The Apprentice – Martha Stewart Version

I like Martha's little French Bulldog - he looks like a fungus know as "trees ears".

Jim's smirking has got to be the most annoying thing about the show. I will be soooo glad when he gets his apology note.

Jim can't possibly be for real, can he? He must be an actor planted among the candidates to play the obnoxious role (like the actor in "My Big, Fat, Obnoxious Fiance.") No one can be that obnoxious in real life.

Yeah it would be interesting....maybe he is a plant sent from Martha.

Jim is tragic!

I like your comments about Martha's managerial style on the show. I agree she does get to the bottom of it and isn't as out there as Trump is.

I have to admit I'm not even watching the Trump show this season. Is it any good? I can only take so much Apprentice.

Not sure if it is that great, but it is entertaining. Trump fired 4 people last night. He thought it was the fault of all four. However, it seems in this situation, it would have been appropriate to fire the project leader, not all four. I think he did this to make it seem a little different and that anything could happen.

I know this is the Martha Stewart "Apprentice" thread, but thought I'd comment on the Donald Trump version's ending last night. I knew he was gonna fire all 4 when he picked the 4 people to stay in the boardroom. I think Jennifer and the project manager both deserved to go, but it was a bit impulsive to fire the other 2 guys who were merely manning the batting cage. I thought the guy with baseball experience actually had a chance to make the final 4. His comments during this show (especially his pre-boardroom advice over drinks to the project manager) showed intelligence and political skills.

I agree. Jennifer deserved to be fired. She incessantly bragged about her abilities yet she never delivered. She bragged about her ability to sell an abundant number of radar guns (even though she wasn't sure that's waht they were called) and she couldn't even sell one. She bragged that she was the Queen of Sales. Even if the selling conditions were not ideal after the batting cage was erected, if Jennifer was truly a sales genius, she should have adapted to the conditions and endeavored to be successful. She didn't even try.

The project manager failed. He designed an event for the purpose of drawing customers into the sales area and then allowed the event itself to become the focal point wherein the purpose for drawing customers (to sell the merchandise) was defeated. Although the project manager is ultimately responsible, I think he could have learned a valuable lesson from this task and went on to become an excellent apprentice.

Jennifer deserved to be fired. The project manager maybe deserved to be fired, but I would have given him another chance. The other two did NOT deserve to be fired.

I suspect that Trump has already determined who he wants to be his next apprentice, and since that person was not among the four in his final boardroom on last night's show, Trump opted to fire the four for dramatic effect. This is a television show, after all.

I predict the final two will be Marshawn and Randall as they both appear to be excellent candidates and its time (in our equal opportunity world where statistics are noticed) for a person of color to be Donald's next apprentice (before people start complaining that that Donald has been unable to find any person of color suitable enough to be his apprentice).

1st winner: White Man
2nd winner: White Man
3rd winner: White Woman
4th winner: Person of Color

That's a good observation Debra.

Does Donald ever bring back the second white guy (I remember nothing about him). Bill has been on a few shows and I know at one point the woman (former real estate broker) made a quick cameo. Maybe guy#2 got fired after all.

I read in the paper a few months ago that Kelly Perdew, the second winner, is leaving Trump's organization to start his own business up.

Whether he got fired and this is just to make it look good, or Kelly made so much money in his first year and a half that he now had enough to go out on his own and make more than the half mill Trump salary, I don't know.

Thanks Keltic, actually by NYC standards, the salary Trump offers the winner is small ($100,000) - you could only rent a decent one bedroom apartment with that.

I know Bill is also leaving the Trump organization. I can't imagine that it would be all that fun to work in his group, unless you were really interested in doing commercial real estate - I don't think they actually have a ton of opportunity to work with him an entrepenuer...

I've always thought the "reward" was a bit paltry compared to most other reality TV shows. On most shows, once you complete the contest, you get the reward (usually a million smackeroos). On the Apprentice, you go through grueling, mulit-week/mulit-task "interview" process at the end of which, if you eliminate the other 15 people, your reward is to work for Donald Trump for a year and get paid (I think this is right) $250,000.

Back to (the original topic) the Martha version, I wonder if she's ever gonna settle on a parting phrase?

Donald's parting phrase "you're fired," is technically incorrect because the job applicant was never hired to begin with.

Martha noted the inconsistency of firing someone who is merely competing for a job in an appearance on the Larry King show.



http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0510/11/lkl.01.html

Accordingly, her parting phrase should be, "You have been eliminated from the competition," or "You're eliminated."

She's done a few so far, none of which have the zing of You're Fired.

Mostly "You just don't fit in here" or "this doesn't seem to be a good fit for you". Much more civil. Woudln't you love to see Martha just lose it?!

Judging by the brief excerpts of this week's show they showed at the conclusion of last week's episode, something like that happens this week.

From what I saw of the clips, apparently one of the teams comes up with a really outrageous
promotion.

One of the things I noticed about Trump's Apprentice. Sometimes you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Last week, for instance, Alla. head of the formerly all female side which kept losing and losing, criticized one of the men who came over to the team, Clay. That is becuase Clay kept questioning his role in the task, arguing over it, etc.

Alla, who looks like she might be well familiar with the subject, said to the camera, (not to Clay's face): "Clay is not a man. He is a beeeatch times 1000. If we lose, he is the one I want to go".

Well, Alla's side won. The side whch lost got four guys fired for getting so wrapped up in their promotion that they actually lost sales from normal.

Among the guys who lost his job was the fellow who operated the pitching machine, whom I am sure was given his job by the project manager.

The pitching machine operator was not the one who dreamed up the promotion. I am sure he was just following the directions the project manager gave him.

Yet Trump fired him, along with the others, because he figured no successful Apprentice would submit to just standing on the sideline in a non-sales role.

In other words, the pitching machine operator went along with his project manager, didn't raise a fuss, did what the project manager told him to do as well as anyone can do it, and gets fired. For not raising a fuss to his project manager.

Clay raises a fuss to his project manager, and gets called a beeeatch times 1000.

So what is someone to do if they have questions on their job the project manager assigns them?

[/quote] Accordingly, her parting phrase should be, "You have been eliminated from the competition," or "You're eliminated."[/quote]

I always figgered she said something like "Your work is not a 'good thing.'"

Martha Stewart: The teams were required to create a buzz for Tide to Go.

One team's work on the task was impressive; the other team's work was embarrassing. Martha eliminated the losing team's project manager AND the project manager's second in command.

Donald Trump: The teams were required to create and present an educational seminar.

Excel, having lost four members after the last task, was allowed to select someone from the other team. No surprise: They picked Randall. Randall was project manager. He selected a somewhat "boring" topic about standing out; but his team made the topic fun and their presentation was professional and well-received.

Capital Edge selected a more exciting topic about sex at work. But, their presentation was disorganized and somewhat offensive (embarrassing even). During the brainstorming and preparation sessions, Marcus (as usual) was spewing an abundance of disconnected words without saying anything. Spit it out, Marcus! If you have a point to make, make it! Quit wasting time.

Trump fired Marcus simply because Trump doesn't have the time to listen to someone talk incessantly without saying anything. Marcus's final words in the taxi were absolutely hilarious as he seemed to be bragging about his effective communication skills while demonstrating how ineffective he truly is at communication. ROFL

At first, I thought Markus' problem was that he was an engineer, since I heard that he was an inventor. I'm an electronics hobbyist myself, not trained, and I frequent some boards where the technical talk sometimes resembles Markus' speech somewhat. Paradigms, parmeters, and whatnot.

However, when his bio on the Apprentice page, it turns out that Markus was not just an inventor, not really an engineer, but a real estate investor and general businessman. So his problem is not that he talks to engineering types all day and can't get back into normal speech.

I really don't know how this guy makes any real estate deals speaking the way he does.

I really thought Clay was probably the biggest liability the losing team had, and figured he would go. But I also thought that if attention in the boardroom ever focused on Markus, he was a dead duck. He can't defend himself, and apparently he really doesn't do anything.

As soon as Carolyn asked the first couple of questions to Markus, I knew he was done.

In the end, Clay probably deserved to survive more than Markus. At least Clay is out there trying. Markus was so unreachable that everybody gave up trying to get anything out of him.