The Apprentice 5 Weekly Performance Review, Episode 6

This series of articles about The Apprentice will focus on the business actions of each player. Toward that end, I’ll be giving a brief “performance review” for each applicant each week. Warning: a few comments on game play just might sneak in there as well!

The Task:

This week, the teams had to design a musical advertising jingle for Arby’s new all-natural chicken sandwich. The winner was the one deemed “better for the Arby’s brand” by two Arby’s execs. The key to this task was to deliver a simple short message and show some originality.

Creating jingles - is this a function of the person Trump wants to hire? It seems a little remote from managing construction projects. Too bad the challenge didn’t involve selling wind-proof umbrellas; it seemed like a perfect couple of days for it.

Synergy

I was impressed the way the whole team worked together to create the jingle. Even Andrea pretended to help. The result was a contemporary tune that was of very high quality. I note that when the learned they won, initial celebrations were between the trio of Sean, Roxanne, and Michael. This team is still divided.

With the focus on Gold Rush, Andrea and Allie had little camera time this week, and after she came up with the initial idea, Roxanne wasn’t front and center either. However, we did see them all contributing to the group effort in both planning and implementation, so I’ll rate the three of them as VERY SATISFACTORY.

Michael: As much as it’s an issue for Leslie, Michael also needs to get his face on camera. In an aside, he said he wished Sean had given him more responsibility this week. Having never been shown taking a major role before, that isn’t likely to happen. Step up. Don’t wait to be asked, demand a role when work is initially allocated. Or better yet, don’t be the very last one to be a PM. Until I see him truly stepping up, Michael’s rating is UNSATISFACTORY.

Sean: Sean stepped up to be PM this week. I liked his initial decision to have everyone attend the meeting with the Arby’s execs, it was important for the whole team to hear firsthand what they had to say.

It seemed like every subsequent decision was equally golden and I was impressed with what they accomplished. It seemed like Sean was primarily responsible for the superior musical arrangement, and although that made Trump dance for us and I cannot erase that image from my mind, he earns an EXCELLENT rating this week.

Tammy: Tammy asked a strong question when the team met the Arby’s execs, to identify the one main point they wanted stressed in the campaign. Not that I’m rating her down for it, but Tammy’s sense of musical cadence and of what actually rhymes - not good, kind of Lenny-ish. But I’m feeling generous, so Tammy gets another GOOD rating this week.

Gold Rush:

Responsibility for the team arriving late to their meeting with the Arby’s execs falls primarily to Bryce and Charmaine, but as they strolled in, no one seemed too concerned about it, and that’s a black mark against all of them.

I liked the Gold Rush jingle, which had a nice, comfy country sound until the last four seconds. Too bad they missed the point that you can’t be “better” if you claim to have the only product on the market.

Charmaine: In Bryce’s first team meeting, Charmaine called Tarek on his pompous pronouncements and actions in a mature manner, which was good. Charmaine was the one who booked the meeting that the team was late for, so I put most of the blame on her for not learning the logistics so that they weren’t late. When she phoned to book the taxi, could she not have asked the dispatcher the approximate trip duration? Maybe if they’d been on time, they’d have better understood what the Arby’s people were looking for.

Naïve Charmaine may have gotten a little swept up in that Kumbaya moment in Bryce’s room, but she does NOT get a pass for crying again in the elevator after the boardroom. Before the game is over, if she’s going to win, then all or all but one of these teammates will be sent home and you just can’t be crying in business. Her rating is NEEDS IMPROVEMENT. She’s lucky she didn’t have to return to the boardroom - she may have been sent home.

Leslie: I have no idea why after that last boardroom Leslie didn’t step up and INSIST on being the PM. She also escaped a lot of deserved flak in the boardroom for the lyrics she co-wrote that missed the key point of the campaign. At least we saw that she made a significant contribution this week. However, her rating is also NEEDS IMPROVEMENT for these two big flaws.

Lee: I really didn’t expect to be writing “Lee notes” this week, but even though he gets NO RATING, I must. So here’s the scenario as I see it. First, Lee took the task off for religious reasons and no one, including me, has a problem with it. Then when he came back and the team met at Bryce’s bed, he agreed that he didn’t want a free pass.

In the boardroom, Trump talked about Lee having a bye for the second time and said, “Life is not fair; it never is.” Lee reiterated that he didn’t want a bye. But when Lee inappropriately ended up back in the boardroom, Trump ripped Bryce a new one for it. However, Trump didn’t send Lee back to the suite any sooner than Lenny. Is that inconsistent? Pretzel logic!