Pointless vanity business wins The Apprentice.

[Over The Hill]

I saw about two minutes of one episode. It made me chuckle when Sir Alan said to one contestant "I am putting my reputation on the line for you" . This is the boss of AMSTRAD who are a step down from Christmas Crackers in the quality stakes.

 

[Silver Fox]

Do you think Leah dyes her hair? I mean, she's got dark eyebrows but she's blonde.

She's a bonny lass but what was going on with the coco the clown look on the winners show

Sometimes, less is definitely more

 

[Maz]

She's a bonny lass but what was going on with the coco the clown look on the winners show

Sometimes, less is definitely more

True. Too much makeup doth offend mine eye.

 

[slowmotion]

I didn't see any of it, but according to my nameless newspaper, she is an A&E doctor. Does she plan to dump the "day job" to provide herbal skin lotions to the gullible?

Lord Sugar, we really should be proud of your brand of barking management crap, shouldn't we?

 

[shouldbeinbed]

I didn't see any of it, but according to my nameless newspaper, she is an A&E doctor. Does she plan to dump the "day job" to provide herbal skin lotions to the gullible?

I watched it, its the one identikit wannabe reality thing I do follow.

Apparently she's taking a break from the NHS, but would have been doing anyway to continue her research, because being all of 24 she's clearly a seasoned NHS veteran who has become jaded with public service medicine and needs a break from the frontline to relight the spark.

 

[DiddlyDodds]

The whole show is pointless , so what does it matter what the winner does ,,

 

[Arch]

In the main they are bright, have bags of self confidence, are very focused and they generally get stuck in to whatever task is thrown at them. Good qualities for future leaders.

Trouble is, from the limited amount of the show I've seen, those are their only qualities. They don't seem to have any actual knowledge about anything apart from how to be focussed and self confident. God help us when all our leaders are leaders just because they think they can/deserve to be...

It's like the trend for politicians to be career politicians, without apparently ever having a 'real' job - one that isn't university, being an intern, lobbying or whatever. To understand how a company, or a country works, I think you do have to have a stint actually doing a job. All the best managers I've worked for have been people who worked up, and who've done the job I've been doing, and are prepared to get stuck in when needed, whatever their rank.

 

[asterix]

Do you think Leah dyes her hair? I mean, she's got dark eyebrows but she's blonde.

I actually believe her to be a computer generated hologram and her persona an attempt at artificial intelligence. I'd have preferred the other candidate, the cake-making expert, to have won.

..And who wants to grow up and work in a factory? We do not have the skills or the want to work on a production line now. .

That's an interesting question. I suspect that there are still people who would be happy to spend a working day in a job that does not demand mental effort beyond the responsibility to perform the task conscientiously. The problem is the pressure to perform at the speed modern production requires.

Visiting a much poorer country recently I saw they were installing a roadside pipe. Every metre of trench was being dug by men with picks, shovels and wheel barrows. It struck me that it is increasingly rare to see a workforce in the UK doing much work purely manually these days. Either there is mechanisation or the work does not get done at all.

 

[swee'pea99]

I'm with SpokeyDokey on this one, tho' I think Arch also has a point. I made a conscious decision this time round that I was done with The Apprentice. It is fun watching all the gormless wannabes blundering around spouting bollocks while doing things of gobsmacking inanity, but when you've seen it once you've seen it, and then it's just re-treads. Enough, I decided. And I feel 'cleaner' for it.

But I would agree that I have in the past sometimes been very impressed with what they have actually achieved, given the timescales and resources available to them. Partly I suspect it's due to that limitless self-confidence - believe enough, and you really can make things happen. And that's quite a heartening message in itself. But partly, too, it is talent - get beyond the bluster, and each crop seems to have a handful of muppets who turn out to be genuinely quite bright.

But I suspect Arch's analogy with politicians who've never done a real job holds water - and it's a rather pernicious philosophy to spread through such a powerful medium.

The other big problem I've always had with TA is that the whole thing is underpinned by 'Lord' Archer's rather limited and crude 'buy cheap, sell dear' business philosophy, which in truth only takes you so far, and leads you down some pretty dark & gloomy ethical back alleys en route. Every series would see some of the young turks doing things that were borderline immoral at best (approaching 4 year olds directly to emotionally blackmail parents into buying overpriced ice-creams, eg), and not, in truth, 'good business' in any business beyond Sugar-style Del Boy ducking & diving. Repeat business is not an issue in business a la Sugar, tho' in the real world, it's the only sure basis for any business that endures. Again, pretty dubious messages going out to the UK's next generation of business aspirants.

It's an entertainment programme, and it's probably best not to take any of it too seriously. But it's repetitive, morally questionable, and even purely in business terms, limited at best. Overall, I'm not sorry to have put those 10 or 12 hours of my life to other uses this time round. Didn't really miss it; certainly won't ever watch it again.

 

[Noodley]

I'm gonna enter the next series and put forward a business idea for coal mining in Brighton and ship building in Brechin.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

All the best managers I've worked for have been people who worked up, and who've done the job I've been doing, and are prepared to get stuck in when needed, whatever their rank.

I wouldn't be so rude as to say that your own experiences are wrong but that would not be my experience of good leaders.

To understand how a company, or a country works, I think you do have to have a stint actually doing a job.

So, I could be a postman for a while and then become PM?

 

[albal]

Rarely see any munters on there, do you. Too right too! tune in next year.

 

[Arch]

I wouldn't be so rude as to say that your own experiences are wrong but that would not be my experience of good leaders.

So, we have different experiences. Or perhaps we respond to different qualities. I like to know that my boss appreciates exactly how my job works, the effort put into it, the things that make it difficult. Indeed, my current boss was doing my job only a year or so ago, so he's very well grounded, and knows what's possible, and what isn't. Of course, we're a small close knit team, and perhaps that sort of thing counts for more on that situation than in a big corporation.

So, I could be a postman for a while and then become PM?

I meant a related job to the leadership role, obviously, although to be an MP at least, I think it's better to have been an 'ordinary' person for a good while, and have some idea of a life outside politics. Sadly that seems to be getting rarer and rarer now, many MPs seem to young to have really experienced the sort of things they will be legislating about. And I'd prefer a minister or PM to have done a decent stint as an MP first.

 

[Cletus Van Damme]

I can't understand why people watch these inane vacuous dope hounds on television. I know I'm in the minority, these programmes are enormously popular and are watched by millions, me, I just don't get it.

I saw a little bit of last nights programme, just after watching a recording of TDF highlights, and for the life of me I would not give a single one of those dopes the time of day.

Lord Sugar must be laughing all the way to the bank, as must be the producers.

+1

 

[Silver Fox]

In business as in life generally, there's no substitute for experience and the ability to learn from it.