Ordinary Gweilo

I’m still finding ‘The Apprentice’ fairly compulsive viewing. Last week (episode nine) the teams were given the task of selling modern art, and this week they had to run a fleet of pedicabs in New York City for one day.

In each case, one team was the clear winner, and both times it was Versacorp (Nick the irritating copier salesman’s team).

With the art task the key seemed to be choosing the artist, and whilst Versacorp picked a fairly mainstream artist, Protégé went for someone more edgy – but seemed not to believe in her work and struggled to sell anything. Versacorp did sell several pieces, and so they won.

The following week, Amy had the bright idea of selling advertising on the back of the pedacabs. Versacorp were able to sell several thousand dollars worth of advertising, far more than either team generated from fares. Protégé only had one good idea, selling pre-paid cards, and that didn’t bring in much revenue. They made things worse by offering over-generous incentives to their drivers and reducing their profits.

One of the strange things about the show is that in the first four weeks (when it was the men of Versacorp versus the women of Protégé) the men lost every week and so when the teams were re-shuffled there were eight women and just four men. However, in each of the ensuing six weeks a woman was fired, and after ten episodes there are just two women left!

Even more amazing is that Amy has been on the winning team for every one of the first ten episodes. First as part of the women’s team, then as part of the new Versacorp, and then she was picked by Protégé when they had lost twice and were given the chance to pick an extra team member. Amazingly, she was then taken back into the Versacorp team by Nick after they lost twice in a row.

In episode nine, Omarosa put on another ‘prima dona’ performance and tried her hardest to win over Donald Trump with her unique blend of aggression and self-pity, but was unsurprisingly fired for being a disruptive influence. Cue national rejoicing.

In episode ten, Heidi was fired because she really hadn’t demonstrated any leadership qualities and Carolyn felt that she hadn’t contributed very much even as a team member. Her rather feeble rejoinders were that she was feisty and that she deserved a chance to show what she could do (effectively admitting that Carolyn may have been right).

Nick is now the most irritating person left, though unlike all the other difficult characters he does clearly have leadership skills. Troy is the most surprising survivor from the men, having initially promoted himself as a “country boy from Idaho” but in fact he has proved himself to be quite shrewd. As for the women, it can’t totally be luck that Amy has always ended up on the winning team, whereas Katrina seems a bit lightweight. That leaves the two contestants who have probably played the game best of all, Bill and Kwame, both of whom have been solid and avoided upsetting people.