The Apprentice 5 Weekly Performance Review, Episode 10

In this series of articles about The Apprentice I will focus on the business actions of each player and give a brief “performance review” for each applicant each week. Also, at the end of this article – the results of last week’s opinion survey.

The Task:

Alas, another marketing task to help a sponsor, this time to publicize their new locations. There were other factors, namely set up the store and manage the staff, but it would have taken Brent to make those aspects of the job significant to the final result. The objective wasn’t new either; it was to make the most money in sales.

Synergy

Did Synergy win this week, or Gold Rush lose? I wasn’t overly impressed with Synergy, but at least they avoided the self-destruct bottom.

Synergy may have won the crappiest reward yet in a season full of them. Imagine having to be creative during your down time and end up arguing to the point where feelings are being hurt. And all this all over a song you know will be erased from the tapes before your elevator gets you back to the ground floor. No, thanks!

Allie: We saw very poor teamwork skills from Allie this week. To start the show off, Allie doggedly confronted Sean about his defense of Andrea in last week’s boardroom. Next, after receiving the task assignment, she saw fit to critique the way Charmaine checked out Trump’s hair. Thirdly, on reward, we saw her “bulldog” Tammy over the choice of one word in their meaningless song. Aren’t these some of the traits she accused Andrea of?

Allie seemed to be charged with the task of stocking the shelves, and made good use of the store employees to do so. However, telling them it was OK to spill things on Sean if he was in the way was childish.

Allie’s best idea this week was to actively push the shampoo and other hair care products as we saw both Allie and Roxanne doing so, but since we saw Allie do it first, I’ll put the credit here. It was the decision that won them the task.

On reflection, it reads like Allie and not Tammy was the PM this week. Ooh, another “Andrea” flashback, reluctance to relinquish control. There were both positive and negative behaviors actions from Allie this week. I’m assigning her a NEEDS IMPROVEMENT rating because she exhibited so many of the behaviors she found repulsive in Andrea.

Roxanne: Roxanne was a little (not a lot) more in evidence this week. She was correct to remind a suddenly cocky Allie in the cab ride to the salon that she was in danger in the boardroom of the last episode. However, she was also able to confer with Allie about Sean’s position in the game as the two of them ate dinner. This indicates she can say something that is not positive in a tactful manner that does not incur a lot of counterproductive drama.

An aside: as Allie and Roxanne’s conversation became less professional and a little catty, the camera focused on the “Have a nice day” logo on Allie’s bag. Nice work!

Roxanne’s best efforts were in talking to Sean at the beginning, where she came across as the voice of reason. I’ll assign a VERY SATISFACTORY rating to Roxanne. She’s solid if not spectacular.

Sean: I don’t even know how to comment on Sean’s part in the pre-task discussion over his defense of Andrea, but he never made his point and further alienated his team. Surely he really didn’t think he was going home last week? At best he showed bad communication and teamwork skills, and at worst, game-play-wise he’s trying to commit suicide.

Sean designed the handbill, but both Tammy and Allie had valid criticisms of it. A recurring theme on this show is the crowding of so much information onto their media that the message gets lost.

Sean and Tammy took care of the printing and also contacted a number of potential clients, so I’m going to assume the cutesy time with Tammy didn’t indicate a loss of focus on the task at hand. On a personal note, although I met my wife at the office, I’ve never felt it appropriate to hug a co-worker while working on a task.

This all bears watching in the weeks ahead. I assign Sean a NEEDS IMPROVEMENT rating. He’s made himself a target, and it’s all because he couldn’t see Andrea’s shortcomings.

Tammy: It was Tammy’s turn to be PM this week, and she realized that one of her tasks was to smooth out tensions between Sean and the rest of the team. Well, one third of that mission was accomplished!

It was interesting that she split the team into two parts. I’d laud it more, but we never did find out what the other duo was up to. I’m assuming it was also drumming up prospects or maybe it was setting up the store, but we don’t really know what Tammy accomplished when she split the team.

I’m not sure that Tammy did anything spectacular this week; there were no major promotional flashes of genius, marketing coups, or, bless them, bulk sales. However, she did all the little things right. The team made promotional efforts including personal contact with people, they focused on the selling of products as well as services, and everyone seemed to be contributing. Tammy earns a GOOD rating.