Wednesday, June 04, 2008
The Apprentice Episode 11 and an annoyance
Episode 11 of The Apprentice promised to be a great one and it was rather, as it was the episode we all were dying to see, the interviews. The final five contestants went up against four of Sir Alan's most trusted interviewers who proceeded to grill them all in their own unique ways. So we got the usual bulldog nastiness from Paul Kelmsley (the big heavy gruff one with designer stuble) and Claude Litner (the highly cynical older bald one) and thankfully a bit more restraint and incredible shrewdness from Borden (the beardy one) and a nice interviewer this time Karren (who managed Manchester City football grounds or something at the age of 23) who didn't bitch and goad anyone.
The apprentices actually all did fairly well in their interviews, apart from Lucinda who really did bark up the wrong tree with Claude and Paul, who really got her gander up and brought out Lucinda's aggressive side. But they did raise an excellent point, why is she here? If she enjoys working as a contractor and already earns 100 grand why go work for Sir Alan? Lee did struggle a bit in his interviews, he did well enough with Paul, but Borden dropped a clanger on him by bringing up issues of his education, where he lied on his CV about completing a course that took 2 years but he dropped out after 4 months. Claude also picked up Lee on his CV's various spelling errors as Lee clearly seems to be dyslexic, but to be entirely honest being mildly dyslexic myself I don't think it really should hinder his chances. Alex was less impressive in his interviews as he really kept repeating himself by saying he was so young at being just "24" all the time, in fact Paul just spent most of his interview saying how boring Alex was until he said something about his past that was laudible. Helenne on the other hand probably realising just how crap she has been in the previous 10 weeks decided to go "balls out" so to speak and give her all in the interviews and she ended up being in virtually all the interviewers good books!! If only they had seen her over the past 10 weeks tasks!! But it does appear that with Helenne that task performance doesn't count so much as boardroom and interview performance.
After much deliberation with the four interviewers Sir Alan, it gave him some feedback on who should stay and go, and shockingly enough it was mostly all positive apart from Lucinda. And in the end Sir Alan made up his mind and decided to fire the colourful, fussy yet likeable Lucinda. I felt this was a fair decision though, she was an excellent team leader but she didn't work very well within a team, she was too whiny and hindered the teams more at times than helped them, shame cos she was doing really well mid-way throughout the program, but I think the last two weeks tasks sealed her fate to be honest. But I am shocked at Sir Alan's decision to keep the four remaining candidates as finalists, I mean what is he exactly playing at here? Helenne should have gone for sure in my opinion and I could almost see him fire her there and then but he didn't, so he must be going soft! Alex also rather unpleasantly brought up Lucinda's doubts in the boardroom about accepting whether she wanted the job or not, something which he shouldn't have done. I mean this boy has already backstabbed in the past, he tried to fire Claire twice and he usually takes any opportunity to raise something that will try get someone fired, not good in my book. However I'm quite pleased Claire is in the finale, she has come along way from the gobby big-mouth from earlier weeks, but then again during the interviews that side of her came out again, so has it all just been an act to adapt herself so she can't get through then become all gobby again? Maybe. Lee however I'm well chuffed to see in the final, he's a good all round guy, he can also hold up his hands to making mistakes and has consistently performed better than any other candidate (apart from Claire of course) and deserves to win more than anyone. So next week should be interesting....
Now quickly onto an annoyance: Paypal suck ass, they really are getting on my wick, they have introduced a new policy where any payments are made through ebay buyers to sellers, won't be processed until the buyer has left feedback for the seller or 21 days has gone by without feedback. I mean this really is a bloody swindle, I'd also probably question the legality of what Paypal are doing in this instance. If someone has made a payment to a seller, Paypal should have absolutely no right to withold that payment in fact I think its f-ing disgraceful! This is clearly a problem since some buyers clearly don't remember to leave feedback for some items or probably don't even bother, which means I will need to email them all in future in order to secure payment. Shocking! I hope there are some serious complaints made about this as Paypal repeal this stupid decision. Annoyingly enough on ebay sellers can no longer leave negative or neutral feedback for buyers, which is also really annoying, it gives the buyers alot more rights than the sellers, and leaves out the possibility that some buyers might take the piss in regards to making payment. I don't think its right that sellers on ebay should be biased by either Paypal or Ebay. So let's hope something get's done about this. Rant over.
The apprentices actually all did fairly well in their interviews, apart from Lucinda who really did bark up the wrong tree with Claude and Paul, who really got her gander up and brought out Lucinda's aggressive side. But they did raise an excellent point, why is she here? If she enjoys working as a contractor and already earns 100 grand why go work for Sir Alan? Lee did struggle a bit in his interviews, he did well enough with Paul, but Borden dropped a clanger on him by bringing up issues of his education, where he lied on his CV about completing a course that took 2 years but he dropped out after 4 months. Claude also picked up Lee on his CV's various spelling errors as Lee clearly seems to be dyslexic, but to be entirely honest being mildly dyslexic myself I don't think it really should hinder his chances. Alex was less impressive in his interviews as he really kept repeating himself by saying he was so young at being just "24" all the time, in fact Paul just spent most of his interview saying how boring Alex was until he said something about his past that was laudible. Helenne on the other hand probably realising just how crap she has been in the previous 10 weeks decided to go "balls out" so to speak and give her all in the interviews and she ended up being in virtually all the interviewers good books!! If only they had seen her over the past 10 weeks tasks!! But it does appear that with Helenne that task performance doesn't count so much as boardroom and interview performance.
After much deliberation with the four interviewers Sir Alan, it gave him some feedback on who should stay and go, and shockingly enough it was mostly all positive apart from Lucinda. And in the end Sir Alan made up his mind and decided to fire the colourful, fussy yet likeable Lucinda. I felt this was a fair decision though, she was an excellent team leader but she didn't work very well within a team, she was too whiny and hindered the teams more at times than helped them, shame cos she was doing really well mid-way throughout the program, but I think the last two weeks tasks sealed her fate to be honest. But I am shocked at Sir Alan's decision to keep the four remaining candidates as finalists, I mean what is he exactly playing at here? Helenne should have gone for sure in my opinion and I could almost see him fire her there and then but he didn't, so he must be going soft! Alex also rather unpleasantly brought up Lucinda's doubts in the boardroom about accepting whether she wanted the job or not, something which he shouldn't have done. I mean this boy has already backstabbed in the past, he tried to fire Claire twice and he usually takes any opportunity to raise something that will try get someone fired, not good in my book. However I'm quite pleased Claire is in the finale, she has come along way from the gobby big-mouth from earlier weeks, but then again during the interviews that side of her came out again, so has it all just been an act to adapt herself so she can't get through then become all gobby again? Maybe. Lee however I'm well chuffed to see in the final, he's a good all round guy, he can also hold up his hands to making mistakes and has consistently performed better than any other candidate (apart from Claire of course) and deserves to win more than anyone. So next week should be interesting....
Now quickly onto an annoyance: Paypal suck ass, they really are getting on my wick, they have introduced a new policy where any payments are made through ebay buyers to sellers, won't be processed until the buyer has left feedback for the seller or 21 days has gone by without feedback. I mean this really is a bloody swindle, I'd also probably question the legality of what Paypal are doing in this instance. If someone has made a payment to a seller, Paypal should have absolutely no right to withold that payment in fact I think its f-ing disgraceful! This is clearly a problem since some buyers clearly don't remember to leave feedback for some items or probably don't even bother, which means I will need to email them all in future in order to secure payment. Shocking! I hope there are some serious complaints made about this as Paypal repeal this stupid decision. Annoyingly enough on ebay sellers can no longer leave negative or neutral feedback for buyers, which is also really annoying, it gives the buyers alot more rights than the sellers, and leaves out the possibility that some buyers might take the piss in regards to making payment. I don't think its right that sellers on ebay should be biased by either Paypal or Ebay. So let's hope something get's done about this. Rant over.
# posted by kenny @ 10:57 pm 
