The Apprentice: Los Angeles Weekly Performance Review, Episode 12

But let’s get to the crux of the matter. Sleeping on the job while a solo teammate soldiers on? It was obvious she was exhausted, but you can’t abandon a mate so completely. Twenty-minute power nap, fine. Then, back at it for a couple of hours. But for that plus a poor presentation and too-frequent bursts of immaturity, Nicole retains her UNACCEPTABLE rating. Shown as an emotional slacker of questionable competence, I fear Nicole has little chance to win.

Kristine:

Kristine got the phone number wrong. Fatal error, no excuses, she’s fired and her rating is UNSATISFACTORY. Why not lower? Because Kristine actually did a few things right this week.

I applaud Kristine’s game-play move to eschew Heidi as a partner and try get out of her shadow. Had they teamed up and won, Kristine is correct that the kudos would have gone to Heidi regardless of the true story, and she would have fallen even further in Trump’s private ranking of the applicants. So when Nicole made it clear that she didn’t want to be the one teamed with a former Arrow, Kristine jumped at the chance to partner up with Nicole instead.

Kristine came up with their theme, “Gold has never been so high.” Excellent. Her questioning of the site foreman that uncovered key facts was also time well spent. She knew Trump believes in asking questions if you want to learn.

But Kristine repeated a fatal sin from a previous week, in that she needed to be far more forceful in dealings with her business partners. A couple of weeks ago she let Muna become an actress when Kristine wanted her behind the scenes. This week, Kristine let Nicole sleep on and, trying to do it all herself, made a huge, glaring, overwhelming, gigantic, critical error. Actually, Trump’s word for it was “insurmountable.”

Kristine’s non-confrontational style was in evidence again when she waited until Nicole was out of the room before telling the Trumps that Nicole slept through a meaningful part of the task.

It’s hard to fault someone who lets her good heart get in the way of her good head. Personally, I say the world needs more Kristines. But Trump doesn’t.

Team Frank-Heidi:

The team-picking that started the show didn’t go well for either of this pair, as for different reasons their previous team members chose to exclude them. What resulted was the worst possible match of personalities. Although different types of people can (and must) work together in the real world, in a two-day project, time and energy wasted on differences in style and personality cannot be recovered.

From Heidi’s aborted presentation through Frank’s unconvincing video to a bosloppyring brochure that missed the mark by miles, and incorporating factual errors from both that were caught by Trump, the resulting presentation was one of the poorest results ever produced on this show. Certainly one reason can be gleaned from the Yahoo! clips – Heidi says she was awake for 50 straight hours! Now, although there may be few among us who have not had to pull an all-nighter at some point, how fuzzy do you have to be to think you can handle 50 hours straight?

Frank:

I liked it that Frank instructed his videographer to keep his actions secret from James’ team, but what they shot was rather unexciting. Coupled with no voiceover narration on their video, it was obvious Trump was bored by what he was seeing.

Alas, a large piece of the full story is only available to those watching the Yahoo! clips. In a clip called “Frank’s Copter Caper,” we learn Frank hired a helicopter to fly their photographer and videographer around where the top of the tower will be so visual images could be captured showing prospective clients the kind of views they could expect. It was a brilliant idea, but… seemingly missing by a matter of minutes, Frank and Heidi had to catch their return flight to LA before they could get their hands on that critical footage!

When the realization hit that the new images weren’t going to arrive in time, there was a classic clip of Frank, sinking his head into his hands and moaning, “Oh… my… God!” Result: Frank’s primary contribution to the project was a video Trump called “boring.”

As they prepared to begin their presentation, Trump said, “Show me a man from the Bronx can present.” Alas, we saw that on this day, this one couldn’t. It’s true he got caught off-guard by Heidi’s quick handoff, but Frank showed he doesn’t have strong skills in the area of formal oral presentation.

In the Boardroom, another Yahoo! clip showed Frank voluntary adding “written skills” to the list of things he admits he doesn’t excel at. Although virtually every remaining person agreed Frank was “a workhorse,” that’s not the position for which Trump is hiring.

When the Boardroom began and Heidi said negative things about Frank, I liked his restrained, professional response. Even better was the seemingly simple way he got her to contradict herself repeatedly while seeming to be rational himself.

Frank’s episode can be summarized as a bad video, offset by generally good work in the Boardroom and a good “big idea,” even if it didn’t pan out. Frank gets a SATISFACTORY rating this week.

Frank is entertaining and makes for good television. Also, he has the distinction of never having been brought back to a final Boardroom by any of his PMs. However, when Trump seriously questioned Frank’s “sophistication” and “polish,” he all but announced that Frank will not become the L.A. Apprentice.

Heidi:

I guess I cursed Heidi last week when I said, “I think we got all the confirmation we need that Heidi will be the winner.” Apparently I jumped the gun on that one!

Heidi was put in a difficult position when, for different reasons, Nicole and Kristine decided they wanted to partner each other. Her “polar” differences from Frank were indicated as early as the flight to Las Vegas, when she didn’t want to spare him five minutes to look around an aerial Disneyland.

Perhaps Heidi’s biggest sin was in mismanaging her own time. I have little doubt that her failures in writing, speaking, and defending herself were all related to her sleep deprivation. But she’s ultimately responsible for proper utilization of her own resource, and not sleeping for days all but guaranteed a breakdown of some sort.

Even as she was preparing that brochure Heidi said it was far too verbose. And to be without a picture of the complex? That’s actually laughable. One notes that when Frank offered to help her he was quickly and firmly rebuffed. Since she had minimal input into the video, why couldn’t she work independently? That it was tossed together at the eleventh hour indicated poor time management.

Remember, the last Kinetic task was all about a brochure and they won. It’s now apparent Heidi’s role in that win was not as significant as she led some of us to believe.

I was also amused when in the Boardroom Heidi said Frank needed some focusing. Watching her struggle to find facts hiding in her notes, apparently Heidi needed it, too.