The Apprentice: Los Angeles, Episode 7 Performance Reviews

I could allow Derek bonus points for the appropriateness of his no-backward-glance exit, but remembering his withholding of key information last week, it cannot raise him out of the UNACCEPTABLE range.

Jenn: Trump had Jenn in his crosshairs after the last Boardroom, so it was in her best interests to step up and be the PM. It was probably a bad time in the game to become a PM though. The chances of winning all the remaining events is slim, so at some point you’re going to be back in the Boardroom with a target on your forehead.

Initially, Jenn did a lot of things right. Organizing the team into functional units was one good idea. However, in the Boardroom both Derek and Muna were unable to say who performed a pertinent task, so there must have been gaps in either the planning or its communication.

Putting Angela in charge of marketing was a bad move and it backfired. Perhaps Jenn confused “Winter Olympics” with “Wharton Business School”? At any rate, Jenn made even bigger mistakes when it came time to bail Angela out. First of all, why did it take three hours to discover Angela’s coming up empty? Secondly, being the sole person to promote Derek’s bad idea of setting up a go-cart track to impress they buyers of a car that costs over $100 G’s ought to have set off alarms. As much as taking even more time to come up with a better idea was going to hurt the team, pursuing the idea they did had a very predictable result.

I have no idea why Jenn thought she could just wing it for her oral presentation. What resulted was obviously unprepared and unprofessional. Even worse, in a web clip of the Boardroom, Muna pointed out that per Lexus’s directions, Jenn used incorrect terminology several times. All other things aside, despite what Jenn said in the Boardroom, this alone was enough to cost her team the victory.

In the Boardroom, Jenn painted a very confused picture. She simply cannot say, “I thought that everyone did such good on this team… it was incredible, I was really proud of us,” and then respond to the next question with, “We had some issues with a lot of things.” Trump saw that contradiction in a moment, and knew it was a lame attempt to protect weaknesses.

As the Boardroom wound down, Jenn ought to have attacked Angela much more forcefully and stopped blaming things on Derek. Other than herself and the already-departed Derek, there was no one else likely to be fired. Her suggestion that Derek’s firing be the only firing this week… WOW, did that not go over with The Donald?! I think after that thudding moment, Jenn saw her departure as inevitable.

The rating must be UNACCEPTABLE for Jenn. We’ve seen worse jobs, but I’m remembering her possibly selective memory from last week and I can’t go any higher.

But at least Jenn’s team respected her. And after all that vitriol, wasn’t a group hug what they all needed to make things all better?

Sheesh. I’m done!

In Conclusion:

Did Trump make the right decision? I understand his need to get rid of a given number of people over a smaller number of weeks, but last week’s transgressions were worse and the move ought to have been made then. This firing was just the expression of The Donald’s bad mood and not one of his finest moments.

That’s all for this week. Quite the episode, wasn’t it? Please feel free to let me know what your thoughts are at the address below.

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out these other recent Apprentice articles:

Brian lives in Toronto where he can be reached at uncle_bto@rogers.com. He spent a couple of decades working in middle management at The Prudential, primarily hiding behind the coffee machine to avoid his pointy-haired bosses. He’d like to hear your opinions and promises to respond to all serious email!

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