The contestants meet Sir Alan in
London’s majestic Guildhall, which is famous for holding the Lord Mayor’s
Banquet. It is also famous for hosting Corporate Events, which relates to their
task this week – to put on an “away day”, which, despite the frivolities, is
not just a jolly or an excuse to get pissed. Whilst fun may be had on an away
day, the main idea is to teach managers important skills such as communication
and listening.
Company away days are a lucrative
business, fetching in £1billion a year in the UK, and each team is given a
budget and a set of clients, whom they must provide entertainment for. Instead of
leaving it to them to pick the Project Managers, Alan Sugar allocates them this
week: he picks Leah as the PM of Endeavour, and Francesca as the PM of Evolve. Ominously
for Francesca, she already looks excited about commandeering this one, and such
pre-emptive enthusiasm never bodes well for the project managers.
Francesca calls herself Mrs
Corporate and immediately Luisa pipes up “I hate corporate”, which is pretty
stupid, in my opinion. I’m not a particularly corporate-minded person myself (I
will be working for a smallish firm after graduation), but for crying out loud
Luisa, you’ve gone on The Apprentice, it doesn’t really get more corporate than
that. She goes on to dismiss all corporate firms as “boring” and saying “the
people are dull”, which is sure to go down a treat with Sir Alan.
Meanwhile at Endeavour, Neil
remarks that Leah “had a point to prove” on the previous task (Dubaigate), and
that if she micro-manages effectively, Endeavour will win. But if she doesn’t,
they won’t. In the brainstorm, they disagree already: Neil wants a school day
theme, but Leah wants a more medieval history theme. The horrific idea of St
Trinians is put up, which Leah is most unimpressed with.
School is also a theme that is
discussed in Evolve, but with more enthusiasm, and they fix it as their chosen
motif. In an interview, Francesca declares that “of all the tasks so far, this
is the most perfect one for me.” We’ll see.
With their theme chosen, Evolve
next move on to activities, with Rebecca suggesting wine-tasting. Jordan,
however, is hesitant, questioning how it goes with a Back to School theme.
Another asinine suggestion is chocolate making (how does that relate to school
or team-building?), but Luisa wants to do cake-making instead of chocolate
making, as that is her field.
Luisa’s dismissive attitude
toward her PM is evident immediately, as in the car she does a pissy impression
of Francesca, both her indecisiveness and how she shies away from
responsibility. True as that may be, I don’t see how childish impressions will
get anyone anywhere.
The majority of Endeavour want a
School theme, with 4 voting in favour of it and just 2 picking History, but
Leah overrules them and goes with her gut. The rest of the group aren’t happy,
dubbing it a selfish decision.
Next up, the teams meet their
clients. Evolve’s clients this week are Lastminute.com, who work on the
mentality of 5 star services for 3 star prices. The CEO of the company
expresses that it’s important for his employees to collaborate and cooperate
efficiently. Jordan re-iterates these ideas, and seems to be charming Cathy,
the other person from lastminute.com, who smiles warmly at him as they leave.
Leah’s group’s client is Barclay’s
Retail UK, who are kept waiting by Endeavour, as they are stuck in traffic.
Even after they arrive, the three members at the meeting (Leah, Myles and
Natalie) stand in the building bickering, and it takes Karen scolding them to
remind them that their clients are waiting. Not a good start at all.
Immediately you can tell that the
big boss of Barclay’s isn’t happy about being kept waiting, remarking: “you
obviously have had a busy morning.” When prompted on what he hopes to get from
the event, he states the importance of his branch managers improving their
communication and listening skills, especially in the face of ever-evolving
technology. As an added incentive, he
tells Endeavour that if they impress, the exercise could be expanded to up to
35,000 people.
Leah tries to pitch the idea of a
history theme to the bosses, saying “classic”, “medieval” and “majestic” twice,
which induces an awkward silence from the two bosses, who don’t care about the
theme, and rightly, don’t feel they should be bothered on such matters. “I’m
not here to solve this assignment for you”, the boss says. After the meeting,
Leah worriedly comments on how unfun her original idea was.
The boys of Endeavour are trying
to obtain activities for their medieval- themed day, and procure archery sets
for £320. Neil calls Leah to tell her the good news, only to hear that the
goalposts have moved, and the theme has changed from history to army –
something with archery doesn’t altogether fit into.
Meanwhile at Evolve, Luisa and
Jason examine a chocolatier, but are scared off by the high prices - £795 for
just 12 people, and so Luisa decides to save money and do cake-making instead,
and run it herself, thus saving substantial costs on hiring unnecessary
manpower. Whilst I agree with the decision from an economic point of view,
Luisa’s keenness to mention how she makes cakes repeatedly is more than a
little bit jarring. The awkward meeting is made all the more awkward when Luisa
explains at length, why she feels the chocolatier to be overpriced, and then
ends by asking to buy some piping bags from her. LOL.
Francesca and Rebecca are
shopping for ingredients for their “school dinners” at Morrison’s, but they’re
loading their trollies so eagerly that they haven’t thought about costs, with
only Jordan considering the budgeting. For their ingredients, Endeavour take a
more frugal route, buying food directly from a Cash and Carry, and Leah driving
a hard bargain on every item of food.
For Endeavour’s activities, Neil
is worried that they don’t have enough to do for the day, and for some
godforsaken reason, suggests sumo wrestling, which Leah says she “[doesn’t]
love at all.” Getting exasperated, Alex whines in that classic way of his, and
Leah barks at him to show her some respect. Finally, as a compromise, she says
she’ll allow sumo wrestling, but only as a last resort.
Back in their group, Evolve are
at loggerheads over whether they should hire a motivational speaker, or give
the speech themselves. Luisa and Jordan feel they can save money and give it
themselves, but Rebecca is intent that they should hire someone. Personally, I
would have forked out the money (even though at £600, he isn’t cheap) for a
motivational speaker, just because these speakers really know what they’re
doing, and I wouldn’t be able to deliver anything anywhere near as good, but
that’s just me. In the end, they decide to hire someone, because, as Francesca
says, “you need to pay for quality.”
At Endeavour, however, they
choose to give the motivational speech themselves, with Neil, who has vast
experience as a football coach, chosen to deliver it. Speaking in an interview,
Neil comments that he knows
the quality of the activities for the day aren’t
great, and thus how it carries off will depend massively on the execution. Neil
and Myles take ten minutes to try and link each of their activities with the way
they’re going to build teambuilding, listening and communication skills, whilst
Natalie and Kurt get cooking.
It turns out that Evolve had
spent £300 of their budget on props, some o
And so the actual days begin. 16
managers from lastminute.com arrive, and their “Meet and Greet” is already
faltering, as Francesca fails to communicate the objectives in the half hour
slot she’s allocated, and instead wasting time faffing about with tea and biscuits,
and giving the cringiest opening speech imaginable, saying it’s to get “success
in work, success in life, or just success in yourselves.” So success,
basically. As if her speech couldn’t get any worse, when talking about
motivation, she says she wanted to be a policewoman when she wasn’t a child,
but isn’t one. Smooth.
At Endeavour, however, Neil,
playing “Sergeant Neil”, makes the objectives of the day explicit to the
managers from Barclay’s. “Colonel Alex” is also clearly having fun, ordering
the managers into a Left, Right, Left style march into the garden. Once in the garden,
the managers are playing lawn games, but blindfolded, so that the members
really have to listen to each other. They all seem to be enjoying it, and Neil
is definitely leading them well. However, once rain hits, the managers are
unable to play outside and Leah, having not thought of a contingency plan, has
to think fast.
Only as Endeavour’s clients head
inside do the activities finally start for Evolve’s ones, where, again, the
managers look like they’re having a whale of a time. Nick Hewer remarks that
there haven’t been any broken bones, and he sounds almost disappointed over the
fact.
Due to the rain, Leah has to
improvise a conflict resolution “session”, and her detested sumo-wrestling
costumes have to be employed. It’s not a successful operation and the managers
look either bored or embarrassed at watching Neil and Myles wrestle in
sumo-wrestling outfits.
From one fail of an event to
another, comes Evolve’s wine-tasting class, which is most ineffective as
Rebecca and Jason, who lead it, both don’t know anything about wines. Most
hilarious are Rebecca’s tenuous efforts to link the wine-tasting to business
nous. The other half of the group are making cupcakes with Luisa, which is also
questioned on how it links to business, with Francesca giving the most glorious
bull, “it’s to do with experiences.”
As the day draws to a close, both
teams finish on their grand finale: the motivational speech. Francesca’s team
have hired one of the leading speakers in the country, which goes down a treat,
with the managers of lastminute.com saying he’s been the highlight of the
(admittedly otherwise shambolic day). But Leah’s group do it freestyle, with
Neil giving the speech, and it’s also a good one, drawing in on his personal
experience and emotions.
In the boardroom, both teams can’t
wait to criticise their PMs, with Neil already putting Leah in it, saying he
passionately wanted a school theme, and Jordan commenting on Francesca’s weak
management and non-existent strategy. On the basis of the footage of Francesca’s
continual jargon and talking crap through the day, it’s difficult to argue with
that. Meanwhile, Karen Brady really lays into Leah, berating her for being late
with her meeting with Barclay’s as well as her “half-arsed” pitch.
Alan Sugar, always good for an
opinion, remarks that Alex’s pantomime Colonel was bullying the delegates, but
Alex contests this, saying instead that he was “getting the best from my troops”.
Furthermore, Lord Sugar looks truly horrified on hearing that sumo wrestlers
was presented to workers from the biggest bank in the country, and even less
impressed that Francesca’s team had tried to get lastminute.com managers drunk.
Both Barclay’s and lastminute.com
weren’t totally happy with the away days and had asked for refunds, but in the
end, Leah’s group wins by a good £500. Karen Brady singles Neil out for
applause, and Sir Alan remarks that Leah has her team to thank, obviously going
from the feeling in the boardroom that she wasn’t an effective PM. As a treat,
Endeavour are sent off for a day of pampering.
In the café, Endeavour discuss
how they’d been docked points for “a complete lack of business message”, which
Jordan feels is all down to PM Francesca. Furious, Francesca calls Jordan a
turncoat. However, he has a point; woman spouts absolute rubbish – even in a
dumb interview, she says “if I go down, I go down in flames, but at least
decisively in flames.”
In the boardroom, Sir Alan holds
nothing back, telling Endeavour that many of the workers from lastminute.com
feels the day was a blag. I agree with them. Even I would have felt a day like
that as patronising and jargon-filled, and experienced professionals would have
only realised that even more. And the jargon from Francesca doesn’t stop – she tries
to bull her way through explaining how cupcakes can make something amazing, and
Karen abruptly asks her “do you even hear what you’re saying?”
Sir Alan disregards both the
wine-tasting and cake-making as completely inappropriate for the day, and
further questions why, if they talk so much, none of them gave the motivational
speech rather than hiring someone to do so.
The claws really come out,
however, when Francesca has a go at Luisa for bitching about the corporate
world throughout the day, who retorts “I think a lot of empty words are spoken
in the corporate world.” Luisa complains about how people in the corporate
world “talk crap”, to which Karen quietly remarks “you might find that a rough
attitude when you’re asking a bank for investment,” to which Luisa, like the
child she is, rolls her eyes.
And were it up to me, Luisa
should have been fired. However, Francesca craftily chose Rebecca and Luisa to
come back into the boardroom with her, as Rebecca put most of the ideas
forward. And thus, it is Rebecca who is fired, which I feel a little unfair.
Admittedly, her ideas weren’t great, but at least she had some, rather than
bickering all day like Luisa, who aside from leading the cake-making activity, was
a counterproductive force in the group. She also likes to bring up her looks a LOT. Luisa, you ain't that hot, girl js.
Furthermore, at the end of the day,
they were mere suggestions, and the whole away day was a mega-cringe, and that
was down to PM Francesca and all her hollow words. So Francesca and Luisa
should both have been fired ahead of Rebecca, and Jordan hardly covered himself
in glory with his lack of budgeting as well. So I feel quite bad for Rebecca.
With the episode over, we're at the halfway point of The Apprentice. Six episodes gone, and 10 of the 16 contestants still remaining. I smell double firings next week!
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