Fire Me... Please! Episode 2: Attack of the Drones

Last week, four contestants went head to head in an attempt to get fired from a job they had only started that morning as close to 3:00 as possible, without going over. In Cincinnati, Katie’s getting intimate with the clothing and crazy cleaning antics got her a pink slip at 2:56 while Kurt’s increasingly bizarre behavior led to a confrontation with the police before he was fired just 64 seconds before 3:00. In Long Island, New York, Rachel, the woman of 1,001 annoying noises, lost her job at 2:48, while Cherise found that despite hitting all of supervisor’s Nancy’s pet peeves, it wasn’t enough to get her fired until 3:07.

Tonight, there will be two more head to head challenges, with Marion Oberle, a sales director from Los Angeles, California, who will start work at a copy shop, verses Rob Little, an internet developer from Detroit, Michigan, who begins work at a BBQ restaurant. However, round one features a match up of Cat Reithman, a Los Angeles student working (and getting fired from) at a clothing store against Dave Hill, a teacher from Chicago, Illinois, who begins work at a coffee house. What antics will the contestants spring on their unsuspecting co-workers, supervisors, and customers to get fired the closest to the 3:00 deadline without going over in order to win the $25,000? Let’s find out.

Host Dave Holmes reviews the rules, which are pretty simple. The contestants can’t break the law, ask to be fired, or tell anybody they are on TV. It’s a matter of being annoying, but not so annoying that they get fired early in the day. It’s 9:30 in the morning, time for another workday in the twilight zone – or, in this round, Phoenix, Arizona.

Cat arrives for work at Blush, a clothing boutique. Her supervisor is Adrienne, who detests untidiness, is germophobic, and has no tolerance for the “style-challenged.” Hmm, I wonder if she’s channeling former Big Brother 3 contestant Marcellas? Cat notices the music isn’t working. Adrienne teaches Cat how to price items, attaching a tag and saying “Blammo” when it’s attached. Cat repeats everything she does, including saying “Blammo!” after each tag is attached. Adrienne laughs and says she doesn’t need to say each it each time. If you guessed that Cat ignored that, you’d be right as the “Blammo”s continue.

Dave starts work at Romancing the Bean. His co-workers are Greg and Amelia, and his boss is T.A., who loves talking about her family, but at work she’s all business. She dislikes chatty people and detests laziness. Dave introduces himself and immediately asks about breaks and lunch. He finds out there are no breaks, but he can lunch at 10:45 or after the lunch crowd has died down. T.A. asks him if he’s studied the menu and he admits he hasn’t, then asks if he’ll be tested on it. He sits down to study it, and when quizzed on ingredients in the spinach and feta, he first guesses parmesan, then Romano. T.A. tells him he needs to think about it. Instead, he helps himself to a newspaper and sits down to read it.

Back to Cat, as she meets her co-worker Kelly. Cat decides to make up for the lack of music by singing “Good Vibrations.” We learn why she isn’t on American Idol as a result. Kelly looks on in amusement at the human jukebox. Another co-worker, Jessica, comes in, as does a customer. The customer just wants to pick up some items she looked at yesterday, but Cat tries to sell her a jumpsuit. In fact, she goes after the next few customers in the store, pushing jumpsuits on every one of them. Adrienne laughs a bit and tells her to get over the jumpsuits, but Cat persists. She then asks a customer if she’s a fighter.

It’s 10:15 at the coffee shop, and Dave still can’t figure out the ingredients in the salad dressing, so T.A. has him sample the product. He treats it like wine, smelling and swirling, then chokes on it when he tastes it. Dave then asks Greg if he has a girlfriend. He says he has an ex-girlfriend, and Dave asks if she wants to do the friend thing... or the friend thing with benefits. He gives him the nickname of “Sly Dog.”

Cat loudly says she’s going to take a break, and for everybody not to miss her. Adrienne says they’ve managed until now, as Kelly and Jessica stifle laughs. As soon as Cat is out of the store, the gossip starts flying, with the workers thinking she’s weird, on drugs, and isn’t exactly right for a Blush girl. Adrienne asserts she won’t last, and they decide to hide the jumpsuit. Kelly refers to Cat as “School in the summer – No Class.”

Host Dave tells us that the joke is as old as he is, and informs us that a spinach and feta sandwich contains... spinach and feta. It’s only noon, but Cat is already on thin ice, while Dave is pacing himself. Host Dave tells us that we have to use air quotes to describe contestant Dave’s work (since he isn’t doing any), while Cat’s co-workers spent her break time talking smack about her. The clock just hit 12:30... what’s going on now?

Adrienne tells Jessica and Kelly that she’s going to get fired because of Cat. She calls her a dumbass and says that she’s going to tell Cat that she can either take the job seriously or she can leave. She can’t deal with her because she’s embarrassing. When Cat returns, Adrienne sits her down and lays down the law – she can fire people, and the customers want some respect and don’t want the hard sell. Cat says the others workers are role models to her, but says she’ll make Adrienne hers now.

Over at Romancing the Bean, Dave tries to fill a customer’s order for a large ice tea. He tries hitting the right buttons on the cash register, then starts talking to Greg about Mr. Pibb, and whether it has prune juice in it. His grandfather claimed it did, and Dave starts talking getting mournful about losing him a couple years ago and goes off to get some water. When he returns, Greg attempts to show him how to complete the order, but Dave takes it as a signal that Greg wasn’t done yet, and walks off again. It becomes a revolving door of Dave going away, then coming back.

Cat’s latest idea is for everybody to sing rounds of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” Kelly says they did it in cheerleading camp, and Cat can’t believe she was a cheerleader (anybody watching the show could easily believe it). Next, in full view of everybody, Cat starts singing carnival music, and balances a rod with a jacket on it up in the air. Adrienne whispers to Kelly that Cat can’t work there – she’s a circus freak.