First off I should say that, yes, Susan was foolish to big herself up at the start of the task.

But what exactly was the point, so late in the day, of Zoe saying (paraphrasing) "Why haven't you sold things, you said you would sell things, why haven't you sold things?"

I was just thinking "Get on with it, Zoe, think of how to practically sort out the problem. Deal with Susan later!!!"

And it did sort of feel like ganging up in a way. Putting pressure on someone like that isn't going to make her sell more!

I don't know, it just didn't sit well with me.

Zoe & Helen, who were upstairs, realised they had made quite a bit of mistakes and were using her as the scapegoat.

Similar to Alex last year who said he knew the shopping centre like the back of his hand and upped himself a tad too much, similarly to Susan.

The way they did it certainly wasn't pleasant, esp as there was like three of them standing there like a white wall in front of her.

However, if a candidate is in a task where their field is the same (or at least very similar) to the role their own job then they are expected to peform well purely because it is meant to be their comfort zone and area of knowledge.

But yes, Zoe and Helen didn't look very nice at that precise moment in the task, at all. I understand Zoe needed to talk to Susan about selling more products (because they weren't flying off the counter like Susan had predicted they would) but to have others there to chip in with the criticism was I think actually quite un-professional. It only needed her as PM to raise the point.

Zoe as PM was right to put Susan in her place. Susan had royally cocked up and was trying to pass the buck. Susan was being economical with the truth and trying to avoid the blame in case they lost.

Susan was my favourite until that moment. She went really down in my estimations with her inability to accept she had screwed up.

Zoe simply pointed out to her that she had made her bed and must lie in it. Quite right.

If Zoe had listened to Susan "I'm an expert on Beauty products" Ma and bought everything she suggested then they would have had a thumping loss too.

Zoe, as PM, was very impressive. That situation could have got out of hand or detracted from the task. She nipped it in the bud, was clear decisive and got on with the task.

Do you not think she could have handled it differently though?


At that point in the day, what was the point? It was Zoe covering herself. Plus whilst Susan made mistakes, her saying this was her area was no reason to discount the mistakes the rest of the team made, which is what they seemed to be doing.

Whilst I agreed with what they thought, I think the way the three (or two, Edna was there but didn't really do anything) approached it was shameful. It just looked like playground bully tactics, and really didn't help at all, especially saying things like 'you've made your bed, lie in it" during the middle of the task. It wasn't very constructive or necessary in my opinion - just seemed like Zoe et al looking after themselves in case of a loss.

Exactly.

It seemed like a veiled threat to me "If we end up losing, you're a goner" type sentiment.

Well the point could have been to fire up Susan, to stop her whining and get her selling.

Her level of expertise though would make her mistakes far worse. Remember Rocky, the Sandwich shop magnate from Middlesbrough who cocked up on the food task for instance.

Susan, instead of whining, still had time to get her finger out and get selling.

It could have been handled differently, personally I thought it was handled decisively, clearly and put the issue to bed. When Zoe realised the stuff was not selling she had three choices, take the Ellie approach and do nothing, play it softly softly or deliver a rocket to the slacker (and I say that as someone who rated Susan as the stand out candidate before this week). She chose the latter option.

I think Susan needs to realise that if she is to run a business with Lord Sugar he would not accept her whining and denial of her failings like she tried last night.

It is not irredeemable for Susan. Michelle in Season 2 cocked up the fashion task badly but still managed to grow in the rest of the process (mind you Sugar should have hired Ruth not her).

But Susan was doing exactly the same thing when she was saying to Zoe that she only offered her advise and Zoe decided to take it. Susan was positioning herself for exactly that eventuality.

Raleigh, is that you ?


But Susan was doing exactly the same by trying to avoid any blame for what was her decision. A key one on the task and if they lost it would have been a key reason why they lost. She committed to sell 6 an hour and then weaseled out of that commitment when the proverbial hit the fan.

Well, IF that was Zoe's intention, it was a massive fail on her part.

I personally don't think that's what it was, I think she feared they were going to lose so was setting up her scapegoat in the event of that happening, rather than thinking of ways to salvage things.

Of course it's Zoe's right to let Susan know she made a mistake, but it's the way she went about doing it which wasn't right IMHO. Telling Susan "You've made your bed and now you need to lie in it" wasn't the right way of doing it because a good project manager keeps up morale in the team rather than grill someone in front of everyone.

Ideally Zoe should have taken Susan to the side and stated that she was dissapointed but hoped that they could make an attempt to shift the products that they had left over.

Personally I feel Zoe did that to save her skin if it turned out that her team had lost.

And also Susan was upset at the fact that Zoe had a go at her, not because she was called out on her mistake.

I also feel that this is one of those tasks where the people in the team made it successful as opposed to the team leader.

Certain girls seem to have had their knives out for Susan, maybe partly due to Susan's way of expressing herself.
But Zoe, backed up by Helen-bot, was having far too much satisfaction telling Susan off for my liking.

What probably bothers them the most is that Susan has alot of spunk and seems quite able to fight for herself.
Anyway, I bet most of these do-little miseries will leave before gutsy Susie will.

This.


And this.


And this.

But that, in part, is due to the skills of a Project Manager in bringing that out of his/her team.

I honestly do not think Zoe would have gone if they had lost. I think her Project Management was good and that would have saved her.

I also doubt Susan would have gone. Her previous weeks of excellence would have saved her.

Whereas Susan was trying to disavow any responsibility for her monumental error that may very well have caused them to lose the task had the other team not been run by Frank Spencer.

Yes it was.......Sugar moaned about it too, despite Susan, being on the winning side....but he said later, the Treatments was where you would make the MONEY.

Go into the spoiler thread, you can find out there

It is one thing to fight for yourself it is another thing to take responsibility for your errors. Something Leon did in one of the earlier task.

Susan has been impressive in the previous tasks, she was terrible in this one. In a project she should have excelled in. Zoe had every right to take her to task.

Had Susan been actually selling the 6 an hour she reckoned she could have sold instead of selling next to none they would have said nothing.

Something Tom, or is it Mr Calculator hyphen notepad (not one of Nicks's finest, cottoned onto immediately.

She might have the strategy that if she doesn't openly state her flaws/mistakes then hopefully no-one else will. What she didn't realize is that she's in this process with a bunch of nasty bee-atches who will pounce on her if they smell blood. Plus Lord Sugar lets nothing slide.

I think with Susan's energy and spunk, she can avoid a couple of firings if she so happens to fall in the bottom three.
The cameras are giving her ALOT of attention though, I think she's had more screentime than any other candidate.

Susan will not be fired the first time she in the bottom three.

Lord Sugar does give a free pass to candidates who end up in the bottom three who have excelled in the previous weeks. If she carries on as she did in the first four tasks I would say she is a cert to get to the interview stage.

I think it harsh to call them nasty bitches, admittedly in the lingo of the "street", and Natasha's only worthwhile contribution (cleavage aside) was her comment at the end about the nature of the competition.

No different to Liz whining at Stella last year after Stella had put Liz in her place in the boardroom. Both women were class acts too IMHO.

Felicity hit it on the nail last night on You're Fired when she said that it wasn't very tactful and they all agreed Zoe made sure she got the entire team around them before she presented the side that Susie would be the scapegoat.

Poor Susie!

I thought the timing was wrong for that. It could have been done in the boardroom, or in the cafe waiting for the boardroom. It didn't need to be done half-way through the task.

It was reasonable for Zoe to highlight the sales problem. I think she just did it in a bad way, because she's not quite perfect, rather than as a calculated move.

I kind of broached this on another thread... bit controversial... but my take on that particular episode was it looked "staged" . The words didnt seem to flow from Zoe, really sound like she had been told (or "suggested") to say it ... maybe for drama purposes by production/directors

You could be right, although maybe it's just because Helen and Zoe are infact androids.