprentice I find myself
likening the contestants to the political photo shoots when a new ministerial line up is announced. I wonder why.

[Bernard Lawson]

I hate this show. The Alan Sugar show is a very clever idea to promote his cheap goods. The contestants, people I should hate to meet at a dinner table, are boorish and self opinionated all squabbling for what, a £100,000 a year job with a vulgar, conceited bully. Bring back The Magic Round-a-bout. Far more interesting characters and a lot more entertainment.

[Tony Gee]

It has now become a game show with the standard of contestants declining series by series. An interesting follow up programme would be to find out what has really happened to the winners and what did they actually do in AMS's empire.

[sue]

back stabbing individuals who elbow their way to the top must be so unconfident and incapable of holding down any job never mind a senior position

[David Garfield]

I never watched reality TV until this programme, but I am finding it hard to stay the course now. The reason is that I think that, despite S'rallan's protestations to the contrary, he doesn't have freedom over whom he fires.

This is evidenced by the repeated survival of people who are so patently unemployable because of their total lack of interpersonal skills, or who possess a bordering on lunatic temperement. Week after week, people who could not possibly work successfully in a team, or manage a group of people are saved from removal for the most spurious of reasons. I believe that the producers of the programme have the power to extend the longevity of contestants if they prove to be of good televisual value. Which is fine for Big Brother, but not for this, which is designed to showcase skills and reward the best.

I would love to see a real contest between genuinely meritorious participants (these are not), where the criteria for survival or otherwise are rigidly applied. THAT would be good television in my book. And we'd probably learn something as a result.

[Jeremy]

I think Sugar is a PRAT and I would not ever trust him an inch

[gossipMonger]

this programme is enjoyable even though it isnt realistic. I cannot get over why the £4.99 merchants weren't fired instantly (jenny and Lindi) particularly the proponent of the help line for knickers. based on what i saw i would employ Simon, a street wise grafter, or based on her CV, the indian girl forget her name, who sells "international cars".

[Phaedon]

someone...please remove Alan Sugar from the magic box...so utterly stuffed full of himself we could eat him at Thanksgiving..please...