That was just for balance!

We already know that there's a prima facie case for Joanna nagging Jamie. What those who are determined to place Joanna at fault stubbornly refuse to accept is that as PM she is entitled to certain information to do her job and if Jamie was being willfully obstructive she had good reason to press him. It was deliberately edited to make it look as if she was being unreasonable and yet they did not once show Jamie giving her a proper answer to a question. And you have to ask why? One obvious answer is that they didn't have such an answer to show.


No, you see, you still don't get it.

What I'm saying is that we don't have enough information to tell.

In all likelihood it was a bit of both. As I said above: "All it was was two people, both operating under extremely high pressure and with little sleep, getting a bit wound up with each other."

That was particularly infuriating... Pushing him into a corner with false accusations and at the first hint of an emotive reaction from him, she turns it around.

Sorry, I have not read through the whole thread and it may have been mentioned before, but I had a feeing she was playing for the camera, trying to show off what she thinks goes with being a 'leader'. It was cringing and I admire Jamie for not completely losing it there and then.

Joanne reminds me very much of Saira from series 1 who I think was projectleader in the very first task. She constantly created chaos (with micromanaging people amongst other things) and then shouted to everyone else to 'calm down'.

You might have had a point if that's what had happened. Unfortunately for your take, it wasn't. Jamie lost it, threw a strop and made a physically aggressive gesture.

Then he accused Joanna of aggression.

Joanna just pointed out, quite correctly, that he had been aggressive.

It's truly amazing how people can see what they want to see and ignore what is there before their eyes.

I will have to watch it again to see if you are right. It would be interesting to see if I had missed what you point out.

On the other hand you too might have missed something, in terms of tone of voice, context, intent etc.

In my recollection she verbally attacked him for not doing his best, not walking fast enough and when he denied it, she kept having a go at him - very aggressively in my view - , in front of Nick, in front of the camera, talking down at him, berating him like a little boy, trying to make him look like a saboteur in front of the camera, almost verbally bullying him into admitting that he was sabotaging her, up to the point where he did not know what else to do and showed an emotive respons which she immediately used against him.

I thought her behaviour was infuriating, condescending and provoking. I also seem to remember (will have to check that too...) that she was standing higher than him on some stairs(?), literally talking down to him.And I remember thinking that if I was Jamie, I wouldn't know how to respond to that, except to turn around and walk away, which again would have been used against him as she was his projectmanager.

If I was LS I would NEVER EVER employ someone like that, who will use their position of 'power' (being the projectmanager) to treat people like that.

Out of interest, how would YOU have responded to that?

If I'd been in Jamie's position I'd have just done what was necessary to make her feel she was being kept in the loop. It's actually very easy to deal with someone who wants to micromanage - it's just a question of keeping them informed and making sure they think they are part of the process.

For example, giving them a run down in such a way that there is only one sensible way to proceed and then asking what they think.

Works a treat!

Joanna was in a much more difficult position. As PM she was entitled to know what Jamie was planning as she would undoubtedly have been asked why she didn't point out any flaws in his plan had they lost.

Even if she decided she could trust him, because of the entirely artificial situation they were in she could not just let him get on with it because the whole filming setup was based upon them working as a team and if she had not been taking her part she would have had nothing whatever to do and, again, had they lost Sugar would, without a doubt, have asked her why she spent the day doing nothing.

You know Jepson if Joanna took her kids, drowned them in the river and then used them as dishrags you'd still defend her.

"She had the perfect right to do that as project manager"

Love is blind eh?

Instead of posting nonsensical rubbish like the above, why not make some intelligent counter argument?

Such as showing how Joanna could have answered accusations of bad/lazy project management if they had failed because Jamie did something stupid.

Or, maybe, explaining why Jamie should not be held equally accountable for the squabble when he could have prevented the whole thing by keeping his PM involved.

You make the mistake of seeing a desire to get people to take an intelligent view of things rather than lazily accepting a view that goes along with their prejudices as 'love'.

This was a very minor spat that is being made a storm in a teacup by people who are not only ignoring anything they don't want to see but are failing to examine the options open to the candidates in the particular circumstances.

I think it's because it seems like a repeat of what caused the dislike in the first place. Some people saw Joanna as being aggressive in the first two episodes, then she seemed to get better, and now she's relapsed. A leopard doesn't change its spots. The pressure of being PM (as she was in the first task) has made her forget what Lord Sugar told her and she's showing her true colours again.

You can call it "confirmation bias" if you like, but it's not irrational hate. It's seeing a pattern. I personally don't think she was too bad in the first two episodes, nor now, but I can understand those who think she was. Putting it down to "an almost vitriolic dislike" is a form of ad hominem - ie addressing why they say that rather than whether what they say is true - which I've noticed you do a little too often.

That's wrong you know?
People say that all the time as if it were fact, but people do change, a lot. I am very different to the person I was at 25 and 35

And those chages can happen very quickly, because we learn and as a result of learning we adapt our behaviour.
You do what you know, and when you know better...... you do better.
Jo is a hardworking tenacious woman and that is unlikely to change much... but the style of behaviours she adopts to progress and handle relationships with people will change, as will her priorities.

Saying 'a leopard doesnt change its spots' is, IMO, an easy option for forming an opinion quickly and then sticking to it. It supports ones bias.... that's what i think anyway.

I agree people can change.

I agree with the OP. What does Joanna do, apart from nag people and throw a strop when things don't go her way? The way she hen-pecked Jamie and tried to pull out of the Visitor Centre deal was really unprofessional. When she kept banging on about curry-flavoured crisps, I was grateful for the "mute" button!

Jo has no decorum, no finesse, and really doesn't deserve to win.

absolutely.

I thought it despicable to claim she felt "threatened" by Jamie after nag, nag, nagging him.

She seems a decent person, but not good in the workplace.

Well, obviously people can see it that way if they want to.

But no one has actually come up with an intelligent response to the two points I made:

a) Jamie could have got Joanna to stop asking him questions by simply answering them and generally keeping her in the loop. Why did he not do this?

b) What could Joanna do except to keep pressing him for answers given that she was PM ad would undoubtedly have been called to account if he'd cocked up and, even if he hadn't cocked up, had they lost Sugar would have asked her why she did nothing that day?


Thank you.


It's not necessarily irrational hate.


Yes. That's what confirmation bias is all about.

It's often seen in gamblers who see a pattern but don't realise that it's statistically inconsequential and then notice things that agree with the pattern and ignore things that don't.

That's what's happening a lot here. People see Joanna bending Jamie's ear and then refuse point blank to see why she was bending his ear.

Even when it's explained to them they simply ignore the explanation. They make no serious attempt to refute it, they just pretend it doesn't exist.


LOL, you're mixing up two different things here.

The 'vitriolic dislike' is aimed at the sort of people who start these negative threads and those who just add 'me too' posts.

Look at the hate threads for Laura, Stella and Liz, in addition to this one and you'll see people who post nothing constructive, just comments of the 'Oh, God, she's awful' variety.

It's not against the rules and they are entitled to express themselves but I think the need to jump on the bandwagon and join a long queue of people bad mouthing someone tells us more about them than it does about the person they are bad mouthing.

*Absolute hell to work for, even if you respect the person has responsibility and authority, if you are also mindful of the overall task and your own role.

Sorry couldn't cut bottom out of that post.

How annoying .. long answer lost.

Short version

No one responds well to nagging, it's mental torture.

That is exactly what I think. I would actually go one further and say that Jamie has no respect for women in the workplace and no idea how to work with or for a woman.

Can Joanna work with a man? Can Joanna work with anyone? Joanna has no respect for anyone and treats them like dogs to give orders too.

Shes probably got too much sway in her own business and is used everyone jumping when she barks. Including probably her kids.

Of course.

That's how she's got all the way to the interviews and has been complimented more than once by Nick and Karen.

Makes perfect sense.

Yup, I think he hasnt liked having women PM's in particular. when he was being vile to Sandeesh so that even karen felt sorry for her, he said he wasnt harrassing her... it was 'feed back'.. Joanna should have told him thats what she was giving him

She has been on the winning team 7 times and has usually been a better than average positive contributor so she can work with people.

short version.... some people dont like Joanna so took Jamies side.
Some of us do think she is competent and therefore think its hard to say what was going on but judging from past performace its fair to assume that Jamie was not responding well to being in a team unless he is PM.
Its not cut and dried... Nick said nothing... why was that?

We don't know if it was discussed in the boardroom or not. Joanna's team won, so there was no reason to bring up her behaviour.

I think Nicks face spoke for itself when he was witness to Joanna's berating of Jamie.

Also Nick did make Jamie a BIG compliment and mentioned to LS what a great job he had done. Why was that?

Its not his job to interject. His look of disgust said it all.

Oh yes, past performance. Nothing to do with the way she was hectoring him at all? She treats people like dogs.

There isnt much point in continuing as you are unwilling to even consider that there is another explanation.
And...... its not important to me