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Apprentice - staff training

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zico
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Apprentice - staff training

#266267

Postby zico » November 22nd, 2019, 12:53 pm

Our candidates are given hi-vis vests on the way to their meeting with Lord Sugar, so maybe this week’s task will be set in Paris organising anti-government demos. No such luck as they go instead to Battersea to gaze at the British Pullman steam train which they’ll be using for the corporate day out task. Lord Sugar reminds them that the clients are entitled to refunds if they have a sub-standard experience. As if.

Sugar appoints Ryan-Mark and Lottie as the PMs, which is the only way they’ll ever get to be PM as nobody ever votes for them as leaders.
Team Empower have Ryan-Mark,Pamela, Thomas, Marianne plus Lewis is transferred over to them.
Team Unison have Lottie, Carina and Scarlett. Oh, and Dean.

Ryan-Mark talks about this being a perfect task for him because he sells knickers in Harrods so knows all about luxury, and he goes into rhapsodies about his idea of a quintessential British experience with a string quartet playing, ignoring Marianne’s reminders that the task is about profit. Thomas throws in a spoiler by telling us that Ryan-Mark oozes luxury and they’ve got this task in the bag, no worries. Ryan-Mark certainly does ooze, I’ll give him that.

Ryan-Mark takes his luxury idea to the client (STA student travel firm) where his luxury refined experience hits the buffers with a resounding thud, as the clients mention words like “fun” and “exciting”, and they agree a price of £199.50. He decides not to book any entertainment for these unspeakable Philistines, and clearly tells Thomas not to book an act, but Thomas is wowed by a pair of violinists and recommends to Ryan-Mark that they are booked, which is agreed, at a cost of £230 with a pitiful discount of £20.

Lottie decides on Carina’s idea of a 1920’s circus theme and the clients tell her they don’t care about entertainment but just want lots of booze and the absolute number one priority is for them not to run out of drinks. Lottie clearly thinks she’s delighting the clients by smugly announcing that she herself will be front-of-house, but if this delights them, they hide it well. Lottie phones Carina to inform her about the drinks issue, and it turns out Lottie’s idea of ample alcohol is 1 bottle per person, including 2 bottles of prosecco between 15 people, which makes you wonder if Lottie has ever bought alcohol for a party. Carina re-interprets this more generously as 3 bottles per person, including 4 bottles of prosecco. Lottie tells Carina “no entertainment” which Carina decides is wrong, so she books 2 circus people for £130.

Lottie is even more snippy than normal, and to be fair, justifiably so, when she finds out that Carina decided to ignore pretty much everything Lottie said. She quizzes Dean about whether it was Carina or Dean who decided to disobey her express instructions (obviously it wouldn’t be Dean having an idea about anything). Drunk with power, she then phones Carina to demote her from sub-team leader in a dramatic morning of the long knives.

Ryan-Mark changes his team around for the big day, deciding to put the women in the kitchen, to make it a traditional British experience. Pamela has noticed that nobody asked about food allergies, so uses her initiative to spend an extra £50 on getting a couple of vegetarian options. Their clients arrive at the reception area and the violinists are a big hit so the day gets off to a good start with the front-of-house boys dressing up as kings. Meanwhile, Lottie’s corporate clients are staring glumly at empty prosecco glasses. If only the clients had mentioned this as their absolute priority to avoid.

Onto the train and Ryan-Mark’s Empower serve drinks to their clients, which sounds straightforward enough, you might think. Well, just wait until you see Lottie and Dean making a complete Horlicks of this basic task. They take well over an hour to achieve this complicated transfer of liquid from bottle to glass for 15 people. Their “process” seems to be first asking people what they want to drink, then Lottie giving Dean a tutorial about where to place glasses on a table, which Dean (being Dean) promptly forgets, then asking the clients “what was it again you wanted?” then Lottie telling Dean off in front of customers for not being in two places at once, and opening a bottle for her while serving customers. It’s a complete and utter shambles, and I simply can’t imagine how it's possible for them to be messing up this badly. They've bought 40 bottles of wine, so what's wrong with simply putting a bottle of red and a bottle of white on each table which would only take a couple of minutes? Just clueless.

Ryan-Mark’s team is now running into trouble, as it turns out that 4 out of 15 of their London-based clients have some kind of food intolerance – I’m surprised the number isn’t a lot higher. For one client who is gluten-intolerant, all they can offer as a main meal is a fruit salad, and hope she’s also on a diet. Also turns out that in 2019, womens' natural place isn’t the kitchen with Pamela and Marianne struggling to cook things. The head client keeps mentioning the desirability of having food before the train returns, and I’m half-expecting them all to start channelling Dickens’s “Oliver” and sing “Food, glorious food, we’re anxious to try it)”. After huge delays, there’s an ironic round of applause when the food finally arrives.

On the other team, Lottie’s sub-team of Scarlett (promoted) and Carina (ex-subteam leader, now demoted) produce lunches quickly and efficiently, only being hampered by Lottie’s and Dean’s utter ineptitude as they can’t even manage the simple task of taking food from one carriage to another without making a mullock of it.

Back in the boardroom and Dean gives everyone a good laugh when he talks about turning on the charm when negotiating with the circus act. Lottie’s Unison team receipts were £3,000, they spent £870 but had to refund 10% for running out of drinks at the start, giving a profit of £1,828. Ryan-Mark’s Empower spent £980 but had to refund £200 for allergies, giving a profit of £1,8128 – a very close loss by £15.50.

Ryan-Mark and Marianne then clash as she blames his obsession with luxury and he blames her on the food allergy mess-up, saying he delegated her to ask all the relevant questions of the clients (truth is, he just asked her to find out what sort of day the clients wanted). He decides to bring back the 2 women (surprise, surprise) and Thomas jumps in to defend Pamela. Lord Sugar asks him if he wants to take Pamela’s place, and he agrees, so in a first for the Apprentice, we have a volunteer in the final three, and Pamela is touched by this. I think Thomas is bound to get credit for his noble gesture so should be safe, but I don’t think it’s a cunningly calculated play to curry favour, he’s just impulsive and goes full-tilt for what he thinks, no matter where it leads him.

Clearly the £230 on the musicians wasn’t money well spent (even though they'd have won if Thomas had just negotiated an extra £16 of their price) and Ryan-Mark attacks Thomas for persuading Ryan-Mark to change his original decision, saying Thomas was “bulldozing his opinions”. Funny how every time Ryan-Mark makes a wrong decision, it’s always really somebody else’s fault, and he’s never to blame. The Lord mentions that Thomas now has 7 out of 8 losses, and has a go at Marianne for her inability to manage, but rightly skewers Ryan-Mark over his phenomenal ability to make excuses, dodge responsibility and point the finger at others, before pointing his own finger at Ryan-Mark to tell him he’s fired. Back in the house and Pamela is mightily relieved to see Thomas return safely. He’s certainly the personality of this series.

Presumably the firms putting themselves forward for Apprentice awaydays get a bit of free publicity, and are also treated to a proper awayday by the BBC.

terminal7
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Re: Apprentice - staff training

#266822

Postby terminal7 » November 24th, 2019, 6:15 pm

hmmm - so why were they given les gilets jaunes?

T7


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