Only if they managed to sell it otherwise they would have had to pay to dispose it.
No doubt that would have caused another argument as Susan would have found another reason to try and undermind Zoe & scupper the task.

But like the expert said on Youre Fired ..... thats not what he told them to do and thats not what he would have done. He always charges.

Basically they got lucky ..... but its no way to run a business, so Susan clearly DID misunderstand and only after she got lucky tried to claim the credit.

Could you be any more condescending?

I'm fully aware of how bidding for a contract works my point is that Susan didn't grasp it until it was explained to her.

The expert gave them tips and advice only.

In the context of winning the task (and general business sense) paying for the desks would have been the winning move,

You can always find people who will buy good-quality office furniture.


And like he also said you have to assess every job on its own merits. Offering a small sum to take away a load of old office furniture that you can sell on for more is not a bad strategy.


They didn't get lucky with the furniture, they knew they had a valuable resource. It was more hit and miss with the pub rubbish, but it still wasn't luck, they determined that the valuable junk was more than enough to offset the costs of dumping the rest of the rubbish - and they were right.

As for it being no way to run a business, I'll refer you to my earlier post, describing how the last time the company I work for cleared a warehouse without charge we netted in excess of £60,000 profit. That's pretty good for 2 days work.

The team had no clue whatsoever that someone would buy the desks but they could see that there was work in moving them. It was luck.

When Zoe said on the 2nd job that they should charge £100 ..... Susan clearly said 'I think it should be more.' Then when it finally dawned on her she admitted 'Oh I thought we were paying HIM to take the stuff away.'

Nowhere in that statement did she say 'Oh we should offer him £150 because there is at least £300 worth of stuff here we can sell.'

Also if they had have given him £150, its doubtful they would have made enough from any sales to even recoup the cost, which means all that time that could have been spent elsewhere earning money was lost.

Face it, Susan was clueless, then pretended she knew all along. She clearly didnt understand the fundamental concept of what they were doing.

Neither of the teams had any clue about anything. And neither should they have been expected to have.

From the POV of who won the task it was ridiculous. From the POV of how they attacked it, less so.

^ This!

The line that sums it up for me was when Susan said 'Oh so I was right all along' with complete surprise in her voice.

If she had known she was right all along, she would never have uttered that statement ....... but the way she said it clearly showed she stumbled on the 'right' (which is debatable since her method wouldnt have had her doing the work for free but GIVING the man £150 - how is that to applauded, that her bid was going to be £150 MORE than the other team?) answer.

You can't give credit to someone because they lucked out .... at least for all Zoes flaws she was more on track with what the task required, she just didnt give enough thought to how much the other team might undercut her.

There's always people who will buy good quality furniture. Not luck at all.

I mean, really, look at what you're saying here. The team got good-quality merchandise for free and then sold it on, and thereby made a profit. You're calling this luck. It's not luck, it's business.


It would have secured them the contract, and made them £150 profit. This would have been a good thing.

Jesus I've been facepalming whilst reading this thread all morning.

No-one has said that Susan came up with the idea of paying for the desks as a clever negotiating tactic. I said at the start that she just came out with it based on her instincts. In her mind, it was obvious that they were meant to pay him for all that stuff in front of them, and it turned out her instincts were right,

The point is that Susan's 'accidental' idea happened to be the tactic that they *should* have used, had they been on the ball and thought tactically.

The idea of paying for the desks was not stupid, and not wrong. It would have won them the task. LS confirmed this in the boardroom.

The task was one at the margin - they didn't know the industry and were taking a flyer on whether they could sort and sell enough to make a profit. both teams did and both teams could have done better. if somebody says that you can take £300 of copper if you clear some other rubbish for free, then you are being paid £300 IF you can sell it. if you don't know how much you can make on the salvage, you risk getting it wrong every time - the teams both did OK, but could have improved their terms. Susan just started out seeing is as buying reclamation and shifting for that reward, whereas others worked on the assumption that the businesses didn't know that the refuse was capable of being salvage.

they must have been told that cars were not allowed...

I think Susan's 'idea' was based on her misunderstanding of the task. Although, saying that, if the team understood the principles and THEN decided to pay to take away the office furnitute, based on its resale value, then that would have been as risky (but successful!) a strategy as the other team doing it for free.

I am reminded of Chris from last season mistakenly agreeing a % of ALL profits from tickets (tour bus task), instead of only those sold by the ticket agency, and then saying it was his strategy all along

Ok ... Your all going to shout at me... in a minute so *hides under pillow while typing*
Susan was right (imo) because all the chairs and desks and office equipment were in good condition and could easily fetch money... even if they paid 50 for it... they would have got money back and made a profit so she did have the right idea.

*runs away*

Well of course he always charges, but unlike the Apprentice candidates, he lives in the real world, and has to pay for trucks, fuel, and staff wages. And maybe storage too, even if the furniture is just brought back to his depot that he has anyway for a few days, it's still a cost. In that case he loses even more money on the furniture because it costs money (in staff wages) to unload the furniture into his depot and load it back on a truck again a few days later.

In the real world I had an office full of nice, matching, quite new furniture and I literally couldn't give it away, I had to arrange to pay a company to come and take it away.

Unless the furniture is rare or antique stuff it really isn't worth it, it being worth £50 is a waste of time, it's big and heavy and it will always cost more than that to shift it around. In the real world, not Apprentice Fantasy Land.

So because Susan had the right 'instincts' she should be praised? How do you define 'instinct' and how do you define 'luck'?

I once was in Berlin and caught a train to Frankfurt. Now there are two Frankfurts in Germany unbeknownst to me. So an hour into the journey I was talking to the guy next to me and he said 'You are going to the right Frankfurt aren't you?' Frantic, I quickly checked my map, checked where the train was going and determined I was in fact heading to the right Frankfurt. Phew!!

Should I give credit to my 'instincts' for jumping on the correct train? Or was it just dumb luck, whereby once finding out I was on the right train I could have said 'Oh yeah I knew it was the right train all along.'

I like Susan and find her entertaining but I don't know how she has survived so long.

When she was sitting in the car and saying, So I wasn't wrong, to me, she looked really smug and a bit " i told you so". Ironic, as she was wrong - they had just been undercut by the other team.

Although I was impressed by Susan when negotiating the copper cylinders as payment for the removal of the rubbish on one of the jobs.

You are correct. There was nothing wrong with suggesting to pay for the desks and chairs.

OK lets try a different tack. Lets compare Susan to Helen.

Helen specifically stated that she believed the items they were removing had value and they could resell them and that it was worth doing the job for free. She acknowledged this was a risky strategy. So whatever the outcome, you could see her thought process, you could see she knew it was a risky strategy but at least she had a vision and a path to follow.

Compare and contrast to Susan who said they should just pay the guy £150 to remove the stuff. No rhyme or reason ..... no 'Well I believe we have £300 worth of goods here.' No ..... well I think the other team may well offer to give him £140 so we should make the offer more lucrative.

There was absolutely no rhyme or reason behind her thought process and to praise her, well you should be face palming yourself mate.

Does this whole debate remind anyone else of Chris's "wonderful" deal last year on the London Bus tour task - where he gave the tourist office a staggeringly good deal and won their contract. It was made out to be a great intuitive move in the Board room ( and basically secured his way to the final) rather than the accident and lucky break that it actually was.
Susan claiming that she was right all along is in the same category.

Yes, I said that earlier - completely agree!

But she would only have suggested that on the basis that it was obvious to her that there was a re-sell value - the desks weren't rubbish. Was she suggesting giving the guy £150 just to take them down to the dump for him? It was such a no-brainer that it was worth doing for free or a small fee it barely merits discussion except that Zoe lacked even the most basic acumen to realise it - there are no rules out in the real world. Its a bit like you've got a year old sofa at home you want to get rid of - would you put an add in the local paper offering someone £100 to take it away?

I don't completely agree... what Chris did was plain stupid... whereas in this case the equipment was in great condition it could easily fetch money... its not like she said the same thing about paying the other guys ( the other people that LS lined up) to remove their trash...