Question 1: What kind of idiot tries to lead by consensus in this kind of competition?
Question 2: Was her friend trying to sabotage her by advising her to not defend herself in the board room, or is she equally clueless?
Jessie is evil. She had me fooled, I’ll give her that.
Some thoughts:
Nick- That guy must be living under a divine protection order from Zeus. I’ve never seen a leader in this competition less responsible for his/her team’s success. Tammy, Katrina, and Erika were taking care of everything, and he basically nodded and said, mm hm. Good job. Yeah, let’s do that. (I will say he’s very appreciative of people and vocal in his praises, which is a fine quality.)
Kwame- Will someone tell me why this turnip is still on the show??
Omarosa- Last week I was still willing to give her credit, despite her overall bitchiness, for possible smarts and effectiveness as a team member. But that woman does nothing but slam other people while offering zero initiative of her own. She’s the absolutely worst kind of person to work with- cold, belittling, and paranoid.
Kristie- What a heartbreaker. To answer your hypothetical, twickster, ruling by consensus may not be the ideal way to run things, but she was offering an alternative to the dictatorial style of team management that so many people seem to revere as only way. Trump may have had a point in letting her go because she refused to defend herself. But it kills me to think that if she had trumpeted her own praises in the slightest, Omarosa would’ve been GONE.
Oh yeah- Erika. I vant to jump yor bones.
Did Mr. Trump change his decision to fire Omarosa at the very last second, or was the episode just edited to suggest that?
Keeping Omarosa onboard may not be good business, but it’s definitely good theatre.
I admired the way Kristie took responsibility for the team’s loss. I wish she had done two things (assuming that she couldn’t turn back time and play the round better):
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Analyzed the sales, to determine which teammembers were most or least effective. Not to point fingers at people, but to show that she was gathering data and learning from her own mistakes.
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Responded to Trump’s reprimands with a reason to keep her. I thought her refusal to whine or excuse herself was commendable. I think he was looking for her to say, “I made mistakes. I’m smart. I take responsibility. I learn from the mistakes. You want to keep me around because a good manager does these things (and doesn’t dump on her subordinates).”
It certainly seemed odd that Jessie went in the boardroom and blamed Kristi for the failure. That shocked me.
I think Trump et al made a terrible judgement call in thinking that since Kristi didn’t defend herself she was therefore guilty. Taking responsibility is a high road option and she probably had faith that Trump would recognize it. Then again, it appears that his entire company is filled with nasty win-at-all-costs-including-dignity type people that nobility is lost on.
BTW, does Heidi look like a fricking crack whore to anyone else?
Who said anything about guilty? If there were three people in front of me competing for a job and one of them played dead, I’d eliminate that one. Even if she had spoken up to take the blame, Trump would have kept her.
I still kinda like Heidi. She can be crass and borderline hard-to-take, but she’s a team player and does great work when called to.
Definitely. She just gets scarier looking every week.
I missed the first 10 minutes, since I was watching “Survivor” – I gather the two team leaders picked their teams? How did that work? Was it one pick at a time? What order did they go in? Who picked the team leaders? etc. Details, please, if anyone saw it…
I’ll post what I can remember
Nick went first, and selected Amy.
Kristi then picked Troy
Nick picked Bill.
Kristi picked either Heidi or Jesse
Nick Picked Katrina
Kristi picked either Heidi or Jesse
Nick Picked Tammy
Kristi picked Omorosa.
Whoops, I forgot Kwame. Can anyone correct my order? I don’t recall when he was picked.
Thanks, Slacker!
Who determined the team leaders? Trump? Did he state his criteria?
The original men and women’s team picked their captains as usual before entering the boardroom. Trump explained the change to them and after the teams were picked declared that Kristie would remain the captain of Protege (now with Troy and Kwame) and that Nick would remian the captain of Versacorp.
The biggest revelation to me from this episode is that Donald Trump and George Steinbrenner are lovers. Did anyone else notice their dialog during the meeting at Yankee Stadium?
The first thing they said to each other was “I love you”, and then later on they were gushing something like “you are the greatest.” Finally when leaving, George said to Donald, “see you tomorrow.”
I think these subtle clues point toward the network’s plans for a future Reality Show: “Don Millionaire the Gay Bachelor and George his big fat stupid Fiance”, which will of course take place in Massachusetts so they can actually get married in the end.
BCE
I think Jessie was more clueless than conniving, given that keeping mum is her strategy. I think it’ll take her a bit farther herself, especially since she’s been team leader once, but she’d better make her opinions known when it counts or she’ll be out for the same reasons Kristi was.
And Jessie said “Keep quiet until you’re spoken to,” not “and be a doormat on top of it.” Did Kristi give Trump one reason to keep her around? “Here’s what I’d do differently” or “Next time I wouldn’t do X”? Nope.
And honestly, I think Jessie was right to blame Kristi’s management. Trump asked her directly what the problem with the team was, and no two ways about it, Kristi’s management was the problem. She didn’t ambush Kristi with an unsolicited opinion.
Much as I would’ve loved to see Heidi go this week (I. Can’t. Stand. Her.), neither she nor Omarosa deserved to go. (Troy, Kwame and Jessie shouldn’t have, either, especially since the latter two seemed to be running the profitable branch of this team.)
The biggest difference between this show and Survivor is, I think, Trump being the final vote. On Survivor, flying under the radar and avoiding drama are good strategies. But on this show, flying too far under the radar can be just as fatal – Bowie being a case in point. And being brassy and opinionated can count in your favor, as long as Trump doesn’t see it as hurting the success of your operation.
Finally, I just have to say Jessie is smokin’ hot, even if she does sound like La Crosse’s own Tweetie Bird. And get distracted by pigeons.
Regardless of Nick’s leadership style, at least VersaCorp came up with a PLAN.
Buy raw materials. Produce a desirable product. Sell product. Change your strategy as the day goes on to make as much profit as possible. Since they only had one day, they did the best thing possible - sell the stuff for as much as people will pay while making them think they’re getting a good deal. And they did - the stuff they bought/made was desirable and they were able to make a decent profit. With $1,000 and one day, they made $600 profit. They didn’t need to keep ANY of the product at the end of the day, so of course the strategy should be to sell everything, even at a couple of bucks each! People go to flea markets to get good deals. And VersaCorp offered good deals.
Protege’s biggest problem was that they didn’t have a PLAN. They wandered around the flea market looking at what was or wasn’t selling, which wasn’t a bad idea. But then they went to Chinatown and bought stuff for resale. They didn’t do anything to it to make it interesting or special. And if you live in New York, you probably KNOW that you can buy that $10 umbrella for $1.25 in Chinatown, if it’s the kind of thing you’re interested in. Flea markets don’t usually exist for tourists. If you have that kind of markup in a retail store for tourists, it’s another thing entirely. And during the day, when they were able to observe sales and traffic flow, they weren’t flexible and didn’t shift strategies when what they were doing wasn’t working.
I agree that the management was terrible. Kristi didn’t seem to make any decisions on her own. And she put the team’s seed money in the butt pocket of her tight jeans? THAT’S smart. She didn’t put one person in charge of the money (correct me if I’m wrong, but Omarosa didn’t become “Banker” until the end of the day when the receipts were counted up, right?). And someone LOST nearly $200.
Despite that, even if they money hadn’t been lost, the team still would have lost the challenge. They were $75 below their initial seed money, which means they would have had about $100 profit.
My boyfriend was out of the room when the winning team got their “reward,” and when he came back he asked how George Steinbrenner was. I told him that apparently, he and Trump love each other, and he said “Well good. They deserve each other.” (He’s not a yankees fan).
I don’t think Kristie understood the distinction (her failing, admittedly) and Jessie certainly didn’t qualify her advice.
No, that was a textbook example of setting somebody up. For some odd reason (I’m assuming the friendship they’d forged), Kristie was hanging on Jessie’s every word when she sought advice from her. And Jessie specifically hammered one thing into Kristie’s head- keep your mouth shut unless he asks you a direct question. This likely prevented Kristie from speaking up for herself at any of several opportunities in the boardroom, since Trump never directly asked her, Do you think you’re the one I should fire? Thus, she stuck with the silence-will-keep-me-golden strategy. Heaven knows why Kristie wasn’t able to think for herself a little in this area, but… the point is she felt she needed help, consulted someone she trusted, and that person wound up bending her over right there on the boardroom table.
Truly inspired, BCE, and one of the funniest things I’ve read all week.
Several people on another board pointed out that the cost of the items bought by Protege in Chinatown totaled approximately $180 (as seen on the cash register, I believe), and that if the receipt was lost or never received that might account for the missing money.
Just to clarify, I don’t think Jessie gave Kristi good advice, but I don’t think she gave her that advice hoping that it would get Kristi fired, either. Honestly, I don’t know what Kristi could’ve said or done that would’ve led Trump to believe she shouldn’t have been fired, but at least he would’ve respected the effort.
The big thing I don’t get, though: why ask Jessie how to act in the boardroom? She’s never been there either! Ask Kwame, who’s been a project manager who didn’t get fired! Ask Troy, who’s been in there as well! Of course Jessie’s going to tell you to be quiet, because that’s what Jessie does. Little does she realize that it’s a fool’s strategy with Trump.
Although if she’s always as blunt under direct questioning as she was last night, she may come out of it okay.
One more thing: why pick Troy over Bill? Troy’s a nice guy, but Bill’s been a tasking genius. I suppose Kristi didn’t necessarily know that, but still. Bad choice.
True enough, but it still doesn’t excuse a net loss of $75. With or without that money accounted for, they still lost big time.
I agree. I didn’t mean to excuse Protege, just to provide a possible explanation. Even if the $180 was paid to a store, there is no excuse for the shoddy accounting practices that failed to keep track of it.