It means Susan has made a commitment and needs to deliver. There's no notion of blame.


You are assuming Susan actually did that in the few moments while Zoe approached. An assumption that makes Susan look good and Zoe look bad, but tells us most about your prejudice. (And there's the rolleyes again.)


You asked me what Susan could have done. I've answered. Now you want to twist the question. Sure, Zoe could have done them too, but Susan could have been proactive.


It seemed clear that Susan wasn't simply unlucky.


They stopped for Edna and Leon.


Since reviewing the figures, it seems to me there were. They need to sell about 1 unit an hour, and Edna is over that, and even Susan only 25% below. It doesn't seem to me to be that big deal. It would have been better if they had bought less product and not been left with, in effect, an £80 penalty, but it wasn't the meat of this task. It gets more attention than it really deserves, because of the conflict between Zoe and Susan.


Except that the task wasn't about selling product. Zoe seemed to know that when she was planning, in that she planned to sell out early.

I remember hearing that edna only sold nail varnish, not tanning products. It's frustrating because we don't know what the sale figures were. I do remember laughing my head off when Susan was explaining to a bald man how to tan his head after he purchased the product.

ROFLMAO!

And, I suppose it doesn't occur to you that you are making the exact opposite assumption.

The only difference is that we have evidence that Susan was battling away trying to attract potential customers whereas we have no evidence that she was slacking.

And if she had zoned out despondently I'm pretty sure the editors would have made damn sure we saw it!


I didn't twist the question. I was simply pointing out something fairly basic about the 'chain of command'. Had Zoe actually taken the trouble to ask Susan if she had any suggestions rather than just ranting at her she might have got some good feedback. Had Susan unilaterally started acting in contravention of the PM's instructions she would have been signing her own death warrant if it had gone wrong.

It's another danger of Sugar's capricious approach. Go against the PM's instructions and save the task and he'll congratulate you. Do the same and fail to save the task and you will be severely castigated, if not fired.


ROFLMAO. Yes, clear to anyone who doesn't understand the importance of sample size in judgements based on statistics.


Again, you completely fail to understand the absurdity - or at least irrelevance - of that comment given the tiny sample size.


LOL.

You can't really say that. It may not have been the most important element but if was fairly clear that the rules were that they had to try and sell product. If that wasn't in the rules then Zoe would have been even more at fault for allowing ther sales team to be sidetracked by an element that you claim the task was 'not about'.

No, that's not what the saying means. http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/...must+lie+on+it

Oh dear. Looks like Suralan is gonna have to make do with no Apprentice this year. None of them are hot, they all have slightly weird facial features. LOL.

It is very very obvious that she dislikes Susan. And making a complaint to HR about a PM belittling you in front of other staff is not 'frivolous'.

I don't think she dislikes her, rather, she finds her intensely annoying.


And when it's done in public even less so.

Unless there was more to what Susan said that was edited out, I'm not sure being there puts Karren at any advantage. If Susan only made the brief comment we saw, then she only saw and heard what we did.

Can't you get over this problem you have with the rolleyes? It's a smilie that's avaiable to use like all the others, and people can use it if they like.


Don't you think cutting prices or rearranging the team is a matter for the PM? Susan could certainly have suggested these things but she couldn't have just done them.


Did it? What made it seem clear?


Do you think Edna and Leon were stopping the same people that had just passed Susan by? We never saw this happen and it seems very unlikely.

Yes - especially seeing as she seemed to think that Zoe should have known how much money was in all the scrap goods etc. And she kept going on about it.

Not saying I liked what Zoe did to Susan either. But Susan is just soooooooo bloody irritating like an irritating fly you just wanna swat.

We only actually have Zoe's word for that. We didn't see it ourselves.

You cannot really glean any useful information from such a small sample size in the circumstances that obtained here.

In fact, you can't really get any idea of sales ability from the results of any TA task. There simply aren't enough 'tests' to overcome normal variance.

All you can realistically do is observe the technique of the candidates and make observations of those.

That really is sooo unfair.

Not just to Susan but to any contestant on TA, ever.

You simply cannot gauge sales levels in a situation like that. Had it been a different day with different people walking past they could have sold three times the product or one third. There's just no way of foretelling.

The correct way to handle such a situation is to construct a risk/reward table and base your judgement on that. But there's no way that TA would ever show us such workings by the candidates even though such calculations are absolutely fundamental to good business.

The programme is far too dumbed down to concern itself with the real capabilities required of a good business person.

I remember seeing her asking Zoe about it a couple of times though so I bet she did go on and on about it.

I feel bad but this year I really have taken a dislike to Susan - there's usually one that annoys me (just a bit) or frustrates me etc or maybe even 2 but Susan just TOTALLY WINDS ME UP!

Gosh and I don't even know her in person which is bad I know!

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but personally I like Susan. She seems gentle natured and an all round nice person.

That dictionary entry is consistent with my point, ie that it's not about blame.


It never helps an argument. It's inflammatory and patronising. He can use it and I can comment on it.


Bingo.


Her sales technique.[/quote]


No, of course not. Nevertheless, they were selling so people must have been stopping for them.

Not true.

The definition is that one must take responsibility for ones own actions. If you are blaming someone for not performing then the expression is reinforcing that blame.


Yes, but it's going to make you appear a wee bit neurotic.

(Actually, I think the problem is that I see it as a very mild - almost jokey - thing and other see it as more serious.)


And you know that she didn't how?

Were you there?


What exactly did we see of her sales technique that leads you to that conclusion. It seems to me that you have a pre conceived idea of the problem and you are just wildly trying to make out that there was evidence in the edit that backs you up.

There wasn't.


It's no good keep banging on about that.

The number of sales was so small that you cannot make any statistically valid inference based on them.

You need to understand something about sample size and confidence limits before you make such statements. Of course, if you did, you wouldn't make them.

I'm not sure you read the same entry I did. How is saying that Susan has to "suffer the consequences of what [she did]" not saying that Susan is to blame for the situation they're talking about?

I'm not claiming she didn't. You've moved the goalposts again.


What was in the programme.


Because it's not about blame. It's saying she created the situation, but it doesn't say she was mistaken to create the situation. There's a difference between what Helen is saying and what Zoe is saying. Zoe has a more positive spin. Helen does say Susan was wrong.

It's saying she created the situation and now has to suffer the consequences. That's apportioning blame.

I honestly can't believe you're going with the idea the Zoe didn't think Susan had made a mistake. She said so when Susan tried to persuade her to buy more product in the morning, and she said so the next day in the boardroom. Am I to believe that she changed her mind in the middle of the day and thought Susan was bang on the money, whilst telling Susan that she was going to suffer the consequences of the situation they were in, and then changed it back in the boardroom? Seems a little far-fetched.

Do the French like their children? Do many people drive in France?

Quote (Karen): "beyond stupid."

*facepalm*

TBF she did well on that task.

She can't be stupid if she went to UCL uni.

Susan was excellent today.

Mature, accepted Karren's criticism and led the team well.

Very impressed.

I have the feeling she isn't asking that questions specifically to anyone to get answers, but it's more a kind of 'thinking aloud' for her.

It wasn't relevant at all for anything in the task. Don't know why Karren made such a big thing out of it, but it says more about Karren than it does about Susan.

She probably did think Susan had made a mistake. The point is that when she gave Susan the pep talk, she didn't say it to Susan. She was more neutral. In general, her dealings with Susan have been measured and have avoided insults, swearing, undo criticism or value judgements. She's been impersonal.