# The Apprentice -- 5/8/06 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 9, 2006, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-5-8-06/355988 "2006-05-09T00:37:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mama\_Tiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Mama\_Tiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Tiger)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2006, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-5-8-06/355988/21 "2006-05-09T02:42:24Z")
Well, it was only in my own living room, but I called everything in this episode in order tonight. Men overconfident? They’re going to lose. Check. Who’s going to get fired? Lee and Sean are going to serve up Michael; he’s the obvious weak link. Check. Ultimately, Michael got fired not because he couldn’t sell but because he made one obvious error that was easy to pin on him and only him; everything else was a joint effort and harder to pin on just one person. Lee and Sean saw that and handed him over to Carolyn to do the rest of the job for them. The guys almost had to keep Michael on the microphone, though. What else realistically could he have done on that task? Can you see that overly precise, foppish, twitchy-jawed little guy trying to sell to all those big drunk frat guys? It would have made for great television, mind you, but it would have been deeply painful to watch. I almost hated to see the guys win, though, after the Coven’s focused attack on Sean for having the _nerve_, the _temerity_, to not back Allie 1000%! And any liking I had for Roxanne disappeared permanently and completely when it became obvious that if Allie is sharpening her stone knives at the altar of the Dark Lord, Roxanne is her acolyte serving up her next sacrifice. Boy, did she drink too much of the Allie koolaid or what? At this point there’s not a single one I can see winning. Even Kendra and Kelly have this bunch beat hands down. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2006, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-5-8-06/355988/22 "2006-05-09T03:07:18Z")
> [@Mama Tiger](#): > > At this point there’s not a single one I can see winning. Even Kendra and Kelly have this bunch beat hands down. And Tana would wipe the floor with them. One of them has to win, but who can we root for? Lee is dishonest, Sean is creepy, Allie’s a bitch, Roxanne’s delusional – Tammy, maybe? ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Tiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Mama\_Tiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Tiger)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2006, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-5-8-06/355988/23 "2006-05-09T04:16:43Z")
Tammy is a Coven member, but she’s at least fairly inoffensive. Oh, wait. She was getting all snuggly with Sean. That right there should disqualify her. I will say, though, that Sean putting in earplugs in the opening? Was one of the best openings _ever_ for this show. ---
**Author:** ![lorene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@lorene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lorene)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2006, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-5-8-06/355988/24 "2006-05-09T05:13:52Z")
> [@Mama Tiger](#): > > I will say, though, that Sean putting in earplugs in the opening? Was one of the best openings _ever_ for this show. Yes! It reminded me of the episode some seasons ago (Street Smarts vs Book Smarts? They all blur together eventually) when 2 girls were in adjacent bathroom stalls talking, and one left while the other was still prattling on. ---
**Author:** ![DrMemory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/977dab/32.png) [@DrMemory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrMemory)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2006, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-5-8-06/355988/25 "2006-05-09T10:20:22Z")
The thing that had me asking WTF, was… After getting exclusive use of the cheerleaders, the head cheerleader waffled after talking to Allie and wanted to give the girls team _Half_ of the cheerleaders. She made a deal and then back- peddled under the tremendous weight of Allie’s stare. Didn’t she understand what “making-a-deal” is? That really pissed me off. The boys made the mistake of getting cocky, which is an Apprentice fore-shadowing of failure. Also, during the event, no mention was made of how much the guys were charging for their food. Obviously, they underpriced their food. who decided that? Yet another dumb-ass episode. Anyone wan’t to drink the girls foot-stank wine? ☹ ---
**Author:** ![singular1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ba9def/32.png) [@singular1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/singular1)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2006, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-5-8-06/355988/26 "2006-05-09T11:25:21Z")
I am shocked -_shocked,_ I tell ya - that NBC allowed next week’s win completely and irrefrutably out of the bag - go to [imdb.com](http://imdb.com) and enter [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1579618/](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1579618/) (Sean) or [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2233219/](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2233219/) (Lee’s) name. You’ll see who wins next week and what the prize is! ---
**Author:** ![corkboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@corkboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/corkboard)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2006, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-5-8-06/355988/27 "2006-05-09T12:35:56Z")
The girls won in spite of themselves. They didn’t plan out one element of their event. “Wow, they guys got an exclusive on the cheerleaders. That was a good idea.” “Wow, they’re passing out flyers. We should have done that.” “Wow, they’re making ‘Blue lot’ announcements. We didn’t think of that.” Duuuuhhhhhh. They just happened to stumble upon the one thing that made the difference- personal delivery of the food, enabling them to charge a little bit more. And the Michael/sharing cheerleaders thing was just a red herring, an excuse to get rid of him. Not that he didn’t deserve to go, he’s been pretty useless all season. As they discussed though, having cheerleaders didn’t win it for the guys, so sacrificing a couple to the girls wouldn’t have changed anything. Did anyone find it a little strange when the tailgater guy was feeding beef cubes to Michael, with his head tilted back reaching up for the meat like he was a puppy going after a Scooby-snack? And the girls all huddling together in one little vat of grapes? Carolyn would have said “no thanks, I’ll stick with my own vat”. ---
**Author:** ![annieclaus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b5a626/32.png) [@annieclaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/annieclaus)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2006, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-5-8-06/355988/28 "2006-05-09T13:43:02Z")
> [@McNew](#): > > The girls won in spite of themselves. They didn’t plan out one element of their event. > > “Wow, they guys got an exclusive on the cheerleaders. That was a good idea.” > “Wow, they’re passing out flyers. We should have done that.” > “Wow, they’re making ‘Blue lot’ announcements. We didn’t think of that.” > > Duuuuhhhhhh. > > They just happened to stumble upon the one thing that made the difference- personal delivery of the food, enabling them to charge a little bit more. I’m not so sure you’re right on this one. I think this episode was an example of brilliant editing. It surely looked like the guys had ALL the bases covered and the poor girly girls were out in left field with a hockey stick. I don’t think they could have just stumbled onto their plan to sell in bulk and deliver the Outback goods. They needed to have the easy one-price-fits-all plan in place and they needed a good supply of those big aluminum pans and lids, etc. Really smart. . . and right on target for this sells-the-most task. I have no clue who’s going to win this thing. I would like to know which of the women came up with the bulk sales/delivery idea, because my money would be on her to be the next Apprentice. ---
**Author:** ![SkipMagic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skipmagic/32/20706_2.png) [@SkipMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkipMagic)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2006, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-5-8-06/355988/29 "2006-05-09T13:58:19Z")
> [@singular1](#): > > I am shocked -_shocked,_ I tell ya - that NBC allowed next week’s win completely and irrefrutably out of the bag - I edited your spoiler a bit, **singular1** , 'cause your links were showing through the spoiler box. 'Tis not your fault; that’s just what happens when a URL is included in a spoiler box. The URLs are still there, but now people will have to cut-and-paste them into a browser. ---
**Author:** ![lorene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@lorene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lorene)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2006, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-5-8-06/355988/30 "2006-05-09T14:40:45Z")
**singular1** , it took me a bit to figure out the spoiler (duh!) but now I understand. Wow. I was even more confused by the fact that Sean had another credit under his name. I had no idea. ---
**Author:** ![singular1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ba9def/32.png) [@singular1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/singular1)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2006, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-5-8-06/355988/31 "2006-05-09T18:35:49Z")
Oops! Sorry - I was careful, too. If you look at the single comment on Sean’s other entry, you’ll notice it’s obviously made by either Sean or the filmaker. Pretty pathetic and transparent self-promotion, to me. ---
**Author:** ![StarvingButStrong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/starvingbutstrong/32/335_2.png) [@StarvingButStrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StarvingButStrong)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-5-8-06/355988/32 "2006-05-10T05:40:13Z")
Okay, late again, but for the sake of anyone still reading these: Allie: -1 for STILL holding a grudge against Sean. Hey, he said you were the major cause of that loss two episodes ago – and he was right! – but he didn’t stab your mother or rape your kittens. Get your mind off the past and move on. Bitterness and pettiness are negatives. Roxanne: -1 for also clinging to your outrage over Sean’s actions. Is there something going on between you and Allie, that what offends her offends you doubly? If I thought it was a strategy, if I thought you were deliberately encouraging Allie to go over the top in hopes that she will do something stupidly emotional later to get herself fired, maybe I wouldn’t ding you, but right now it simply looks like you’ve forgotten that you ‘girls’ are not really best buddies out to have fun: you are each other’s worst competition! There can only be one, remember?? Sean: +1 for putting in the earplugs and going to sleep. Too bad you didn’t get to hear Allie bleating Sean? Sean? when you would no longer play her emotional game. Sean: 0 overall for volunteering to move to Gold Rush. Broken down as -1 for volunteering to leave the team with the winning record but +1 for recognizing it was volunteer or be thrown out, and getting away from the festering ill will towards you has to be a plus. Telling moment: once Trump had laid out the rules of the challenge, the three men strode off at once, while the three women wasted a bit of time doing a happy dance. Morale is a good thing, but throughout the episode the men were one step ahead of the women, over and over and over. A total lack of friction between the three women let them work well together, but it also seems to have make them way less aggressive and driven. Lee/Sean/Michael: -1 each for their strategizing session. Sean for his “get pretty girls” obsession. Michael for suggesting the eating contest. Lee for the money pit and all. It was clear that ALL of them assumed their only potential customers would be horny college guys. Get the cheerleaders to draw in guys. Have an eating contest to attract the fratboys. Have a money grab for broke college students. Set the food prices low for the sake of broke college guys. Uh, guys: isn’t Rutgers coed? Don’t the women students eat, too? And, way more important, what about the alums? Remember them? The people with relatively lots of money in their pockets who are a bit past the pigout contests and being drawn like moths to cheerleaders? Way too cocky by half. As Sean put it, ‘the testosterone came flooding through my veins,’ which apparently had the unfortunate side effect of turning off their brains. Roxanne: -1 for not getting her team moving with any sense of urgency at the start. Allie brings up approaching the cheerleader coach – and you just say something about ‘good idea, don’t forget it’ instead of sending her off to do it at once. There was really no reason for the whole team to spend an hour, maybe longer, on sampling the entire Outback food line. Those guys are professionals: ask their advice! What sells best at tailgate events? Fine, we’ll go with that. What price do you usually go with? Fine, that’s what we’ll do. And then move on to more important tasks. Lee: +1 for having GR at the Pep rally with completed handouts. Roxanne: -1 You knew the pep rally was at 4:45, but you didn’t have your team there, WITH handouts, in time. Michael: +1 for securing exclusive cooperation of the cheerleaders. Allie: +1 for talking the cheerleader coach into reneging on the exclusive deal. Lee: +1 for getting the deejay to promote the GR tailgate event. Michael: -1 for agreeing to give up the cheerleader exclusivity. Although he tried to paint it as merely a feint to appease the coach while knowing that Lee would stand firm, that is not at all how it looked while you were doing it. You’re too soft, too intent on being seen as a nice guy. Lee & Sean: +1 each for their instant ‘hell no’ response to giving up the cheerleader exclusivity. Lee: +1 for having his team out late, still promoting their event, while Roxanne has her team back in their van and driving away. Lee: -1 for setting the prices on their food too low. Given that the measure of winning was to be HOW MUCH MONEY you brought in, you were hamstringing yourself. In the end, your team lost by $1750 to $2750. Just $1000 dollars. How many onions & chowders did you sell? 300 maybe? If so, the fact that Synergy got $5 per to your $2 could have accounted for the whole margin. Roxanne: +1 for setting the price of everything at $5. It simplified making change, and psychologically if you have different prices people are more likely to stand there and try to mull over getting the biggest bang for their buck instead of just going ‘give me five of that and ten of that’. Roxanne: +1 for basically concentrating on delivery. You hit on a rich ‘niche’ that the men weren’t catering to – people who cared more about spending time with their friends than ogling cheerleaders and such – and exploited it as best possible. Too bad you hadn’t though of this ahead. Instead of wasting money on flyers and such, you could have hired another delivery girl or two. Your winning margin would no doubt have been even more impressive. Michael: -1 for not doing more sales pitches mixed into and between events. Lee: +1 for realizing that Michael should be doing more sales and -1 for apparently not doing anything about it. At least, we weren’t shown him giving Michael instructions or he could have sent Sean in to take over the mike and sell for a while. Allie: +1 for learning that Rutger cheer, and for generally charming the people into buying. She’s shown she’s a great salesman in many episodes. Win/Lose points: Lee: -2 Roxanne +2. A decisive margin of victory, and the cause were decisions made by the leaders. Reward footage: lots more happy-happy-joy-joy we are sisters and we all love each other. All well and good right now – but it’s going to make it harder and likely even bloodier the first time Synergy loses. Which of your sisters do you nominate for firing? Boardroom: Lee: -1 for losing sight of the goal. Your strategy focused too much on the events, too little on sales. Michael: -1 for lack of firmness in dealing with the cheerleader situation. "passing the buck’ is NOT a way to show you have leadership abilities. # Michael: -1 for having no ‘competitive edge’ as Carolyn and then Trump put it. Scores for the Candidates Name : points for this episode : cumulative points [win/lose record as PM] Roxanne : +1 : +16 [2/0] Sean : +1 : +11 [1/0] Lee : -1 : +7 [2/1] Tammy: 0 : +5 [1/1] # Allie : +1 : +4 [1/1] Fired: Name : Score in final episode : cumulative score : # episodes lasted : pts/episode Michael: -4 : -7 : 11 episodes : -0.6 pts/episode [1/0] Tarek : -1 : -15 : 10 episodes : -1.5 pts/episode [0/1] Charmaine : -10 : -4 : 10 episodes : -0.4 pts/episode [1/1] Andrea: -6 : -1: 9 episodes : -0.67 pts/episode [2/0] Leslie : -4 : -2 : 8 episodes : -0.25 pts/episode [0/1] Lenny: -17 : -17 : 7 episodes : -2.4 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 Note: Another ‘Living Dead’ firing, I think. Clearly Trump thought the Gold Rush loss was due to a flawed strategy. Lee forgot the goal wasn’t to throw a memorable party but to sell as much food as possible. On the other hand, Lee has done well on other tasks while Michael has been mostly invisible as a follower and I’m sure his utter inability to make a decision when he was PM ruled him out forever in Trump’s mind. So Michael gets the boot so as to give Lee yet another chance. (Loved Lee’s lines about how he’s now working on his eighth life.) I notice that the candidates being fire now are tending to have relatively few negative points against them in their final episode. I think this is due to two factors. First, by now they have records – Trump has separated the sheep from the goats mentally over the weeks – and they are just as likely to go based on the overall performance rather than for what they do or don’t do in the latest episode. The other factor is that the REAL screwups have mostly been weeded out by now. Doing even one or two ‘small’ wrong things stands out more now that mostly the candidates are doing good jobs. I fear Michael has drawn the exact wrong lesson from his firing. As he put it, “The smallest little thing could come up to bite you in the ass.” IOW, he sees himself as being fired for making the wrong decision, and thus he will be even more reluctant to commit himself in future. I shudder at the thought of TEN hour color selection meetings… Prediction: No major change. Roxanne wasn’t impressive this time out, but her team still did win decisively, and as a result she has both the highest number of points and the best win/lose ration as PM. SBS ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-5-8-06/355988/33 "2006-05-10T10:37:04Z")
Who’s still reading! Me, definitely! I really look forward to your summary each week. Excellent stuff. You always say something I totally hadn’t thought of. This week, it was: > [@StarvingButStrong](#): > > I fear Michael has drawn the exact wrong lesson from his firing. As he put it, “The smallest little thing could come up to bite you in the ass.” IOW, he sees himself as being fired for making the wrong decision, and thus he will be even more reluctant to commit himself in future. I shudder at the thought of TEN hour color selection meetings… LOL and so true! ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-5-8-06/355988/34 "2006-05-10T12:58:35Z")
Elsewhere in Apprentice-Land: Saw my first “Raj for Congress” lawn signs yesterday, and a few more today. The primary is a week from yesterday. ---
**Author:** ![lorene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@lorene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lorene)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-5-8-06/355988/35 "2006-05-11T21:05:34Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > Saw my first “Raj for Congress” lawn signs yesterday, and a few more today. The primary is a week from yesterday. Will you be voting for him? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Saranga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Saranga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saranga)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-5-8-06/355988/36 "2006-05-12T01:35:15Z")
A courtesy bump for **StarvingButStrong** ’s “Apprentice by the numbers”. Just to let you know you have fans… ---
**Author:** ![StarvingButStrong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/starvingbutstrong/32/335_2.png) [@StarvingButStrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StarvingButStrong)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-5-8-06/355988/37 "2006-05-12T02:53:49Z")
Aw, thank yous to both \*\*Twickster \*\* and **Saranga**. You are balm to my poor ego. (Why, yes, I did get my latest mss. returned with an _unchecked_ rejection form. ☹ ) I’ve been trying to think how this _should_ come out, as in, who should Trump hire based on what we’ve seen of the Candidates and what we know about Trump’s criteria. What mostly strikes me is that Lee has been shortchanged in my assigning points process. As I acknowledged way back in my first scoreboard post, the editors show us more footage of the losing team. In particular, they show us every even half-way significant mistake by the people on the losing team. Mistakes of the exact same magnitude by members of the winning team may or may not be shown, depending on time and how ‘photogenic’ the mistakes were. In previous seasons, the teams more or less has the same number of wins, and/or there were many more players shuffled from team to team, so that bias didn’t have much effect. This time, though, we pretty clearly had a ‘losing’ and a ‘winning’ team. Look at who is left: only 1 person from GR, 4 from S. Lee was ‘cursed’ by being on the losing Gold Rush team from the beginning, and thus ALL of his mistakes got showcased. Allie, Roxanne, and Tammy, by contrast, may have had mistakes that we never saw, simply because they were on Synergy. Sean had the same protection up until this last week. Take a second look at the cumulative scores: Roxanne : +16 Sean : +11 Lee : +7 Tammy: +5 Allie : +4 What if an adjustment factor was put into play, to offset that ‘beat up on the losing team’ factor? How much it should be, I’m not sure. But even if it were only +2 points for Lee (or -2 for each of the others, same diff) it would be pretty clear Lee ‘belongs’ in the ‘upper’ tier, significantly ahead of Tammy/Allie. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-5-8-06/355988/38 "2006-05-12T02:57:00Z")
He belongs ahead of Sean, that’s for sure. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-5-8-06/355988/39 "2006-05-12T10:27:55Z")
> [@lorene](#): > > Will you be voting for him? 😛 :rolleyes: Seriously? Not only am I in the wrong party to vote in the primary (IOW, I’m in the “right” party overall 😉 – I don’t live in that district. (I’ve got an hour commute, the middle of which crosses Rajland.) **SBS** – excellent point on the editing bias. He definitely deserves to be final three – but I don’t think he’ll win, due to his “politician” rep with the PTB. It’s gonna be Roxanne or Sean, fer sher. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-5-8-06/355988.md?page=1)