The Apprentice 2: Why Sandy Lost

Sandy, like Kevin, made it to the Final Two with a 2-0 record. In addition, she really should have been granted the honorary win for the wedding shop challenge, she her expertise was the key. But she also had some definite negatives that have come out recently. Considering that Trump fired Kevin immediately before her for having too much school, certainly the real reason behind her firing can’t be too little! So what was it? Why did Sandy lose?

As I noted in Why Kevin Lost, this week’s columns are a bit different than the usual ones, because so much of the two contestants’ firings are based purely on interviews or what might have been going on in Donald Trump’s head. Based on what we’ve seen, I sure can’t figure out why on Earth Trump would want to keep Jen around. But we’ll go through What ‘Apprentice 2’ Applicants Should Have Learned to see where Sandy went wrong, not just in the interviews, but in other challenges as well.

The first rule, as always, is to show leadership. I’ve already mentioned that Sandy led twice and won both times – in the home remodeling challenge and the M&M challenge. But Jen led only once – in dog-washing. Obviously, Trump was not just looking at how they led on their specific tasks.

As Betsy Wasser noted in her Final Four article:

Sandy also contributed a great effort to other challenges. The vacation contest in the Pepsi task was her idea, as was using Mike Piazza as the celebrity spokesperson for Crest. She worked hard in the dog task, doing the dirty work of washing the dogs. And in the fashion task, she tried to keep things moving during the photo shoot so her team would stay on schedule.

On balance, I would say Sandy took on a strong role – often a leadership role – in many of the challenges, whether she was technically the Project Manager or not.

However, one place Sandy did not do so well was in the Boardroom. Specifically, she was unable to stay cool under fire. We saw this most obviously when Andy got fired. As I noted at the time, I did not at all think Sandy out-debated him. Out-screamed him? Yes. But that was not exactly a professional way of showing disagreement. She was lucky, in my opinion, that Andy screwed up in other ways during that task.

We saw the same thing again this time, when she got into another screaming match with Jen. This time, Trump claimed that Jen out-argued Sandy. Once again, I find that ridiculous, since all Jen did was repeatedly yell about having moved to San Francisco. Well whoop-de-freaking-doo for you. Somehow, I don’t see that it at all compares to dropping out of school in order to start your own business. However, while Jen might have gotten angry in the Boardroom, she never got as emotional as Sandy (this might be because Jen is, as Ivana said, a fembot and doesn’t actually have emotions).

But we aren’t here to talk about Jen, so I’ll get off that topic and back to Sandy.

The Boardroom wasn’t the only place that Sandy had issues with controlling her emotions under pressure. She faced similar issues during her stint as Project Manager on the remodeling challenge, and she fell apart when trying to do her part of the Pepsi presentation.

The third rule is to have a backbone. Sandy certainly had no problems standing up for herself in the Boardroom. And she made sure her ideas were heard in many of the tasks. This was a non-issue for her.

The fourth rule, however, might have been. Sandy showed that she could do more than just be a salesperson or an idea person. But she lacked one thing that the interviewers were looking for: corporate experience.