The Apprentice 4 Corner Office and Mailroom Assignments, Episode 9

Capital Edge extended their winning streak this week, while the newly-transferred Clay questioned and whined his way through the task on Excel, leaving a lot of disruption and aggravation in his wake. So who soared and who sank? Let’s take a look.

Capital Edge

Felisha was the Project Manager on this task and came up with the title of the song, which was “Nothing Can Be Everything.” Her team chose Levi Kreis as their artist because, as Felisha said, his passion comes through in his performance and music. The best thing she did on this task was that she took action when she noticed the song wasn’t going the way it should. The song sounded too jazzy and she went in, talked to the producers, and corrected it so that the song would be more pop/rock and thus more in line with XM Café’s musical format. If she hadn’t done this, everything else being the same, the chances are good that Capital Edge wouldn’t have received the compliments that they did on this task. Thus, it is easy to see why Felicia gets to enjoy the Corner Office this week, complete with a power lunch with Clive Davis.

Since everybody got along so well on Capital Edge this week, nobody gets Mailroom duty this week. Keep it up, team!

Excel

Clay stood out this week as the lone dissenter on just about everything. He wanted things his way and refused to budge. He wanted a song called “What About Me?” and whined that 40 minutes of work would be wasted if his ideas weren’t used. He played air violin when he didn’t like Rebecca’s presentation when she rehearsed it, but had a tough time telling her how to improve it. Even worse, he cut her off in mid-sentence during the real presentation when he opened the door prematurely, thus spoiling the grand entrance his team had planned. If he could be sent to the Mailroom, he would be, but he’s no longer with the company. Like Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, Clay somehow survived until quite late in the game, but also like Omarosa, he was cut down in Week Nine. His departure leaves only Randal and Rebecca as contenders.

Randal had the good idea of having marketing materials, but having the wrong channel number on the poster negated that. However, as Trump said, one has to take one’s previous track record into account. Then there’s Rebecca.

Poor Rebecca had to contend with the disruptive Clay on her team and could not figure out how to manage him, so he kept creating problems. A good leader should be able to know how to deal with difficult people or at least how to sideline them so that they don’t cause problems or affect the task at hand. However, Rebecca seems too nice to be able to sideline someone, even someone as disruptive as Clay. Sure, she tried to involve him in the presentation by asking him for suggestions when he started playing air violin, which was good of her, but at some point the Project Manager has to make a decision to stop listening to those who would constantly bring down the group so that some actual work can be done. Rebecca seemed to just cave in to Clay whenever he complained about something. Thus, as much as it pains me to do it, Rebecca gets Mailroom duty this week for her poor leadership.

Since everybody on Excel made big mistakes this time around, nobody gets the Corner Office this week.

Week Nine Tally

After three weeks of having Alla in Capital Edge’s Corner Office, we finally have a new occupant there as Felisha moves in to take Alla’s place. Meanwhile, Rebecca on Excel falls from grace this week and goes from her second Corner Office last week to her first Mailroom assignment this week.

Excel

Corner Office: Mark (1), Randal (2, 3, 7), Clay (4), Josh (5), Rebecca (6, 8),

Mailroom: Josh (1), Chris (2), Clay (3), Markus (5), Rebecca (9)

Capital Edge

Corner Office: Rebecca (1), Alla (1, 6, 7, 8), Jennifer M. (3, 4), Marshawn (5), Felisha (9)

Mailroom: Kristi (1), Melissa (1), Marshawn (2), Rebecca (3), Jennifer W. (3), Felisha (4), Jenn M. (5), Clay (6, 7, 8)

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out these other Apprentice 4 Episode 9 articles:

CORRECTION: A couple of weeks ago in my Week 7 article, I wrote that Capital Edge “managed to keep your losing streak alive for another week.” This was incorrect because Capital Edge had in fact won the sporting goods task the previous week. I apologize for this error.

Gil Sery is a freelance entertainment journalist who loves watching reality TV, and loves getting email from fans even more. You can make his day by emailing him at movieman26@hotmail.com and telling him who you think should get the corner office or mailroom.

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