unless its due to - keep your friends close your enemies closer.

Whatever would give you that impression..?

Her unpatronising demeanour..? Her complete lack of ego..? The willingness to allow others to express a differing opinion without shouting them down..? Her lack of utter condescension to others..? The apparent lack of superiority complex..?

Yeah....must be...

I'm sure she's got plenty of friends. Come on, she's just a bit domineering; she's not coming across as really unkind or unpleasant.

She's talented... she just has zero diplomacy or manner. And if anyone suggests anything she disagrees with, she sneers at them. Diplomacy is a vital skill to have in business, and it's one that she's lacking. This is why Tim and Arjun are stronger candidates. Tim's natural savviness and effortless brilliance (seriously - credit crunch lunch, "a bottle of water," the man sweats good ideas) is metred out with an understanding of how to communicate effectively and pleasantly with people - diplomatically, which is crucial - and Arjun's a little timid at times but he's insanely clever and multifaceted. His brain's full to the brim with excellent stuff.

Zoe has certain areas in which she is very, very strong, but she also has all the benevolence and negotational skills of a bulldozer.


Okay. Well, good choice on the name, because with respect, your view could not be more skewiff. She alienates people. Lord Sugar has commented on this, as have his aides. And many people who she's worked with have made a point of commenting in the boardroom. But you sound like someone who's already made their mind up, so I won't press it.

EDIT: Although! You may be being sarcastic. Just cottoned on, if you are. In which case my view was askew. I'm a div.

It's not exactly a nice observation on my part but has anyone else noticed she walks like a puppet? Is she on strings?

Zoe is a veeeeeeery strange girl.

Apart from their early wobble Zoe seemed very pally with Hibah. I expect away from the very competative world of Apprentice she's more easy going - I think some FMs seem to be loading all sorts of evil on the girl and yet its not like she was a coniving bully like Jenny Celery. Tim/Hannah/Kirsty are guilty of the worse offense this series in their systematic undermining & destruction of Rhys.

As I've said elsewhere, annoying as she was, I think it's down to being a teenager. While the others were able to rein in their stroppier teenage selves (for the most part), Zoe isn't that self-aware yet. Ten years from now, she'll be a different person. She just needs to learn to be kinder to herself and others and not take herself so seriously. And use less lippy.

She is a bit 'intense' as someone said last night but I didn't get the impression she was particularly disliked by anyone, even if they found her difficult to work with.

She did appear to have enormous self belief for someone so young, once she's become a bit more realistic about her own abilities and the fact that you need other people's input to succeed she will be fine.

It made me laugh the way she went to the boys and said 'You deserved to win' as she left the boardroom in a condescending manner that made it sound like they'd only won because she agreed with the decision, but it showed her heart's in the right place even if her mannerisms let her down a bit.

Yes, I noticed her weird walk last night, particularly as she walked from the boardroom.

Aye, yeah. I'd like to say in supplement to my previous rant that I do think she's phenomenal. Like, really brilliant. Especially for a sixteen year old. I have no doubt she'll be fantastic and we'll probably all be buying things from her ten years down the line and not even realising it. But she's also a lot more flawed than she'd care to admit, and she's the one who doesn't seem to have learnt from that over the course of the process as much as the others have. But it'll come! Eventually.

I get the feeling that she was raised to think she is something special, she mentioned she has artistic parents who would no doubt instil such confidence in her. There's nothing wrong with this, but I suspect she hasn't had many people challenging her sometimes poor behaviour. Her comments in the car after she had lost did not reflect (IMO) that she thinks she has anything to learn, she considered she had done well.

With Zoe it's just a case of learing a few more social skills, i.e. everything you have to say is not the most important opinion in the room. Hopefully this will come with age, though I am sad to say that I have known people who at twice Zoe's age were just as immature.

No I think she's probably the leader of her 'cool girl' gang and everyone follows her around

I agree about Hibah. They seemed very close on the second task, and Zoe seemed so warm and pleased when she asked for Hibah in the final. After the difficulties she'd had with Arjun and Emma, I suspect she was looking forward to having someone she got on with back at her side.

I bet they're all a bit different away from Junior Apprentice. Maybe even Jordan is a lovable guy really!

I think she did learn something of that by the end, as she was far less domineering in the final. (And yes, I know many of the team still got fed up with her, but I think they were taking offence needlessly when Zoe was only putting her ideas across)

And repeating them ad infinitum - even to the patronising point of spelling Jackson Pollock's name; she clearly assumed she was the only member of the team who's heard of him.

Even when others were team leader she still tried to dictate the tasks - dismissing the ideas of anyone else - and assuming only her ideas were good enough to run with, though initially I don't think she did realise that her attitude was arrogant and abrasive.

When Arjun and Emma pointed out this weakness in the boardroom she was clearly shocked - but instead of taking a good look at herself, the following week she went to the other extreme. Her sulkiness and reluctance (refusal even) to co operate showing a rather spoilt brat who appears to have been reared to think the world revolves around her.

Did any else see Arjun's raised eyebrows when, back at the house, she talked about Lord Alan's 'positive comments?'

The girl hears only what she wants to hear.

She seemed to do well at charming the artists, though.

I don't recall her repeating herself ad infinitum. She was putting her views over quite definitely, but not offensively. Also bear in mind the others were on the other end of a phone, so it was less easy for her to pick up on the fact that they were getting annoyed.

As for Jackson Pollock, Zoe does know more about art than the others, so she probably just thought she was helping.


I'd never suggest Zoe was perfect. I'd concur that she does tend to be quite definite in her ideas and tends to see them as better than those of others. She's sometimes right too; in fact one of her mistakes on the cupcake task was compromising with Emma by increasing the number of cakes they bought to 400, when her instincts had led her to settle on the lower number of 350 (she'd have done better still to accept Arjun's carefully calculated 250, but that's another matter). I wouldn't see her confidence in her own ideas as making it unlikely that she has friends though, and we saw that after their spat in the first week she seemed to get on very well with Hibah.


I think she was sulking a bit, but then I think she was feeling very out of sorts - and she wasn't the only one on her team; Emma behaved pretty poorly on that task too, and even Arjun seemed to be a bit off form. I've a feeling the atmosphere was utterly poisonous on that team by that stage, and this may not have been entirely Zoe's fault. It's impossible to know though, because there's so much we don't see.


She clearly did hear Lord Sugar's criticisms because she mentioned them in VTs. But he did make positive comments, and maybe just at that moment she preferred to focus on these.

She was pretty charming with customers in week one, and her presentations always got good feedback.

I'd agree to an extent, but her subsequent interviews she's come across as excessively self-assured, and still in need of a small dose of humility.

I'd disagree that they were taking offence needlessly. I think the manner in which you engage with people defines the way they react, and as such Zoe was met with a lukewarm reception at best - I agree that she wasn't necessarily being particularly vitriolic, but I think that was her bad manners catching up with her. Victim of her own stubbornness. She couldn't shake off the bad image, and that was more her fault than Hannah's fault. If she'd been politer earlier on, then her later suggestions wouldn't have been met with so much eyerolling. They assumed that she would bulldoze it through, and so they took it with a pinch of salt. That was based on her prior behaviour, and it's a hazard of being too forthright.

Hopefully, though, she will learn. She's an excellent businesswoman and she's only young; she's got plenty of life to live and plenty of revelations to come. But, for now, I have to say I empathise with her teammates more than I empathise with her.

Possibly, though as I just posted on another thread I think Zoe is the sort of person who'd put on a show of confidence even if she didn't feel it.


It seems you are agreeing that their resentment stemmed more from Zoe's previous behaviour than from her behaviour at that time, which takes nothing away from my point that she had learned to try and be less domineering.

Zoe probably has loads of friends. she'd just fall out with them a lot . why wouldn't she have friends? she seems very sociable, maybe not easy to get on with in a working enviroment. but so.

murderers and sadists have friends. so why wouldn't Zoe.

I'm kidding. there's nothing wrong with her. not everyone can be sweet and humble. It would be a boring world if we all were.

I do think that Zoe came across as rather rude most of the time, in particular during the Art sale week when she tried to muscle in when her teammates were in the middle of making a sale. She did seem to hog the limelight most of the time.

She also needs to tone down here makeup - she looks like Coco the Clown with all that slap on her face!

I don't think Zoe came across quite as bad as Jenny C or Katie Hopkins, so the most she'll get after a while will be a bit of needling at school.

Needless to say, she built quite a reputation for herself on there...

Oh nowhere near as bad! All the attempts by either the program or the press media to portray Zoe as the 'villan' looked as forced and so weak as to be laughable. Sometimes you really wonder if TV critics bothered to watch, let alone think, before writing their piece.

Zoe described herself as 'not your typical teenager'. Yeah as in more like a typical bright uni student at times. So did Tim. Except he also had a self depreciating humour (typical guy humour) which gave the impression he too was much older than he was.

Jenny Celery and Katie were over twice their age! They have no excuse for the way they behaved (and continue if you saw Question Time). I'd rank them in 'villan' position like this: Zoe 2%, Jenny 50% and Katie 99%.

I would think that since the JA, in real life Zoe has probably increased her circle of friends a lot.