It is interesting from a business point of view to watch Lord Sugar and his candidates in action. This current series has changed the format somewhat being a fight to have Lord Sugar as a business partner. The cynic in me is of the opinion that this suggests that either the previous candidates have been unsuccessful as employees of the Sugar empire, or that the enobled Alan is in a more precarious position from a business sense and is struggling to find vacancies. Either position amuses me somewhat, but is merely an interesting aside to the main event. Lord Sugar is offering 250000 to the winner in cash and support, although the proportions of each have yet to be clearly defined, and the usual cotterie of business high fliers have been replaced by a group of young entrepreneurs.
Now, I know from my time in corporate business that the way things are done, and the way people appear to act is radically different to real life, but even for me this year is beyond amusing. The level of infighting between the contestants, the level of bullying and vitriol, the sheer visciousness of the backstabbing is a sight to see. Perhaps leading the visciousness stakes is the young lady with a background in youth work, apparently at UN level. If she truly is a youth leader, her performance could easily be seen as leading them in completely the wrong direction. The sales star, an irish chat who may have kissed the blarney stone once too often is more double glazing salesman than businessman. Then we have the poor old inventor. A lovely, slightly disorganised chap who has been on the losing team 9 times out of 9 and still manages to stay in the process, one can only suspect for the lols as he is consistently completely out of his depth with no sales or management ability. Then we have the only one I'm prepared to namecheck, the wonderfully sweet and innocent and slightly bemused Suzie, the baby of the group and the butt of most of the bullying, and yet she keeps smiling, and actually occasionally comes up with some real gems. You can probably tell that I quite like Suzie.
The real standout performance however is the first contestant to win every single challenge to date, both as team player and project manager. A refined saleswoman, and a serious corporate animal she is the only contestant to have managed to get this far with almost no bitching, backstabbing or overt cynicism, but of course, if you are winning all the time that does rather make life easier. Question is, is she making it all look at bit easy and not showing Lord Sugar how she copes with set-backs? It will be interesting to see what happens should she fail to win one. She has yet to experience the boardroom and it could still all come apart for her, but we will have to see.
As an insight into the corporate world, the apprentice does its job admirably, revealing the stress and pressure of operating at this level, but in terms of demonstrating the finer aspects of humanity, it is a complete and utter failure. Car crash tv at its very best....
Now, I know from my time in corporate business that the way things are done, and the way people appear to act is radically different to real life, but even for me this year is beyond amusing. The level of infighting between the contestants, the level of bullying and vitriol, the sheer visciousness of the backstabbing is a sight to see. Perhaps leading the visciousness stakes is the young lady with a background in youth work, apparently at UN level. If she truly is a youth leader, her performance could easily be seen as leading them in completely the wrong direction. The sales star, an irish chat who may have kissed the blarney stone once too often is more double glazing salesman than businessman. Then we have the poor old inventor. A lovely, slightly disorganised chap who has been on the losing team 9 times out of 9 and still manages to stay in the process, one can only suspect for the lols as he is consistently completely out of his depth with no sales or management ability. Then we have the only one I'm prepared to namecheck, the wonderfully sweet and innocent and slightly bemused Suzie, the baby of the group and the butt of most of the bullying, and yet she keeps smiling, and actually occasionally comes up with some real gems. You can probably tell that I quite like Suzie.
The real standout performance however is the first contestant to win every single challenge to date, both as team player and project manager. A refined saleswoman, and a serious corporate animal she is the only contestant to have managed to get this far with almost no bitching, backstabbing or overt cynicism, but of course, if you are winning all the time that does rather make life easier. Question is, is she making it all look at bit easy and not showing Lord Sugar how she copes with set-backs? It will be interesting to see what happens should she fail to win one. She has yet to experience the boardroom and it could still all come apart for her, but we will have to see.
As an insight into the corporate world, the apprentice does its job admirably, revealing the stress and pressure of operating at this level, but in terms of demonstrating the finer aspects of humanity, it is a complete and utter failure. Car crash tv at its very best....
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