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Susan *was* wrong about the task |
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#1 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 266
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Susan *was* wrong about the task
She suggested they pay the person they were clearing the rubbish for but the only reason that would have worked in this instance was because the other team were doing it for free (also stupid and against the advice of the scrap business owner at the beginning).
Zoe was right in asking for money from the people for the service of getting rid of it which is what is done in real life. Susan's SO annoying and her profile is so weird |
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#2 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 16,500
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This whole thing seemed a little confused, because Nick seemed to think Susan did have the right idea.
Certainly they were told they would be charging money to take the waste away, wheras Susan apparently thought they were going to be effectively buying the waste. So you're right, she did get it wrong, and she seemed to realise this once it had been explained to her, and to have a laugh at herself over it. Once they found out the other team had taken the waste for nothing, her position looked a bit less silly, but that doesn't change that she'd picked the task up wrong. |
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#3 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 6,880
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I agree.
They were told to charge by an industry expert, money for taking the stuff away, and not giving it to people for buying it. Logic used the fact they could sell the steel to put the price down for their customer. If Susan wanted to do the same and actually pay for the desks and tables, she didn't state that clearly. |
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#4 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 513
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Yeah she got the wrong end of the stick completely but then look so smug when she thought she was right. The fact was that Helen's team just undercut them.
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#5 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Nov 2005
Posts: 2,884
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Yes, I thought so too. Her strategy was not to clear rubbish (for free or a charge) and then sell on some of it; she was merely tying to buy the desks etc from the guy. Which wasn't the task. If it was, they could all have gone round saying, I'll give you £X for the stainless steel items etc, then sold them at a profit, and not bothered with ANY actual rubbish clearance.
It was edited most oddly to make Susam look good last night; both during the task & in the boardroom. Zoe was made to look stupid at her expense. I think Susan has appeared immature and rather dense in several of the tasks now & really thought it was her time to go. Reckon she's sleeping with NIck! But it was a silly task. Once the costs of labour, the van & petrol were factored in, nobody would have made a penny. |
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#6 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 513
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Quote:
Yes, I thought so too. Her strategy was not to clear rubbish (for free or a charge) and then sell on some of it; she was merely tying to buy the desks etc from the guy. Which wasn't the task. If it was, they could all have gone round saying, I'll give you £X for the stainless steel items etc, then sold them at a profit, and not bothered with ANY actual rubbish clearance.
It was edited most oddly to make Susam look good last night; both during the task & in the boardroom. Zoe was made to look stupid at her expense. I think Susan has appeared immature and rather dense in several of the tasks now & really thought it was her time to go. Reckon she's sleeping with NIck! But it was a silly task. Once the costs of labour, the van & petrol were factored in, nobody would have made a penny. |
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#7 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 7,780
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Quote:
Nick is really obsessed and is actually given LS wrong info and advice in the boardroom.
He's no Margaret. |
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#8 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 7,780
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Quote:
Yes, I thought so too. Her strategy was not to clear rubbish (for free or a charge) and then sell on some of it; she was merely tying to buy the desks etc from the guy. Which wasn't the task. If it was, they could all have gone round saying, I'll give you £X for the stainless steel items etc, then sold them at a profit, and not bothered with ANY actual rubbish clearance.
It was edited most oddly to make Susam look good last night; both during the task & in the boardroom. Zoe was made to look stupid at her expense. I think Susan has appeared immature and rather dense in several of the tasks now & really thought it was her time to go. Reckon she's sleeping with NIck! But it was a silly task. Once the costs of labour, the van & petrol were factored in, nobody would have made a penny. |
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#9 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 6,299
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Quote:
Yeah she got the wrong end of the stick completely but then look so smug when she thought she was right. The fact was that Helen's team just undercut them.
I've certainly never seen a smug expression on her face. I think you're confusing it with frustration. |
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#10 |
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Inactive Member
Join Date: May 2011
Location: ¥
Posts: 1,720
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She misunderstood the task totally. I am fairly sure that her "business" was underwritten by her parents. She genuinely has not got a clue and am amazed she has lasted this long
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#11 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: London
Posts: 5,415
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No in this case Susan was right and in fact they would have won the task if they had listened to her.
The 'standard procedure' would be to offer a price to clear the desks. The 'hardball' tactic would be to offer to take it away for free. Both teams should have thought of this. The winning tactic would have been to go beyond free and actually pay for the desks and chairs, knowing you could sell it on. This is the only way you can beat an offer of 'free'. So whilst Susan may not have been clear on what the task was on paper, her gut instinct was right: We should be paying this guy for this stuff. As LS said, if they just offered 50 quid they would have got the deal. Even if they had offered 100 as Susan suggested, they could still have ended up 200 up and the other team would have had 300 less (based on that shop's buying price). |
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#12 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 5,010
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Phew - thought it was just me!
diary-room, no way was that what Susan was thinking, because she wouldn't have known that the other offered to do it for free. |
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#13 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: I'm a lady
Posts: 3,498
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Quote:
No in this case Susan was right and in fact they would have won the task if they had listened to her.
The 'standard procedure' would be to offer a price to clear the desks. The 'hardball' tactic would be to offer to take it away for free. Both teams should have thought of this. The winning tactic would have been to go beyond free and actually pay for the desks and chairs, knowing you could sell it on. This is the only way you can beat an offer of 'free'. So whilst Susan may not have been clear on what the task was on paper, her gut instinct was right: We should be paying this guy for this stuff. As LS said, if they just offered 50 quid they would have got the deal. Even if they had offered 100 as Susan suggested, they could still have ended up 200 up and the other team would have had 300 less (based on that shop's buying price). There's obviously more going on behind the scenes than we are seeing, because I do trust Nick's judgement. Perhaps Susan has been badly edited? I would certainly have fired Zoe last night though; purely because I find her voice more annoying than nails down a blackboard.
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#14 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 12,694
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FWIW, my workplace sometimes clears warehouses as a minor sideline, and we always do it either for free or paying to do it. You can make quite a profit that way.
I agree that Susan misunderstood the task, but the idea that it's intrinsically wrong to either offer to do it for free or to pay a small amount (particularly for good quality furniture with a retail value) is equally misguided. Perhaps, if it were our actual business, rather than something we occasionally do if we think there's a profit in it, then we'd always charge (and, again, as the guy said on You're Fired last night, you have to assess each job on its own merit) but, seeing as the last warehouse we cleared (for free) netted us in excess of £60,000 profit, I don't think it's an intrinsically flawed model. |
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#15 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 555
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Quote:
No in this case Susan was right and in fact they would have won the task if they had listened to her.
The 'standard procedure' would be to offer a price to clear the desks. The 'hardball' tactic would be to offer to take it away for free. Both teams should have thought of this. The winning tactic would have been to go beyond free and actually pay for the desks and chairs, knowing you could sell it on. This is the only way you can beat an offer of 'free'. So whilst Susan may not have been clear on what the task was on paper, her gut instinct was right: We should be paying this guy for this stuff. As LS said, if they just offered 50 quid they would have got the deal. Even if they had offered 100 as Susan suggested, they could still have ended up 200 up and the other team would have had 300 less (based on that shop's buying price). Her gut instinct was right - that was rubbish with a resale value and there was a profit to be made. What makes me believe that she is not as (admittedly) stupid as she looks is that she also said to Zoe that she would have taken the other lot for free. This was after they had made the offer but I don't blame her for not piping up after the way Zoe had spoken to her. In the end she was right on both counts and (in apprenticeland at least) they would have made a profit on those jobs. |
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#16 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: London
Posts: 5,415
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Quote:
That's the way I see it too. I can't believe there are several people on other threads saying that Susan was stupid for wanting to offer £100+ for rubbish which would have resulted in a £100+ loss. Whether they charge or pay to take the rubbish surely depends upon the value of the rubbish.
Her gut instinct was right - that was rubbish with a resale value and there was a profit to be made. What makes me believe that she is not as (admittedly) stupid as she looks is that she also said to Zoe that she would have taken the other lot for free. Quote:
diary-room, no way was that what Susan was thinking, because she wouldn't have known that the other offered to do it for free.
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#17 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 277
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Well clearly you are completely wrong because if they did offer even £10 to the guy to clear it they would have secured both the deals. You cannot just expect to cart away valuable items that the owner knows you are going to make a few hundred quid off and always charge. Susan knew exactly what she was suggesting. It was clear from the owners facial expressions that the deal proposed by Zoe was no where near good enough.
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#18 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Camberwick Green
Posts: 179
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Both the contractors were expecting to pay to have the rubbish cleared and that's what both teams were quoting on.
If Susan's idea to pay the contractor was such a great idea why didn't the other team think of it as well and why did Edna understand what was required? As has been pointed out Susan wouldn't have known what the other team quoted but in hindsight paying the contractor would have been one way of winning the contract but she only knew that once they were in the boardroom & that gave her the chance to be smug masking her real inadequacies. The truth of the matter was she didn't understand what was required because she was too busy moaning & whining about what Zoe was or wasn't doing. |
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#19 |
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Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Pembrokeshire.
Posts: 40,686
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It was all very confusing to me. Zoe wanted to charge the first lot to take the rubbish away Susan said we should have done it for free. Was there any mention of Susan wanting to pay for the removals which I missed?
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#20 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 555
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Quote:
It was all very confusing to me. Zoe wanted to charge the first lot to take the rubbish away Susan said we should have done it for free. Was there any mention of Susan wanting to pay for the removals which I missed?
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#21 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Camberwick Green
Posts: 179
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Quote:
It was all very confusing to me. Zoe wanted to charge the first lot to take the rubbish away Susan said we should have done it for free. Was there any mention of Susan wanting to pay for the removals which I missed?
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#22 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 555
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Quote:
Both the contractors were expecting to pay to have the rubbish cleared and that's what both teams were quoting on.
If Susan's idea to pay the contractor was such a great idea why didn't the other team think of it as well and why did Edna understand what was required? As has been pointed out Susan wouldn't have known what the other team quoted but in hindsight paying the contractor would have been one way of winning the contract but she only knew that once they were in the boardroom & that gave her the chance to be smug masking her real inadequacies. The truth of the matter was she didn't understand what was required because she was too busy moaning & whining about what Zoe was or wasn't doing. Totally disagree. I'm not convinced that she's a business genius but she was using her common sense. Doesn't matter what the 'rules' were or what the clients were expecting. It was about making money from rubbish and Susan's ideas were better than Zoe's. She didn't even read the guy's faces when they reacted to her offer. In the end it might have lost them the task because they wouldn't have focussed on the plumber's job if they had won both contracts. IMO that is irrelevant in this thread. Susan was right in relation to the pre-arranged contracts and didn't deserve to have her ideas dismissed in such a nasty way. |
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#23 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Aug 2008
Posts: 2,424
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Quote:
Well clearly you are completely wrong because if they did offer even £10 to the guy to clear it they would have secured both the deals. You cannot just expect to cart away valuable items that the owner knows you are going to make a few hundred quid off and always charge. Susan knew exactly what she was suggesting. It was clear from the owners facial expressions that the deal proposed by Zoe was no where near good enough.
The desks however should have been a no-brainer - they weren't rubbish as such - no throwing away costs, just working out how much you could make on selling them on. As others have said even if they'd offered £100 which is what Susan had in mind they'd have walked the task. In general the girls this year do not communicate very well together in my view. |
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#24 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 555
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Quote:
When they were quoting for the office furniture Susan thought they had to pay the contractor not the other way round.
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#25 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: London
Posts: 5,415
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Quote:
Both the contractors were expecting to pay to have the rubbish cleared and that's what both teams were quoting on.
If Susan's idea to pay the contractor was such a great idea why didn't the other team think of it as well and why did Edna understand what was required? As has been pointed out Susan wouldn't have known what the other team quoted but in hindsight paying the contractor would have been one way of winning the contract but she only knew that once they were in the boardroom & that gave her the chance to be smug masking her real inadequacies. The truth of the matter was she didn't understand what was required because she was too busy moaning & whining about what Zoe was or wasn't doing. Whenever there is 'bidding' task you never know what the other team bids. You have to anticipate, guess, and beat it using your instincts. If both teams were clued up, they would have realised they needed to bid a low as possible to beat the other team. So if the lowest bid wins, you obviously bid 'nothing' right? You can't beat 'free' can you? Game over, right? No, you can beat 'free' by giving the client money for his rubbish. Why would you ever do that? Because the rubbish is worth money and you can make a profit. To say it can't be the right thing because the other team didn't think of it is frankly a non-argument. The way you win tasks is by doing things the other team didn't think of! And to say Zoe was right because Edna agreed.. well... Like I said, Susan didn't arrive at her idea through tactics, she just naturally assumed they had to pay. However in this case her natural instinct was correct and they would have won the task if they'd listened to her. |
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