The Apprentice: Why Katrina Lost

Things have really turned around for the guys. The all-male team went 0-for-4 in the first four weeks, leaving them with four guys left. But now look at the standings – there are four guys left, and only one woman. Yes, seven women in a row have been fired, with the latest of course being Katrina. The question, as always, is why Katrina lost.

A very large part of the reason that Katrina lost is because, well, she’s not Amy. But there are plenty of reasons to explain why she’s not Amy.

First, let’s take a look at some of her strategies. Katrina was the project manager for the Planet Hollywood challenge. She came up with the wonderful “Planet Hollywood Shooter Girls” concept, informing us that sex sells. So that’s exactly what they did – used their bodies to win the challenge. What was her overall plan as project manager? Well, when Trump’s assistant George asked her, she said, “We’re passionate.” Well, that certainly is a good game plan.

After the ladies were lectured by Trump and Carolyn about doing too much of the “sex sells” routine, you’d think that Katrina might have gotten the hint. Alas, no. When she went to the car dealership in this most recent episode, she tried to use flirting again to help make the deal. When Trump asked her about this in the boardroom, she admitted to using her feminine wiles and then tried to justify it. Not smart.

To make matters worse, Katrina was somewhat of a hypocrite about it. During discussions of the rickshaw challenge, she got mad at Bill for suggesting that she should be a driver because guys will be more likely to use the service with a pretty woman driving. She told him that he just used her looks when it was convenient – as if she didn’t (which is how Bill replied!). She went on about how she’s successful and it’s not just from using her looks. She told us, the viewers, that she’s not a pin-up doll. Mind you, this is the same woman whose quote on The Apprentice website is, “A woman that claims she doesn’t use her sex appeal to sell, simply hasn’t learned to use it to her advantage.” This is the same woman who joined with a few of the others to do a barely-dressed photo shoot for FHM magazine.

So she used “sex sells” as a strategy after Trump told her not to, and she was a hypocrite about it. Two strikes against her right there.

But that’s not the only area where she was a hypocrite. We saw Katrina complaining several times – such as the most recent casino challenge and also in the rickshaw challenge – that people weren’t listening to her ideas. She made comments about Nick and Amy being Ben Affleck and Sharon Stone for the rickshaw challenge, but never really explained herself. She threw out a few other ideas but never gave them much backing that we saw. She seemed to just be floating idea balloons but never put any weight on them to bring them back down to earth.

The same thing happened with the casino challenge. One idea was, “Maybe a boat.” Oh, yeah, that’s helpful. I’m sorry, but the reason people were ignoring many of her ideas was because they were bad, or at least only half-baked. It wasn’t just one person doing it, it happened over and over again, which should be an indication that maybe it’s not everybody else who’s at fault. Heck, even when she floated her “circus” idea in the boardroom, Trump himself quickly dismissed it.

Now here’s where the hypocrisy came in: She did the same thing. When Jessie had the idea of moving tables downstairs at Planet Hollywood, Katrina got mad and ordered her to move ‘em back up. I guess they didn’t go well with the “sex sells” theme.

And what happened when Katrina didn’t get her way? She’d pout. When she was upset during discussions for the rickshaw challenge, she pouted in the kitchen. When Bill went to talk to her, she snottily told him that Heidi and Troy would not be riding rickshaws and that she knew a lot because Heidi had told her, but nobody on her team asked her. Um, what were they supposed to do, ask, “Hey, Katrina, have you been using your friendship with Heidi to spy out good information?” Pout, pout.

Then, when she didn’t get her way during the casino challenge, she pouted around. Mark, the new game advisor who had no preconceived notions about her, noticed that she had been uninspired all day. Pout, pout.

And when Amy would take the lead, Katrina would pout about that too. It seemed to be at least partially jealousy of the attention Amy was getting, and it was not attractive. Pout, pout. But she wasn’t going to “wrestle” her for attention. Pout.

Finally, we have the way she handled herself when she was project manager in Episode 7, on a challenge that involved what should have been her specialty – real estate. Of course, we know she failed on that one. But more than that, she whined and tried to blame it on Troy being unfair.

Do I think Troy was completely fair? No, I don’t. He did pull a fast one on her. But come on, the claim that in all her years in real estate nobody has ever done that? Baloney.

However, even if it were totally true, even if Troy were as bad as she made him out to be, she screwed up the way she handled it. By calling him out the way she did, it made her look like a complainer. It made her look like she wasn’t willing to accept responsibility. Things got even worse for her when she blamed Bill for not getting a better price even though she was the project manager and she had the real estate expertise! Frankly, the only reason she survived that boardroom session was because of Tammy.

She only survived the next boardroom session because of Ereka’s bad decision not to bring her – and Katrina helped seal Ereka’s fate! By commenting that her friendship with Ereka had nothing to do with Ereka’s decision, she planted a seed in Trump’s mind that perhaps that was indeed the cause! And here hypocrisy reared its ugly head again, because when Amy kept Nick safe in this most recent episode, Katrina accused Amy of doing it because of their relationship. What’s good for the goose is apparently not good for the gander.

Katrina did not exactly inspire loyalty as a leader, and she tried to put the blame elsewhere. Her main idea seemed to be that sex sells – except when somebody else suggested it. She became upset when things didn’t go her way. And she was a hypocrite several times over. Furthermore, she didn’t do anything to actually prove herself. It’s not enough right now to just not be terrible, you have to actually do something good to make yourself stand out and stick around.

Sure, Katrina had a problem because everybody else held Amy in such high esteem. But trying to dispatch that and make still more excuses by saying Amy won largely due to luck certainly didn’t elevate her standing in Trump’s eyes. Considering all her past issues, I don’t know that Katrina could have beaten anybody in the boardroom this time. Her past finally caught up to her. That is why Katrina lost.

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

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