The Apprentice

Week 2 I was disappointed this week, and not just by the candidates...

Sir Alan made a poor decision tonight which led to a battering in the boardroom for Shazia, and I was left wondering... just how low will someone go in their quest to be crowned The Apprentice?

The task tonight required a little common sense and a lot of hard work; teams were challenged to provide a full laundry service for 24 hours and return with a profit. To make things a little simpler, Sir Alan lined up potential customers for the teams to approach.

After last week’s display of ineptitude, I was looking forward to the competitors proving to us that they were not, well, a complete bunch of idiots! Fortunately for the boy’s team, high morale, hard work and some very clever decisions paid off. After all, it's all about good business sense.

The fact is I finished tonight’s show in a bad mood. I was pleased that Raef (although still a bit of a git with his two sidekick twits) showed himself to be a good manager. The boys proved they could work hard and work smart. Raef took the smart approach. In the task's early stages, you need to listen to your team and take a consultative approach; he did this well. What ruined it for me was a shocking display by the girls' Alpha team.

The girls made great viewing this week, but for all the wrong reasons. Project manager Jenny Celerier came across as completely insane, Lucinda seemed lazy, Shazia was stitched up, and Lindi was just plain thick! Her only input of the day was the suggestion of a 24hr hotline for the laundry (hardly enough added value to justify charging £5000 for a £200 job)! I would have fired her for that alone... or at least explained to her that thinking was clearly not her strongest point!

The sad truth is I feel even less confident about the girls than I did last week. When Lindi made her ludicrous suggestion, nobody pointed out that it was stupid. When the pricing was plucked from thin air, no-one questioned the figures, even though, with a car full of Yellow Pages, the prices charged by a regular laundrette could have been matched - if only they'd made a quick phone call!

Project manager Jenny started on the wrong foot with her team, planned badly, and made poor decisions. By the time she'd reached the boardroom, she'd resorted to slander and personal attacks. I find her character and demeanour most repulsive, and it seems the majority of her team did too.

The Final Insult

By the time we got to the boardroom stage, I was excited. I thought that, at last, we'd see the imminent demise of a terrible project manager... but I was wrong.

Sir Alan justified Shazia's firing by citing her mistake of leaving the final load unattended... but Jenny was the one who'd sent the group's organiser home! In any case, the few mislaid items did not account for the poor profits; after all, the group lost by a margin of £200!

Only one of the three people sitting opposite Sir Alan was responsible for the failure of this task - and it wasn't Shazia. In fact, if Shazia did make one crucial error, she was too respectful. This allowed an overbearing Jenny to talk her out of her big chance.

Yes, it's common Apprentice knowledge that if you want to remain a candidate you must fight like a prize fighter in the boardroom... but no matter what happens, the referee must ensure a clean fight.

So, in my opinion, the wrong candidate was fired in The Apprentice, episode two. Sir Alan Sugar, you got it wrong!

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