Susan getting her finger out wasn't the problem; she was clearly trying hard to sell every time we saw her. The problem was that she had made a mistake earlier in the day by over-estimating the quantities they needed. To bring that mistake, which could no longer be changed, up during the task itself was pointless. In the boardroom was another matter; Zoe would have been remiss not to raise it there.


Put the issue to bed? The issue was in bed. Zoe got it up out of bed.

And, as I said above, Susan was anything but a slacker and didn't need a rocket.


I agree Susan was too keen to deny her responsibility for persuading the team to order too much. Given the way Zoe approached the issue though, I think it was understandable she felt upset and defensive.

As a PM in the real world you should never try and belittle a team member in front of others. It's bound to backfire as everybody loses respect for you. If Zoe thought Susan needed to be reminded to sell the remaining stock, that should have been done away from the rest or in a more positive way. When the other one joined in to suck up to Zoe it just became bullying.

From an Apprentice "game-playing" point of view it didn't need to be done and needlessly made Zoe look bad. Susan over confidently predicting the sales was clearly a problem, and she was clearly well aware of the error she'd made. She didn't need her face rubbed in it. However both teams got carried away with stock buying so she wasn't alone.

Good post - this is pretty much how I saw it too. There was more than a touch of Mean Girls about they way Susan was attacked.

It looked a bit staged to me. Zoe and Helen wanted to make themselves look good in my opinion.
Susan wasn't great at approaching the general public admittedly.
But the answer should have been a quiet word in her ear then swap Susan's role in the task with another team member.
It was uncomfortable viewing seeing Susan publically repremanded and humiliated like that.
Zoe is not my favourite candidate and even less so now and yesman Helen just comes across as a boot licker.

Neither of them achieved that. Nor do I think Zoe is the type to grand-stand.

I think Zoe was a bit stressed out. Having been in the boardroom the previous task, and then made PM by Lord Sugar for this task, the spot light was on her more than usual for a PM. Had she failed, she'd have been more than usually likely to get fired. Even if it was Susan's fault, Susan had never had a loss before and had just won as PM, so had her track record to save her. Zoe was on thin ice. I can understand her panicking a bit.

Recall also that she'd been accused of keeping silent when things were going wrong. Here was Susan's sales going wrong. She had to do something. As bystanders we can all agree she handled it badly. People don't always get it right under pressure.

I don't have so many excuses for Helen. I don't yet know what she's about.