The Apprentice, 4/3/06

Cafe Society
21

I actually can understand Bryce’s reasoning. It goes something like: our team only scored 80 points when we needed 100 to win. Charmaine and Leslie gave us 35 points worth of lyrics, and Tarek provided 35 points worth of music, and the rest of the team came through with 10 points.

So the question is, do you take in Tarek and Charmaine because if they had each come through with 20pts more goodness, we’d have won? Or do you say, yeah, they didn’t score 50 pts, but they did score 35 pts and that’s way, way more than Lenny or Lee or I did? (Who was it last time who pointed out that it was the ones who stood up and tried who took the blame when you failed, while those who sit back and say ‘I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout birthing no babies’ get to slide by.)

Obviously, Trump thought the first way, Bryce the second…and the way the Boss thinks is the one that matters.

My guess is Bryce was trying to get a win on nobility points. Like, the dark haired girl who went all protecty of that other useless girl? (Man, it’s too late, I can’t dredge up names at this hour. Torie?) He thought that by showing himself to be standup and protective of his team and so on, Trump might find that admirable and toss Lenny instead. I can even understand his bringing Lee – it was as he said, who else was there to bring? He was told to bring two, and as he’d decided he wouldn’t bring Charmaine, Leslie or Tarke…he had to bring Lee.

(He might have done better to ask to bring only one.)

22

I’m going to go ahead and disagree with you there, Auntie :wink:

The reason they lost was because of the lyrics. That was Charmine’s fault. End of Story. The Arby;s execs specifically told the teams they wanted the exclusivity of their “chicken naturals” to be emphasized in the jingle. It wasn’t. That’s not lenny’s fault. I also think that Lenny tried to contribute and just wasn’t any good at it. He still did whatever he could for the team and did nothing to hurt them. I think that trying to argue that they lost because Lenny couldn’t write a better jingle than Charmaine and Tarek is bullshit.

I also don’t think there’s any honor in “standing up for the team.” The corporate world is not a little league team. Protecting fuck-ups because they’re your friends is not an ethical way to play the game. Bryce should know that Trump hates when people try to cover for their buddies instead of putting the blame where it bellongs.

As for the line that “Trump should listen,” what did Bryce have to say that was remotely worth listening to? His defense of his board room choices was all but incoherent. He was rude and disrespectful to Trump and he was WRONG in everything he said. It’s fine to want to stand up to Trump but you have to be right when you do it. Bryce was not even close.

23

's okay. :slight_smile:

Does anyone remember the words to either jingle? I guess if I heard it often enough, I might pick up an emphasis on the exclusivity. My guess is that it won’t register. People might hear it and think “Arby’s has chicken now? Cool, cuz I’m sick of roast beef.” But you’re right, Arby’s execs noticed, and that’s what counted.

But nobody really fucked up, not on the scale that we’re accustomed to anyway. Nobody realized that their time was short in getting to the meeting. Bryce should have apologized right away instead of letting it slide though.

I didn’t see it as a boss protecting fuck-ups because they were his friends. Bryce had a team of (mostly) talented people who worked well together. They made a mistake and didn’t satisfy their client. In the corporate world, would one of them have to be fired, or would the CEO challenge and coach them to make sure it didn’t happen again?

Sure, it’s cutthroat. But it works both ways. An employee who thinks he’s gonna lose his job for any misstep isn’t one that I’d want working for me. I wouldn’t trust him not to take me down with him.

But I’m getting way off base. On The Apprentice, someone has to be fired every week. In the real world, Trump probably doesn’t fire anyone for their first mistake.

His reasoning for bringing Lee in. It put Trump on the spot and Bryce needed to make Trump understand that he did it only because Trump wants at least two scapegoats.

24

What I remember is that both teams tried to build upon Arby’s current catchphrase, “I’m thinking Arby’s.” That was good strategy. I also remember that Gold Rush’s lyrics included the line, “Our chicken is better than the rest.” That was what the exec was alluding to when he mentioned that they didn’t say that their Natural Chicken was unique.

Synergy did slip in Natural Chicken a couple of times and they had catchier music too, IMHO.

Yup, Bryce’s real mistake was not apologizing right away when the Arby’s exec complained about them being late. Bryce rationalized it as, “We’re not used to getting around in this city,” and then tried to sweep the problem under the rug by getting the meeting underway.

And what of the woman who made the appointment? Was it Charmaine? Why didn’t she tell the team they had to be there by 10? Was it a miscommunication with the Arby’s receptionist or was she hoping that if she didn’t say anything to anyone that they’d never find out she screwed up the timing? I wonder if we’ll find out what really happened next week?

At any rate, I wish Trump had made an executive decision and brought Charmaine down from the Suite. Maybe Tarek too, but definitely Charmaine. She was the one who screwed up on the lyrics and she’s annoying besides. I would have been much happier to see her go than Bryce.

Interesting point!

Is anyone else surprised how well the folks in Synergy are getting along? With Brent out of the way, I thought for sure they’d be at each other’s throats by now. :confused:

25

If Lee doesn’t “step up” and take the leads as project manager next week, his team is going to start seeing him as deadwood.

It was nice of his teammates not to be visibly put out by him taking a break, but if I had been competing, it would have been hard for me to not feel like it was unfair. Yes, in the real word people do take days off for religious observance. Sometimes they take sick leave, sometimes they use unpaid vacation time, to accomodate these obligations. But the thing is that EVERYONE in the workplace can do this, if they choose. I know what Trump said about life being unfair is so very true, but that doesn’t mean people can’t complain about how arbitrary the rules seem to be.

Bryce was a dumbass with his boardroom decisions, but when Trump asked why he took Lee into the boardroom, I would have said, “Well, it’s like what you said Mr. Trump. Life is full of unfairness.” It would have been certain suicide, but it would have been a better comeback than the inarticulate glurge he spat out.

I think it’s incumbent on Lee to prove himself now and show his team that he hasn’t just been sliding through.

Bryce, I repeat, is a dumbass. The show has never seen a candidate so assured of his moral goodness and so blind to how to play the game. I thought I would scream if he had said, “They worked so hard” one more time. Dude, did you work hard? It didn’t really seem like he contributed much except a summer camp-style pep talk. And I don’t know why he didn’t seem to know they were late. Charmaine said the appointment was for 10:15. Was she appointed the time-keeper or something?

Bryce had to go. It would have actually pissed me off if Charmaine (or even Tarek, who I can’t stand) had been fired. Those two did the hard work, and I think it’s the project manager’s job to step in and make the appropriate adjustments/corrections. Charmaine wasn’t the only one sitting in that room with the execs. They all heard them say they wanted the uniqueness of their natural chicken emphasized. So even though from a strategic stand-point Bryce was dumb for not bringing those two into the BR, I could understand his reasoning somewhat.

26

Okay, the question everyone is discussing is “when the team fails at writing a jingle, do you blame the people who didn’t do well enough at trying, or the people who didn’t contribute?”

My question is – who the hell in the business world writes their own jingles? This isn’t an appropriate task to find someone who can manage real estate for the Donald. Musicians write jingles – executives don’t.

I loathe the music tasks!

27

Well, if I remember correctly, the Arby’s execs told the other team that they wanted the exclusivity mentioned in their meeting with the other team. We don’t know what they told Bryce’s team, who were offensively late to their meeting. And, of course, the fact that they were late to the meeting was largely Charmine’s fault.

28

Was Charmine the one who booked that off-color comediane for the Buick task?

29

Excellent point – yes, it was.

30

Well, if the editing of the white truffle dinner is at all accurate, it wouldn’t have surprised me to see Allie’s hand disappear under the table towards Sean’s crotch in a show of “team unity.” I don’t think the other guy on Synergy thinks much of Sean but is smart enough to keep his mouth shut, at least for now, although we did get some footage of him dissing Sean for not giving the team members work to do.

31

I’m sure the three on the other side of the table looked like this as blondie the Brit were making dreamy eyes at each other:

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

32

If I remember correctly, the Arby’s folks named the time for the meeting. Then we got a shot of the clock that showed there was little time and the team better hustle. BUT. . . the Synergy team showed up at Arby’s Central at EXACTLY 10:15am. So, did the Arby’s folks set the same time for both teams to meet with them? Or what? (Or am I misremembering?)

And Bryce was the only choice for firing.

33

No, one of the execs accused them of being 25 minutes late so I figure they should have been there at ten.

The clock showed the time as being about 10:15 and then there was the shot of the team still riding in the van acting as if they had all the time in the world. They didn’t seem hurried until they entered the building and were trying to find the meeting room. Why would the clock shot be used if they were on time. Unless it was to emphasize the need to be a bit early to meetings like this, though I don’t believe that was the case here.

**KSO, **OK, I get it. They weren’t at each others’ throats but maybe other parts of the anatomy were involved. For some people, at least. :wink:

34

This got me to thinking. What if each team only got the information they asked for-- Sort of the Trump version of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy? Thus, one team knew about the exclusivity thing and one didn’t. Thus, it pays to be prepared when going in to a meeting like this. Verrry interesting!

Twickster, I’d forgotten about Charmaine and the comedienne. That would explain why she wouldn’t say anything if she realized she’d screwed up on the appointment time. Even she could figure out that would be the final nail in her coffin of ineptitude.

35

Filmore remembered, not I.

36

Okay, I’m in the process of assigning my points, so I’ve just rewatched the section on the meetings. Here’s what I saw:
Charmaine asks when they can meet, the Arby exec says 10:15 and Charmaine agrees. The camera shows a clock showing that it is 9:40 when Charmaine made the appointment. (Presumably, I mean, they could edit in or out anything, but I think we’ll have to accept that they are being honest on stuff like this.) So Charmaine has agreed that they will be at a meeting in 35 minutes. Whether this is reasonable or not, I don’t know. Very little experience with travel times in Manhattan AND I don’t know how far apart the locations are.

Anyway, Charmaine goes up to a cluster of Gold Rush people, in particular Bryce still doing happy-teammate talk with Tarek. She says the appointment is at 10:15 and they need to leave “in ten or 15 minutes.” Bryce makes acknowledgement type sounds but continues to talk to Tarek. IOW, Charmaine is saying that they can leave at 9:50 or 9:55 and be in time for a 10:15 meeting. Again, is 20-25 minutes a reasonable allotment of time for transit?

Next we are shown Bryce popping open a can (presumably a soft drink), still chatting and acting all relaxed. Clearly he’s not worried or rushing to be out the door.

We get a shot of them in transit with a flash of a clock reading 10:15 – already they’ve missed their meeting but there’s no indication at all that anyone is conscious of this or worried about it. We get other shots of a clock – I believe at the Arby building – showing various later times. Accepting at true the ‘25 minutes late statement’ – stated as a flat fact – this means the Goldrush team didn’t arrive until 10:40.

BTW, I didn’t see any clock-based evidence of what time Synergy met with the Arby folk.

Later, during the Boardroom, Bryce said he didn’t know they were late or when the appointment was for – although we saw Charmaine tell him. I don’t think Bryce was lying, I think he did one of those ‘someone is talking at me while I’m interested in a different conversation. I’ll just grunt and hope they go away’ things. (Married women will know what I mean.)

So…was it Charmaine’s fault for accepting a too early appointment time? For not making sure that Bryce was listening to her? Maybe she should have herded the lot of them out the door more vigorously?

Or did Bryce simply drop the ball? He must have assigned Charmaine to set up the appointment, and then he failed to listen when she told him the result.

I incline to the latter view. Bryce wasn’t paying attention and as a result blew it.

37

Okay, posting much quicker this time, hopefully while there’s still some interest.

This is another episode where I actually didn’t find all that much to assign points for. Both teams worked together well and did at least a ‘good’ job on the assignment. Kinda makes for a boring episode, eh?

Point by point report:

Bryce: +1 for trying to clear the air and get his team working together well. And, it looks like it basically worked, even though they lost.

Tarek: -1 for his “They hate me because I’m beautiful” self-pitying explanation for why he ends up in the boardroom so often. Could use many roll-eyes icons here, if I knew how to type them into my offline wp.

Bryce: -1 for popping open a can of drink right after being told they need to leave in 10-15 minutes. You should be concentrating on getting yourself and your team out the door at that instant if not sooner. Way, way better that your team spends some time waiting in the lobby at Arby’s then piss off your client-equivalent by making them wait a second for you. There’s a saying my Dad used to use, I think he picked up in the military: Early is on time; On time is late; Late is unforgiveable.

Sean: +1 for getting his team to their meeting on time (we assume) plus for realizing the benefit of taking them all. The more ears to catch every point the execs made the better and who knows which of them might ask a question that will reveal some very important info? And in fact they get some: the execs stress that they want the jingle to make it clear their all natural chicken is the first of its kind, that there’s no competition. Did Gold Rush get told that? If so, clearly Charmaine and Leslie didn’t realize it’s importance, because their lyrics came down to 'Ours is the best, better than all the rest."

I’m tempted to ding each of the GoldRushees for not demonstrating what a jingle is to Lenny In the cab by singing him a couple and pointing out how a simple tune a few seconds long can cause the listener to think about a whole company’s line and what it stands for and all. “I’d like to buy the world a coke”? “Have it your way”? “Two all beef patties”? “Doublemint, doublemint, doublemint gum”?

Bryce: oh, boy. -1 for arriving late. -1 for not realizing you were late and automatically starting off with massive groveling apologies/explanations/lies for why it happened. And then even when the Arby guy pointed out you were late, clearly annoyed – did you finally apologize? Nope, you tried to shove that aside by launching into questions. Basically you treated him as a non-person whose question wasn’t worthy of a reply. Stupid AND rude…and to the exact people who will be judging you on a totally subjective task??? Another -2, for a total of -4 points ‘earned’ in the first 30 seconds of your meeting. Amazing.

Roxanne, Tammy, Michael, Allie, Sean, Andrea: +1 each for really beautiful looking teamwork as you brainstormed up the lyrics and melody and directed the singers and all. You all were engaged and playing off each other’s idea just the way the manuals say it should happen.

Goldrush: in contrast, your team was dead. Someone would suggest something, no one reacted, the idea fell flat. Agreed most of the ideas were dreadful. Chicken noises? Chicken and the egg jokes? Sheesh.

Sean: +1 for the introduction to the jingle: short, upbeat, to the point.

Bryce: 0 for your intro. Thanking the execs for the chance was okay, but talking about how wonderful it was that your team worked together so well was nothing more than self-praise AND beside the point. The client cares about the RESULT, not whether you had fun or killed each other in producing it.

Trump: -10 for the dancing. :wink: I hope you MEANT that to be ironically awful…
Win/Lose points: This was sort of a strange task to set the Apprentices – who expects an exec to be able to write jingles? – but in the end it came down to aspects that WERE management tasks. The Arby exec didn’t critique the melody line or style, they didn’t talk about the lyrics rhyme or scansion or anything like that. They said that GoldRush failed to include the point that Arby’s cared about most – that their chicken was unique – while Synergy hit it on the nail. Either Gold Rush failed to find out that Arby’s wanted that (bad on Bryce) or they forgot about it during the writing of the lyrics and no one realized the mistake (and, again, bad on Bryce, the buck stops there.) Sean +2, Bryce -2.

The reward footage: no points assigned, though I was tempted to hit Sean and Allie with one each for excessive PDA. (Public Display of Affection.) It’s not good for team morale to have ‘special’ relationships between some members – it can too easily lead to charges of bias and favoritism. Still, I’ll give them a pass for now. Maybe it was just euphoria for winning two in a row. Interesting that getting rid of Brent actually DID make their team stronger. Other times players were dumped for being ‘disruptive’ that hasn’t happened.

Hmmm. The Gold Rush pre-Boardroom footage was interesting. Very up, frendly, no backstabbing or conniving it seems. You all even managed to get through the Board Room and the final three throwdown without excessive anger or bickering or insults. Unfortunately I’m not assigning points for being Team Congeniality. (BTW, do any of you watch ‘24’? I finally realized what I was finding familiar about Leslie – when she isn’t absolutely smiling she has the same ‘I just bit into a lemon’ scowl that Chloe has all the time.)
Boardroom:

Lenny: -1 for overplaying the ignorance of what a jingle is. As Bill pointed out, you cannot possibly have lived in this society for 14 years without learning that.

Charmaine: -1 for leaving the uniqueness factor out of the lyrics.

Bryce: -1 for saying he didn’t know they were late to the meeting. If he did know, a ding for lying. If he really didn’t know, a ding for not knowing. The meeting with the client is IMPORTANT.

Lenny: -1 for more playing up his ‘I’m an ignorant Russian’ excuse – did you all see Caroline’s reaction to his claim he was writing jingle lines in Russian and then being surprised they didn’t translate well? More telling, it got Trump to call him a comedian again, and this show is not called “Jester.”

Lee: 0 No points off for it now, but Trump’s pointing out that you’ve had the equivalent of two bye’s is pointed. Yes, you ‘led’ one task already (IME, you stood aside and let Lenny lead for you) but you’ve GOT to either volunteer for PM or find some way to make an outstanding contribution during a task, and SOON.

Selecting Boardroom Victims: Bryce: -4 for taking Lenny and Lee instead of Charmaine and Tarek. I sort of understand your reasoning but in Trump’s eyes you failed to bring either of the people most responsible for how your LOSING jingle came out. And Trump is the ultimate judge.

Final Showdown: Kind of a foregone conclusion. Lee clearly would not be fired, Lenny’s failure to add any value wasn’t as big a problem in Trump’s eyes as the failures of those who did. Bryce was baring his neck to the sword with all his noble talk of supporting his team and how his was the final say on everything…so, swish, Trump handed him his head.

Bryce: -1 for verging on rudeness to Trump, and even crossing the line a couple of times. That snide “oh, yeah, that’s exactly what I said” in response to his paraphrasing of what you said, the way you kept talking over him, and kept talking while Trump kept saying ‘excuse me’… You all but asked for it.
Scores for the Candidates

Name : points for this episode : cumulative points

Roxanne : +1 : +6
Sean : +5 : +6

Allie : +1 : +4

Michael: +1 : +3

Leslie : 0 : +1
Andrea: +1 : +1

Charmaine : -1 : 0
Lenny: -2 : 0
Tammy: +1 : 0

Lee : 0 : -1

Tarek :-1 : -17

Fired:

Name : Score in final episode : cumulative score : # episodes lasted : pts/episode

Bryce : -12 : -11 : 6 episodes : -1.8 pts/episode
Dan : -12 : -12 : 5 episodes : -2.4 pts/episode
Brent: -9 : -14 : 4 episodes : -3.5 pts/episode
Teresa: -10 : -11 : 3 episodes : -3.7 pts/episode
Pepi: -6 : -5 : 2 episodes : -2.5 pts/episode
Stacy : -7 : -7 : 2 episodes : -3.5 pts/episode
Summer: -12 : 1 episode : -12 pts/episode
Notes:

Notes: Wow, Robin’s getting to be a star! Not only did she get a new line (Enjoy yourself, Mr. Trump) but she got to open and hold the boardroom doors twice. :wink:

Caroline was in fine form in the boardroom, with the two most telling lines to Bryce: “They [your team] worked hard but they missed the mark.” and “Just say ‘Fire me, Mr. Trump.’”

This is the second time when Trump has said he thought Charmaine should have been brought to the final showdown – with clear implications she might readily be fired. I’m adding her to the Dead Man Walking category.
SBS

38

Yay! I’m now looking forward to the SBS Scoreboard almost as much as I looked forward to the Raj Ratings. (Well, almost. I am president of Mully’s fan club, after all.)

Tarek: -17. And yet he’s still there. Hee!

39

Sorry folks, life has intervened and I missed this week’s episode. I’ll try to get back on track next week.

40

Is anyone else getting tired, though, of how they’re stringing more and more words together for Robin’s “lines”. It’s as if they have to add a word or two each week. By the end of the season, her line will be “All of you, every single one, that is, can return to the large boardroom where Mister Trump and his two cronies are waiting to fire one of you.” I know the fans want her to have air time, but still!

Don’t have much else to add, since I agree with most of what was said here. I wish Trump had done something like send Bryce back to get the people he wanted to see in the boardroom, though. I felt like Bryce kept handing Trump the knife and Trump would sliiiide it back across the table to keep him dancing another couple of minutes.