The Apprentice

[andyram]

I wonder if anyone else watches this show. An interesting start with Claude looking a little uncomfortable in Nick Hewer's role. A few funny moments though. Not least....

 

"Excuse he sir, would you like a taste of my fish!"

[BobM]

It is always good to see over inflated ego's being burst, a staged TV soap Apprentice may be, it is entertaining on a dark night now Great British Bake Off has ended....   

[forest2807]

Entertaining, yes, but a tired format now. My wife and I like to play 'predictions', and tonight we got it spot on, its so formulaic. One team has a determined, feisty and domineering project manager who you would expect to manage the team to success, and the other team is led by a slightly flaky, disorganised, make-it-up-as-you-go-along style leader who you would expect to fall on their faces and let their team down. But, surprise surprise, it is all turned on its head and 'team flaky' turns out to be the winner.

Then, losing PM brings back another strong personality back into the boardroom, along with another who is accused of not making a significant contribution. PM and strong personality get through to the next stage because the Eas End Barrow Boy sees some spark of 'leadership' in them, and the anonymous little mouse is 'fired' and dispatched into the reality tv Z-list celebrity hall offame and a season of panto in Skegness.

Honest, I predicted all of that within 5 minutes of the show starting! I'm buying a lottery ticket at the weekend.

[Arthur]

 

Gotta admit it's a guilty pleasure for me, the only reality show I watch. There's an element of delightful schadenfreude in watching a self proclaimed business genius coming a cropper over a fish finger or some dodgy squid.

 

To be fair, it's easy to mock, I wonder how many others would cope even half as well as some of the candidates do.

 

Dara O'Briain was always good on the You're Fired follow up. I'll be interested to see how Jack Dee handles it. He has the right kind of wit and humour.

[BobM]

It always amazes me how some people are surprised that if they place their heads in a 'lions mouth' that sometimes it bites it off! 

[andyram]

I was close, I went for the ex navy chef who became very anal about the size of his fish cakes. The sacked Dan was my second choice.

[cary hill]

I was close, I went for the ex navy chef who became very anal about the size of his fish cakes. The sacked Dan was my second choice.

 

I think he actually worked in a Plymouth Chip Shop when he was a kid and once saw a fish cake being made. Royal Navy Marine Engineer later....but I enjoyed his fish cake making according to Queen's Regs without deviation, imagination or common sense.

 

I thought Dan was dead in the water from the moment I saw him doing an arcing slow motion Fosbury Flop type run towards one potential customer and saying I'm carp at selling in the Board Room rarely works on The Apprentice.

[Ozexpatriate]

So, if the American version of the show is anything to go by, I wonder if the presenter might vacate his lordship and stand for parliament in the hope of becoming Prime Minister?

[gismorail]

I have tried to watch this series in it's long running ........forms but sorry but that Sugar bloke is serious cringe material and is so up his own a---.

In my mind he is what's wrong with business in this country 

It's his business model that making the work place such a horrid place to be  

[Bernard Lamb]

I was close, I went for the ex navy chef who became very anal about the size of his fish cakes.

He would fit in very well on here.

Now would his "specification" be P4 or that narrower than normal gauge whatever it is called today?

Bernard

[jonny777]

I was close, I went for the ex navy chef who became very anal about the size of his fish cakes. The sacked Dan was my second choice.

 

Same here.

 

Those rounds where they have to buy raw materials and then make things to sell on the street corner always entertain me. 9 times out of 10 one group will think of nothing but "up-market" products which hardly ever works because they are not selling from a Knightsbridge bistro.

 

Remember the year when they had to sell to the crowd before a football match in Scotland?

 

Although the one where they had to sell cheese in France was my favourite, because one group bought a ton of the cheapest processed cheddar from a cash & carry before crossing the channel, then tried to sell that to the French. Classic.

[Penlan]

I shall have to wait a few weeks before the bit I like comes on..
The review of their CV's.
Having been on many a interview panel for appointing my staff ... I can laugh at some of the crop they put down.

The worst time for me was in the late 1980's when the Chief Executive decided all appointments must have Uni., degrees, even for reception Clerks, typists, etc.,  The staff turnover was chronic, the CEO, moved on and normality returned.

[jonny777]

My favourite week has been axed it would seem, and is never used these days.

 

That was the week when the contestants had to front their own 'live' tv shopping channel and attempt to sell products they had chosen. 

 

Some of the results were hilarious.

[chrisf]

I've just watched the first programme, recorded because I was out doing something useful last night.

 

Let me stick out my neck and predict the winner - the woman with the check suit and creepy sales patter.  At least she displays evidence of brain cells.  Many of the rest match their talent with their modesty.

 

Chris

[Arthur]

You have to admire these people, they clearly see no boundaries to success, how on earth else can you explain the attempt to sell fish cakes to a vegan restaurant. That's one business model that needs a bit of work.

 

Richard's the man for me, the Swiss Army knife of the business world. Well, if this quote from his c.v. Is a guide he's clearly a bit of a tool;

 

"The trailblazer is a fully managed and integrated business growth campaign that starts with a focussed base cam to remove the clouds from our client's business growth mountain so that they can clearly see the summit we are aiming for"

 

Yep, glad that's been cleared up.

[br2975]

I never realised you could fit so many contortionists*  into one boardroom

.

Brian R

.

(* contortionist - a person so flexible they can insert their head an inordinate distance into their own rectum)

[Nelson Jackson]

Wahey!!! There's a thread

 

£9 for a salad, no way!

[jonny777]

I reckon they could have bought some decent sized farmed salmon at Billingsgate for about £20 each, and with a little extra herbs and spices made small salmon fish cakes which sound upmarket and therefore would withstand a decent mark-up.

 

Also some king prawns; shelled and quickly fried in a tempura batter.

 

Serve either of those with a simple green salad and I think they would have sold the lot at lunchtime.

 

(Now I have made myself feel hungry).

[andyram]

I may have to watch tonight's episode on catch up as busy later. I reserve my predictions until after tonight. I have one I have picked out but want to see the editing on tonight's episode. Two years ago I predicted Leah as winner in week 4 and correctly predicted Tom as a winner the year or do before.

[Simon G]

I did like Claude Littner's first appearance where he just sat there eyeing the contestants, and probably scaring them even more witless than when they started.

 

Just watched tonight's episode. The girls' must have been bad to lose to the totally awful pitch by the men!

 

I do miss Daragh O'Braian on the Your Fired programme, but I expect Jack Dee wIll grow into it.

[Vardnoodleblast]

 

 

Serve either of those with a simple green salad and I think they would have sold the lot at lunchtime.

 

 

 

Lunchtime being the operative word  - they missed it! What a bunch of bozos! That was easily identifiable as a key objective had they not been so engaged in stroking their own egos they might just have developed a strategy to meet the objective. The trouble with these 'legends in their own lunchtime' is their lunchtime did not coincide with that of their potential customers.  

 

The person responsible to manage the 'team' then goes on to demonstrate the classic 'seagull' management technique to perfection and the 'dweeb' gets dumped on. Sadly I have to agree that from early on it was obvious he was going to get the heave-ho because he was simply different to the rest of the bunch of rampant self-publicists. I think that is called bullying is it not? However, the behaviour was rewarded.   

 

I accidentally ended up watching this with my 13 year old son and I was able to discuss with him that these kind of people were not exemplars of how to conduct yourself in business. Fortunately he had got there already. 

 

I would agree with an earlier poster that this show demonstrates a lot of what is wrong with  a lot of British business ventures - making a short term, very large and fast buck at someone else's expense. These folks are not entrepreneurs, they are simply rip-off artists who have smoked too much of their own dope. £9 for a salad in a plastic box flogged at the roadside. Get real! Even in Broadgate it's fanciful.   

 

Fortunately I will miss the remainder of this sorry excuse for entertainment as I am back off to work in Asia on the weekend. At least there a substantial 'confucian' approach to business ethics remains. That emphasises mutuality of benefit from joint business ventures and longevity of relationship as a generalist observation. Perfect it is not, but where is the (UK) home grown 21st Century successor to the likes of BP, ICI etc. that generates profit and pays substantial tax revenue to the home country? And why? Because as soon as anyone begins to build anything of value it gets predated or sold because investors want an exit with profit in as short a time as possible, all driven by these Masters of the Universe.

 

We then end up with situations like Redcar steel, Railtrack and the utter farce going on with the Hinkley NPS.    

 

I personally would give these folks First Class Suites on the Golgafrincham 'B' Ark.  (http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Golgafrincham )

 

Apologies if that seems like a rant but when you view Britain from an Asian perspective, it has become a parody of the Britain that once commanded respect because it invested in scientific study and innovation, and built global industries on the proceeds. 

 

The crazy irony of it is that our education system provides opportunity today for the 'dweebs' (and I count myself as one, after all, I like railways and model railways) to get their latent creative abilities unleashed whereas in the 'days of Empire it was, I interpret, a lot more exclusive. Intuitively you would think there should be some ascendant UK enterprises with the future potential to rival the GE's, Samsungs, Googles of the World. In 2015 we can only muster three companies in the Forbes Top 50 Global Company Ranking (15-HSBC, 40-Vodaphone, 41-BP). Brits are recognised for an ability to innovate yet as a country we reward the celebrity and fast-buck merchants with media attention and this programme is just more of the same.

 

As ye sow, so shall ye reap.

[Tase]

If that lot is the future of entrepreneurship then this country is stuffed!

 

It always strikes me that these so called 'successful' people who have 'high powered' jobs or businesses leave the relative safety and security of said employment to go on a reality TV programme. Most of them only ever want a media career of some sort ultimately.

[alfsboy]

The worst time for me was in the late 1980's when the Chief Executive decided all appointments must have Uni., degrees, even for reception Clerks, typists, etc.,  The staff turnover was chronic, the CEO, moved on and normality returned.

I was unemployed for a short while in the early eighties and applied for a job as  the internal  distribution officer (mail man/trolley pusher ) in the local DSS .At the three person(one was lady or should I say non gonad owning human )  interview  she boasted they all had degrees while noting sniffishly I thought   I didnt .I blurted out 'what for here,bit of a waste surely ".Didnt get the job.

My friend worked for  another dept in the DSS and said he couldnt get a look in the door with his qualifications by then .My neighbor also worked at the DSS in Yarmouth and got an OU degree before being promoted to Job Finder General,he hated me calling him that.Good salary ,company car and got about a dozen jobs for unemployed before he left three years later . I told all of them to get proper jobs and stop sponging off the state .I had found a job by then .

[BobM]

If by their own admission and boasting these candidates are already so 'successful'...why are they on this programme touting for money?

[andyram]

At the end of the day the show is there for entertainment and, like many other such shows, are going to try and attract people with personalities to get the viewing public talking. If you don't like it, you don't have to watch it. That is why I do not watch the X Factor or Strictly, nor would I contribute to forums about those shows.

I enjoyed tonight's episode and am starting to see a couple of slow burn candidates emerging. Charlene should have been pm on this task, and talked a lot of sense. She was seen to do this when featured in episode one. Watch out for her. The right person went tonight. An obnoxious and arrogant lady who ignored the sensible comments if industry experts and went her own way. How many times over the years have we seen people get fired in this way? You would think they would learn by now.

The pm of the winning team took some stick for sitting back and covering his own behind. Personally he seemed to use the skills available to him and delegated people well, whilst always pulling people back to the brand. He could do well.