Mona took charge of Empire (with James, Howard and Debra), while melty-faced Lorraine managed Ignite (with Philip, Kate, Ben and Yasmina.) Empire decided to sell a body-shaped sleeping bag and a "lover's lead" that enables two people to walk a dog together. Ignite opt for a cat's playhouse (glorified boxes resembling vehicles) and a shopping bag you mount on the rear of a bicycle.
As something of an Apprentice shake-up, the teams were sent to Manchester and Liverpool for this task, although department stores and streets look much the same wherever you are. Both teams made terrible gaffes in choosing products that didn't suit the market of the two prearranged retailers Sir Alan got them meetings with (another of his subtle, devious tests), so no sales were made at all in the first day. You can't sell sleeping bags to a hardware supplier. Oops.
The second day went mildly better for both teams; Mona had the week's one moment of unequaled success (negotiating with a shopkeeper over sleeping bags, selling less for slightly more cash1), while Lorraine partnered with Yasmina and managed a few sales for Ignite -- although they fell flat on their faces with reps from a national pet store Ben set them up with.
Philip, Kate and Ben were walking disasters over the two days as Ignite's sub-team, unable to sell a single product between them! Much of this was apparently down to Philip and Kate using the time away from the gaze of a project manager to flirt (with Ben the gooseberry.) Both treated the task as a lark that was beyond saving because the poor choice of products was insurmountable. While that WAS partly to blame for Ignite's failure, it didn't change the fact that three of the best salesmen left in the competition were left looking incompetent. Even Kate's mega-watt smiles got them nowhere. A bad week for the frontrunner to win, but not disastrous.
Back in the boardroom, Sir Alan revealed that neither team made any sales on the first day (where the task could have been won, easily), but on the second day Empire made £4,000 of sales compared to Ignite's scraping together of £1,000. The winners were taken for a helicopter flight over London during sunset, while Lorraine brought Philip and Kate back into the boardroom to explain themselves -- as neither had made any sales over the two-day period, and didn't appear committed to winning the task.
As expected, Lorraine came in for the usual tongue-lashing -- mainly from Philip, who has an inflated sense of his own importance and a runaway ego. He's one of those guys who thinks that, by admitting his own faults, he can bulldoze through any condemnation because this takes away his critic's ammunition. There's nothing you can throw at Philip that he won't admit to himself (he's arrogant, selfish, brash, etc), but he forgot about the fact that Sir Alan has to imagine how you'd fit into his company. Can you imagine how much of a pain Philip would be in the workplace, as part of a team?
This was also another episode where, in some ways, the "wrong person" was fired -- because, yes, Philip was shown the door. I agree with Sir Alan's decision, really. You certainly can't argue against it based on THIS task in isolation, but I think it's only a matter of time before Lorraine follows him home. She can't really play the victim now her #1 bully's gone, so unless there's a remarkable turnaround for her... she'll be the next to go. I sensed that Sir Alan knew this, too. He just couldn't justify firing a project manager who actually DID make money this week. That would look bad.
Also, just as a final point: is there any substance to a new theory of mine? I reckon that, if you're in a losing team that didn't include your PM, you're in trouble. It seems to me that the losing PM rarely chooses people in their own clique, but instead always chooses people in their "B-team" (who are always just vocal allies on the end of a mobile phone, usually giving bad news on speakerphone.) Maybe it doesn't stand up to scrutiny, but I'm sure a winning tactic on The Apprentice is to make yourself the PM's "number two" and never leave their side, a la Yasmina this week.
6 May 2009
BBC1, 9pm
1. It was the kind of basic salesmanship that you'd think everyone here would be au fait with, but it's remarkable how Mona's moment of glory felt like something of Gordon Gecko-style awesomeness in the context of The Apprentice!
