The Apprentice 4: Why Jennifer W. Lost

The fifth rule says to play well with others, but stay professional. Jennifer’s problem in this regard was that she was part of the group (a majority, but like I just said above, that doesn’t mean anything) who pushed Toral and Rebecca to the outside. Thus, when Rebecca was Project Manager, it left Jennifer open to possible targeting.

Really, though, Rebecca was the one who seemingly failed here. It came off to just about everybody that Rebecca chose to save Toral based on friendship rather than ability. She called it loyalty, which was a smart thing to do since we all know Trump values loyalty quite highly. In the end, she convinced Trump to give her a pass and place the majority of the blame on Jennifer.

Sixth is the focus on the long-term. I’m not sure that we can really judge Jennifer against this rule, since we didn’t really see that she had an opportunity one way or the other.

But the seventh rule is to understand the challenge, and we can certainly say a few things about this. As already mentioned, Jennifer failed to do her part in this challenge. She needed to understand that success or failure was measured based on the people filling out surveys, and every little thing could be a factor. The look and feel of any event certainly will play into how people rate it, and Trump even noted in the Boardroom that the task was about creating an inviting environment.

Sure, Toral screwed up the TV, but did that totally turn people off? Or was it because they found it a cold environment overall? It’s hard to say since we only heard the final scores. But one thing is certain: When Jennifer claimed in the Boardroom that it wasn’t her food that caused them to lose, she really had no way of knowing. They only lost by 0.2 points! While we don’t know for sure, I have to think that the overall presentation – including the look and feel, food, and lack of warmth – was more important to those two points than whether Toral could get the TV working at one particular station at certain specific times.

The eighth rule tells players to be creative. Was that expo creative? Simply put: No. It looked a bit like something school kids would do. Check that, school kids would have probably been more creative. The women seemed to slap together some things and throw it out there – and Jennifer was supposed to be in charge of setting up the layout.

Ninth is to not be one-dimensional. I’m not sure that Jennifer showed us any dimensions, but I want to take this opportunity to go on another small tangent. Trump indicates that Toral should have been brought to the Boardroom and fired. I disagree. Toral couldn’t figure out how to work a TV. Unless Trump is looking for a personal TV operator, I really don’t think that has much to do with becoming his Apprentice. That is one dimension that really is not terribly important. Instead, I would blame Rebecca or whomever might have been in charge of the electronics portion of the show (if there was anybody else). That person should have made sure everybody knew their part. If Toral couldn’t figure it out, she should have been quickly replaced.

Tangent over (again), so let’s move to the final rule, using common sense. Part of this rule says Project Managers should pay attention to what Trump is telling them in the Boardroom. Rebecca knew full well that Trump wanted her to bring back Toral, but she resisted. Lucky for her, she was able to explain why.

But as we’ve already discussed, Jennifer was unable to fully explain why Rebecca should be fired instead. Common sense says you’d better have a good reason – and “because we say so” isn’t really the best one out there.

She made other common sense errors as well. First, there was the cake. How can anybody let a cake go out in public with a misspelling? Second, there was the layout of the event. Yes, I’ve harped on this already, but even people who don’t have experience in event planning should have known that the layout was horrible – I know I did! And Jennifer supposedly had that experience.

In the end, Trump made the right decision – not just among the women in the Boardroom, but among the whole team. George couldn’t believe Jennifer thought it looked fine. Carolyn thought the women lost because of their poor presentation. Trump thought the women lost because of their poor presentation. Jennifer W. was responsible for planning and setting up the way everything was presented. That is why Jennifer W. lost.

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out our Apprentice 4 Episode 3 recap:

David Bloomberg is the Editor of RealityNewsOnline and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

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