The Apprentice 5 Weekly Performance Review, Episode 4

In the boardroom, Allie said the team dealt with Brent as the result of individual decisions. Sorry, that was a flat-out lie. We’ve seen discussions about targeting Brent, and Ivanka has seen enough of the shared eye rolls and smirks over the last two episodes to know the truth as well.

Considering all those positives and negatives, by the skin of her teeth I’ll give Allie a SATISFACTORY rating.

Andrea: Despite professing to own a “good graphics eye,” Andrea came up with a rather busy billboard. I counted 15 words of text in addition to the title, none of which were “new,” and that’s too many.

After complaining that they were going to be late, Andrea picked an odd time to have a protracted disagreement with Brent. There’s a time for that discussion, it could be in the taxi in ten minutes, but when it did happen, that was wrong.

In the boardroom it was almost humorous to watch Andrea’s reaction as she heard Roxanne say Tammy was a better leader than Andrea. Egotistical Andrea needs to get her superiority complex under wraps or she’ll be the next one ostracized.

Finally… let me say I’m happy I’m not making $50,000 annually working for Andrea. That comment was snobbishly inappropriate. Thus Andrea earned her NEEDS IMPROVEMENT rating this week. If Brent hadn’t plummeted onto his sword she may very well have been the one going home this week.

Michael: Lower visibility this week equals NO RATING. Supporting Tammy in the boardroom might bank him a little goodwill for later.

Roxanne: Roxanne was also involved in hunting for a model, but we saw her following, not leading. Visibly smirking as Brent is told he won’t be public speaking does not build the confidence of her teammates. That’s not enough to judge her so she also gets NO RATING this week.

Sean: Sean was also seen smirking when Brent was put down. He redeemed himself by being the one to successfully locate their model so quickly.

However, it’s a good thing the task was already lost by the time Sean began his presentation, because he was nervous and unsure of his material. I’ll issue a NEEDS IMPROVEMENT rating for this one area and I’ll keep an eye out for his performance at his next public speaking opportunity.

Tammy: Tammy came out of the woodwork this week and showed she’s a serious contender in this game. Roxanne said in the boardroom that Tammy was the best leader of the team so far and Michael agreed, adding that she avoided chaos.

Tammy took Allie’s idea and put the final spin on it to come up with the theme of “Next Generation.” That’s a concept that’s been done to death, but her team liked it.

However, all was not perfect for Tammy and she gets a VERY GOOD rating, not an EXCELLENT one. Here are two reasons why.

One, she minimized Brent’s role to the point that, in normal times, Ivanka was sure to bring it up in the boardroom. I’m personally going to give her a pass on that one because as the PM her primary focus is to win the task. However, it’s also a move Tammy should expect to be defending in the boardroom.

Two, it came out at the eleventh hour that there was a slideshow and the idea was hers. Trump didn’t care for the idea at all. In the episode, as the team rode to the presentation in the taxi there was a conversation that was so pronoun-heavy, I didn’t even understand what they were talking about the first time I saw it. On review, it seemed like Tammy was planning the presentation with Tarek in the cab ride over. This was not good time management.

Additionally, was it really valid for everyone to sit around but not contribute as Andrea directed the graphics artist? This was as good a time as any for the other four (I’m excluding Brent) to develop the bulk of their presentation.

Had Brent stayed quiet and all those glowing testimonials not poured out, I wonder which teammates she intended to bring into the final boardroom with her? Obviously underutilized Brent, but would she put all her eggs in that basket? How about her vindictive friend, Andrea? Yes, Tammy might have been at serious risk this week.

Brent: Wow, what a spectacular self-inflicted wound that was! It was going to be impossible to fire Brent as long as his team refused to give him significant tasks, unless he pulled a Bradford and talked himself off the show. Sure enough…

The 7AM argument with Andrea was silly, and all but calling her the b-word was unprofessional. Let’s face it – Andrea was completely correct, Brent was tardy again and it was hurting the team. At this level no one is successful with poor time management skills. I’d have given him ten minutes to get ready, then left him to his own resources. If he missed the meeting, fine, Trump would notice.

By the way, they never assigned him anything to do, so what tasks was Brent working on until 4AM?

From what we saw and others in the boardroom confirmed, Tammy did not call Brent “fat.” Good communication skills include not getting key facts like that wrong.

Bottom line, after Brent expressed full confidence about his oratory skills, his boardroom performance showed Trump that Brent was argumentative, delusional, and had poor self-perception.

I’ve been writing here that either the editors were hiding the worst of Brent from us, or his team was unfairly picking on him. I saw enough tonight to know it was the former. So the inevitable UNACCEPTABLE rating finally comes up for Brent.

Final Comment:

Trump made the right decision. Further, as interesting as it might have been, there was no reason to go through the sham of sending part of the team back to the suite.

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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