I guess it’s just a matter of perception. I thought the attitude of most of the interviewers toward both Kwame and Bill were tough in areas but collegial for the most part, while both Nick and Amy seemed to be in hostile territory and doomed from the beginning. I got the feeling Trump’s execs were gunning for them in order to affect their predetermined firings.
And I don’t recall (although maybe I’m just not remembering) Bill or Kwame being asked detail-specific questions regarding what they would say to this contractor or that executive. I thought those questions were very unfair. No matter how much reading one may or may not have done, there’s no way to answer those types of questions without actual experience in dealing with those types of people and in those types of situations.
I’m impressed by the lack of ageism and sexism apparent in the Trump inner circle. Several (if not most) of his senior officers seem to be significantly older than him (his assistant looks to be beyond retirement age) and I’m surprised at how many are women.
I don’t think she’d have to prove damages. In this day and age, accusing someone of using the ‘n’ word is probably egregious enough to make out a case of slander per se, which does not require proof of damages.
Backing up a week, but did anybody else think that Troy’s use of “I never went to college” as a badge of honor helped get him fired? He seemed to have a major inferiority complex on the issue and brought it up at least twice in every episode.
Trump’s a bit older than I thought he was (57), but at least three of his cronies seem older than that. Re: women, 2 out of 8 is 25%, which while not even is far better than most huge companies (especially casinoes).
But the female population of the US is over 50%, so I’d hardly call it equality. And yes, I do think that Troy tried to use his lack of college education as a badge of honor as it should be if he is a successful businessman. But here’s a question: did DT himself ever go to college?
And, FWIW, I bet that DT has had plastic surgery to keep his boyish looks.
I’m not comparing him to the entire nation, only to other companies (besides which, if women would spend a little less time watching soap operas and eating chocolate they’d probably get more high-prestige jobs [pit link in 5…4…3…2…])
B.A., Business- Wharton (U of PA), 1968 (generally considered one of the finest business schools in the nation [sometimes the finest, depending on the year)
If so I hope he saved the receipts, cause he don’t look that boyish or that good.
The questions about what she would do in specific situations involving construction and dealing with the contractors were really unanswerable. She doesn’t have experience with that.
I thought her answer was the best she could do under the circumstances. She basically said that it depended what Trump was looking for. If he was looking for someone with extensive construction experience, then she may not be the best applicant.
I also think that the “Stepford wife” comments, and all the comments about her looks, showed that she never really had a chance with those interviewers.
The thing is, we know what Amy has done. We know, for example, that in the rickshaw episode Amy was the only one to think of advertising (though Bill tried to make it seem like it was a group idea). We know that the interviewers reports were unduly hostile.
Having said that, I don’t think she did well in the interviews, even by objective standards. She admitted as much herself. But I don’t think that Kwame did better than her to the extent that it should have outweighed their previous performances.
The interviewers were pretty dead on in saying that Kwame’s only real strength was likeability. And it seemed like Trump thought Amy was a better candidate. He should have gone with his instincts.
My guess is that we got to see only a teeny tiny bit of each interview. And it got to a point where the editing was so fast and furious you had no idea what the questions were and whether the answers were actually answers to the questions asked. In other words. . . we viewers were made to think that the interviewers were especially hard on poor old Amy. My guess is that they were all very well grilled!!!
And Amy even admitted that she didn’t know what she was talking about. I liked the interviewers unanimous assessments of her as: She gets on my nerves!!! Lots of jobs are won or lost simply because of personal chemistry or lack of same. You can have all the credentials in the world, but if the person(s) doing the interviewing/hiring don’t feel they can get along with you, you’re toast!!!
Trump is on record, over many years, stating that his female execs are more aggressive than his men, and that he likes hiring them. My impression is that these women have to work their way up the ladder.
BTW, the percentage of the female population graduating from the nation’s top B-schools back in the early 70s was not close to 50 percent–and it’s this group that heads much of Trump’s empire.
Not to mention the fact that these six people do not comprise all of Trump’s executives. Who knows what the actual ratio is. (Btw, does a rhetorical question take a question mark, a period, or an exclamation point?)
It’s kind of interesting that after all the talk last week about the fishy smell of Nick and Amy’s last-minute seemingly set up win, that those two were the one ushered out the door at the start of this week’s episode.
I’m not sure what to make of that, but it’s interesting.
Norma Foerderer (VP Media Relations & Human Resources)
Alan Wiselberg (Chief Financial Officer)
Charlie Reese (Head of Acquisitions)
Tom Downing (General Manager of Trump International Hotel and Tower)
We have Carolyn and George, so that’s two women out of six.
Also, Donald himself is male, but I don’t think he counts. This comprises the high level executives in the last episode.
If we start to count all Trump employees, we could point to Robin (Trump’s hot secretary), Diane Lemezec (Entertainment Coordinator), and Leslie and another woman (Golf Staff). But then we’d have to count all the other male employees that were briefly shown, too.
That’s how it goes in business, though. That’s why you wear something nice to an interview, do your hair, don’t eat something sloppy that you’re going to drip on yourself on the way over, and pop a breath mint in the waiting room. Image is a big part of success. No slob has even made it to executive levels in major corporations on their own steam.
Besides, what they said about Amy’s looks was on point – she looks the part of a successful businesswoman. She’s coming in dressed well, smiling (the perfect white teeth) and cheerful and looking like she’s going to be a stunner when she opens her mouth, superficially presenting the image of someone who is very capable and very much what they’re looking for, but – and this is where “Stepford Wife” came in – she’s not able to defend herself, not able to speak her mind, not able to directly answer a question, she just says what she thinks that the other person wants to hear. She’s really good at giving good business-schoolish answers but not so good in the real world applications. (Contrast with Kwame who is a straight up B-school boy who showed himself able to think outside of the box, even if he couldn’t muster a lot of excitement as he did so.)
Amy was roundly criticized by all four of the interviewers. That says a lot about her. And please remember that Amy’s accomplishments in the past were pretty much limited to having made a whole bunch of money in the dot com boom, money which she’s freely admitted is a thing of the past now. She works in the high tech, but she’s never elaborated on what she does. There’s no indication that she’s a technical person, but many indications that she works in a management capacity. Well, I worked in the high tech sector, in a non-tech, management position, and unlike Amy, my investments didn’t turn to toilet paper when the dot com bust happened. I look buttkicking in a good suit and I have a great smile, too. If that was all that was necessary, why aren’t I The Apprentice? Why aren’t any of the hundreds of thousands of well-heeled, successful middle managers across the country?
Really! Heidi is a salesperson. Her skill is in people pleasing. Troy is a task-oriented knock it out kind of guy who is also strong in sales, but can put his nose to the grindstone and handle the plethora of piddly things in order to reach an objective. Omarosa’s shown that her only area of strength is making a list, checking it twice, and making sure that it is followed. The problem here seemed to be that she left something quite crucial – working closely with Diane to ensure that the transportation issues were in hand – off of her list.
Truth be told, I wouldn’t have had any problem whatsoever if Omarosa had received her dinnertime phone call from Diane, who was clearly still at work, and had chosen to delegate some of the workload back to Diane who obviously had some information available to her. “Diane, I’m at a dinner meeting with the executive staff right now. Can you call Simpson Entertainment Enterprises and confirm the flight information for the band, so we know that we haven’t been left out of the loop on some last minute changes, and leave me a voicemail about that in my office? Then I’ll head back there as soon as we’re done here, in a half hour or so, and make sure that local transport people have the latest information so we can be sure that everything works out.” I mean, O is working in a position that directly reports to the head honcho, there is no reason why she shouldn’t and couldn’t have delegated some work down to Diane who was obviously a logistics staff type person, not on the executive level. Diane would’ve hated it, but it would’ve been business-appropriate.
But no, she had to throw attitude and refuse to do anything that would serve to move the task forward, and then she had the nerve to say to Kwame, later, “we are really sloppy in the logistics department right now.” Uh, no, you are, we’re not. How the homping heck has Omarosa ever held a job before? Even in government, her level of incompetence, slacking and bristly manner wouldn’t be tolerable for very long. (How long has this show been on, 16 weeks? I’d say the, maybe half of that.) I can see now why she bounced around from department to department and didn’t leave many people behind who’d vouch for her.
That said, if she’s not on board (along with Nick) in order to be a spoiler, I’ll eat my hat. (Good thing my hat is made of puff pastry, huh?)
Carolyn is prone to harshly evaluating anybody who isn’t cutting the mustard. She had no problem letting loose in the early rounds with losers like Bowie and that young dude whose leadership was so uninspiring that Sam fell asleep under his watch. Nor with Sam, for that matter, the perpetual brownnoser. (She called him on the kissing up bit, too.) She’s also the one who said that Troy’s loose cannon style made him “not quite trustworthy” enough to lead a Trump organization.
But if Carolyn has been more harsh on these women, she’d have good reason to be, and it’s not just because they’re attractive, assertive (Ereka and Jessie were assertive? On what planet?) and competent, but because she’s gotten to the level of being a trusted advisor to Trump on her own merits, and knows full well that some of the tactics used by these “competent” women have been repulsive. (And continued even after they were sternly warned that it was out of hand.) The continual simpering, flirting, eyelash batting was absolutely unacceptable and stuck with her, and it needed to.
I agree with you to a point, but think back on the “scavenger hunt” task – the women got at least three of their items at a better price by applying the GiggleJiggleSmile tactics with male vendors. The only one we saw making a deal by saying “We’ll give you cost plus 10%, would that work for you? You’re still making a profit.” and actually got an item by applying business ideas instead of by being a girly girl was Amy. And she benefitted from that. Kristi, Jessie, Tammy and Ereka, the four who got shot down right in a row, were especially embarassing and depressing, and Heidi and Katrina weren’t much better but at least they had some saleswomanship to fall back on when their charms weren’t enough to get them through a mission. Carolyn, more than anyone, was in a position to judge that kind of crap more harshly because she knows, more than George and even more than Trump, that it just wasn’t the appropriate way for women to have been acting in the context of this contest. I think it’s fair to say that Carolyn never bared her (amazingly slim) midriff and Norma Foerderer never jiggled boobies in order to get a contract.
