Lesson from the task: When you have a budget, stick to it firmly. When you negotiate a price, get it in writing.
Lesson from the firing: If you act crazily once, bad enough to lose the respect of your teammates, they’re not going to respect you one bit any time soon. They certainly wouldn’t accept you as project manager. Over-the-top outbursts are a good way to get shown the door.
I thought both publicity campaigns were very good approaches. Circus performers and local sports superstars both draw large crowds. This must have been a tough task to judge, if someone hadn’t blown their task budget.
On another note, I’ve started paying attention to the big clock on the wall, in the reception area outside the board room. It showed that Trump was in the room with George, Carolyn, and the producers for a good 15 minutes before he brought those three people back inside. We only saw one line from each of the advisors. Certainly, there’s more going on in there that we don’t see.
That was petty and those girls deserve each other.
I was hoping that Trump would switch a guy on the other team for Stacey J. Bowtie guy would have been perfect. Then when they started bitching about how weird he was Trump could have fired them all at once.
Also, do remember that we haven’t seen the whole story. We didn’t see the full extent to which Stacie supposedly flipped out, for one thing. Also, Trump was right to point out that her entire team unanimously agreed that Stacie was acting bizarre–and that some of these women didn’t even like each other. That doesn’t sound like a real conspiracy to me.
I’ll grant that they may not be cutting her enough slack. However, if they are this united in ganging up on her, then there’s probably a reason. I find it hard to believe that a large team of strangers, some of whom share adversarial relationships, would be so united in lambasting one individual if she were merely a scapegoat.
Ivana is a disgusting human being. The “schizophrenic” comment was bad enough. But what about when she was talking to the printer, and she said that he had RAPED her because he had overcharged her.
Raped her?
There are no words.
So, anyway, how funny was it that they took every opportunity to show Jennifer-with-the-bangs mispronouncing Mike Piazza’s name over and over and over? If you’re gonna go on and on about what a freakin’ GOD the guy is, then at least get the name right, mmmkay?
Speaking of which, for $20,000, don’t you think that ol’ Mike could have showered or something? He looked like George Michael.
I don’t think that anybody found Stacie J.'s behavior all that disturbing at that time. I think that they managed to convince themselves that it was way worse than it was. Cowering in the corner? Puh-leez! I’m guessing that it was one of those classic situations that they talk about in psychology class where “eyewitnesses” can be manipulated into changing their accounts. I bet little Stacy is a big driver behind the exaggerating. She just seems like the type.
I agree that Trump got played. I’m sure he saw footage of the incident sooner or later. I wonder what he thinks now?
I see JThunder’s post on preview–I don’t think it’s so unlikely that they could be so unanimous in choosing a scapegoat. They each got a benefit from picking on Stacie J. There would have been no advantage to going against the crowd in this instance. In real life, standing up for a worthy person is the ethical thing to do, but it also might have significant additional benefits, in that the person you stood up for could become an ally and friend. In the context of the game, it doesn’t make sense to stand up for the weak player. She may become your short-term ally, but in the end, she’s your opponent. In real life, there can be more than one “winner.” In the game, there can be only one winner. And in the game, the ethical considerations are quite different. Going along with the crowd was probably the sensible choice here–which is not to say that the scapegoating itself wasn’t entirely despicable.
Ganging up on Stacie J. for a second week guaranteed that she’d be fired, giving these slimey bitches a chance to redeem themselves on the next task.
I’m surprised that Trump didn’t see through that. I don’t suppose he could have asked to see the film of Stacie “flipping out”, “horrifying” and “scaring” her team, causing one of them to “hide in a corner.” :rolleyes:
I like biggirl’s idea – Trump could have moved Stacie J. to the other team and fired Elizabeth or Maria.
Looking forward to the extended footage on Saturday, but I doubt I’ll feel any differently about these women. I hope they lose every single task from now on.
I seriously hope the women lose all of the challenges from now on and that a single one doesn’t make it to the final 3. The one exception to that is Jennifer M (the pretty blonde lawyer). From her measured response I garner she thought it was pretty much bullshit but once Trump pressed her on it she knew which way the wind was blowing and decided that there was safety in looking like one of the pack.
That said: Stacie should have planned for this weeks ago. A response that might have made Trump take notice would have been
If these people really felt “unsafe” then they would have complained to producers. At the least, all of their comments were sheer hyperbole
She’s a model for Ford and Elite AND a franchise owner. It would be difficult to be crazy and hold down all three of those jobs
They’re changing the scope of the blame-everyone agreed that she had nothing to do with the budget crisis-this gang-up was pre-agreed upon to save their asses a week extra.
No one said she did anything “crazy” after Week 1 so Week 1 can be chalked up to excessive adrenaline from staying up all night to design the toy
Raj has eccentric affectations too but you don’t see anyone calling him crazy.
I think an intelligent, thought-out response would have made Trump reconsider. OTOH, I do think that her control was pretty nice and her last words “now they’ll focus on tearing each other apart” were pretty true.
Stacie J…I doubt you were final 3 material but you got a raw deal here.
What are the names of the two teams? I call them the girl team and the guy team.
Right now the girls look very disorganized. Anytime something goes well for them it’s an accident. They better get their act together, they don’t have Stacey J to blame things on.
That’s what really made me mad. How, how was coming in overbudget anywhere near Stacey’s fault? Her crazy rubbed of on the bookkeeper (Jennifer? Maria? I’m so bad at names) and she forgot how to close a deal?
Although that printing company all of a sudden adding extra charges was bullshit. They knew when she ordered them when she needed them. Get it in writing indeed!
Apex is the women’s team (Minus Baldford TM to someone on TwoP)
Mosaic is the men’s team + Pamela
Also, are these women psychiatrists to be throwing out terms like “clinical” and oh, I love Ivana trying to use schizophrenia to mean multiple personality disorder. Grrrr. I actually have a semester of psychiatry and I still wouldn’t be accusing someone of a mental disorder like that.
…
Those women are disgusting. These so-called adults belong back in high school.
“Oooooh I was scared for my life! I had to hide in the corner!”
Funny, IIRC, they just ignored her and continued eating their food. What I wouldn’t have given for Trump to pull in a TV and VCR and actually show the scene.
Nope. Not just you. Count in me and my husband as well.
…
Speaking of the women on this show – Pamela? Ever heard of 9/11? Pumping an artificial gaseous scent into the NYC subway system =! good idea.
She doesn’t play well with others… and you need someone who does to run a company. Her days were numbered.
Still, the “I was scared for my life” crap, please. It was odd. It made her look unreliable. It showed that she was awful at reading people and didn’t really understand how to work with a team. But it wasn’t the most frightening, stressful situation anyone had ever seen… (I agree with the attorney one.) Several of those women (the other Stacy, Ivana (well she never had it)) completely lost my respect.
BTW, weren’t either George or Carolyn in the room for the 8-ball incident?
amarinth has it right. There was already plenty of reason to dismiss Stacie. This goes beyond merely her fascination with the Magic 8-Ball.
Mind you, I don’t doubt that the ladies are blowing Stacie’s problems out of proportion. I certainly don’t think that she’s crazy. However, she was most certainly disruptive, and she lacked basic planning when it came to picking up the toothpaste crates.
Stacie got a raw deal, and some of the accusations against here were way over-the-top. However, I think it’s grossly oversimplifying to say that the ladies simply wanted a convenient scapegoat. For one thing, they were clearly shutting her out early on–before they knew each other well, and long before they needed any scapegoat. I can imagine collusion between teammates who have known each other for a while, and who’ve had a chance to develop alliances; however, this particular instance happened far too early for me to simply dismiss as collusion and scapegoating.
And even if they were simply hunting for a scapegoat, the particular accusation that they leveled against Stacie was too extreme for me to simply dismiss in that manner. I can imagine the entire team ganging up on her by claiming that she was disruptive and obnoxious. I find it harder to believe that they would unanimously decide that she exhibited psychotic, split-personality behavior, if that accusation were merely pulled out of thin air. Green Bean’s objections notwithstanding, the extremeness of this particular accusation goes beyond mere scapegoating, IMO.
As I said before, we don’t know the whole story. We only saw a few seconds of her acting agitated toward her team, and there’s doubtlessly a lot more that we didn’t see. I wouldn’t be quick to assume that the ladies are basing their accusations solely on the meager details that the cameras provided. I’m sure that their accusations are exaggerated, but not to the extent that many posters here have suggested.
I didn’t see the first show, so I don’t know how “nuts” she was acting, but her failure to use any common sense when getting the toothpaste delivery was telling. The woman at the pick up location told her how big the boxes were and she still didn’t put it together that thousands of tubes of toothpaste are going to require multiple trips with a regular van.
Okay, can someone please tell me some of the “crazy” things Stacie J was saying during her little “breakdown”?
I missed the first episode but caught last week and this weeks. It appeared to me that these women are just a bunch of nasty bitches looking for an easy scapegoat. I bet Stacie J is secretly glad to be out of there. It was obvious they were totally exaggerating, but it’s driving me crazy I missed that episode! It also irked me that Trump fell for (if it was indeed no big deal) this obvious agenda the bitches had going.
When Maria smiled sweetly and said “I’m afraid she’s got 2 personalities” and actually touched Stacie on the arm, I seriously wanted to jump through the screen and smack her. Stacie gets a crazy (no pun intended) amount of points from me for not grabbing that bitches arm and snapping like a freakin’ twig.
Were the casting directors actively looking for the bitchiest, slimiest and just plain meanest women they could find?
If its any consolation it’s already clear that Trump has fired Elizabeth and Maria in his head. The words just haven’t had the opportunity to come out of his mouth yet. I just got into this show and have been working my way through the season 1 DVD’s but that’s something that I’ve been enjoying is picking out when Trump knows that he’s not hiring someone but he can only fire one person at a time…
I’ve got to go out on a limb and say firing Stacy was a good thing. She was clearly living on borrowed time already. Giving her the most possible benefit of the doubt, at least the women no longer have her to blame everything on. And perhaps she really was being more disruptive and counterproductive than we saw.
It started out with stuff like “Hey! Does anybody see me over here!?” It pretty much ended up with her eyes turning orange, her head spinning three-sixty, and magma drooling onto her chin as she hissed, “I am the god of hell fire!”. Well, okay, not really. But it did come across just a bit like that. I thought she seemed crazy, and the other women really did have expressions of concern if not outright fear.
But I think there’s an element of what Green Bean said. Over time, they remembered the incident more along the lines of the orange eyes than the reality. But honestly, it was uber-kooky, and I don’t blame the Donald one bit for not wanting that sort of thing around even the game, much less the company.
One of his concerns has to be liability (both image and monetary). Nothing is more iffy than an unstable person. And putting myself in his shoes, I can see why it went down the way it did. Aside from the unanimous polling, Stacie J herself seemed weird about it. She should have been angry at such accusations, but she was eerily calm — no changes in facial expression, no changes in her squeaky mouse voice, no changes at all in her demeanor. It was almost as though she was saying, “Crazy? What’s wrong with that?”
Once again, I find myself supporting Trump’s decision. The other stuff (poor leadership, sloppy negotaition, etc.) is just ordinary incompetence and will take care of itself in time.