It just struck me as a needless pop.

We can all comment on what we see on the screen.

Sure, we can. But if you decide to post your opinion on a forum, especially in a way that implies that your opinion is the be all & end all, then people are going to call you on it. (I'm using the general 'you', btw; I know you aren't the OP.)

True, and the same goes for all of us.

Yup, Dave has it all - business nous, a hot girlfriend and an internet connection. I want him to father my children.


Right... but most people aren't putting forth their opinion in a smug, arrogant manner.

Sorry but it isn't supposition that she got in a car with her sub team and went to Mayfair to buy a hat and a specialist retail shop in Covent Garden to buy tea . Whatever she said earlier on about the East End being the cheapest area to look, she (the PM who makes the final decision) did not follow up her own initial comment. We didn't see who in that group told the driver to go where he dropped them off but it is supposition to say, as you do, that her team members didn't follow her instructions when she is leading that sub-team as well as the project as a whole. It is not an unsupported supposition to assert that she (being present as the project manager to make it very clear to you!) must have at the very least agreed to go to Mayfair!

That is a subjective matter and open to debate.

It is supposition because by the time they get in the taxi the research has been done and if the team ignored her instructions and picked central locations it was too late to do anything about it.

We have direct evidence that she told them to look further East and we have direct evidence that the results they came up with did not honour that instruction.

Anything else is filling in the gaps with supposition.

If it's subjective, it's not up for debate. I find him arrogant, you don't, that's not something I would debate about, TBH because that's my view.

Actually, if you watch the programme, the tea 'research' was not done before they got in the taxis - the tea was one of the two items they mention sourced later. We see footage of the blonde girl sitting in the taxi next to Susan making the call to the Rare Tea Co to set up the appointment as Susan congratulates her - Susan has the Yellow Pages on her lap! Susan also pushes the final purchase as the other two say "Is this a good idea?"

Yes, but they were looking for tea suppliers in their current location because they were short of time. Had the rest of the team looked further East, as they were told to do, they would have been in a different location and would have been looking at different suppliers. So the failure of the rest of the team to follow instructions had a follow on effect when trying to source the tea.

It is something that is perfectly open to debate.

You have your opinion, you have made an assumption about mine. I have never stated how I find the persons opinions but if you want to make assumptions don't let me stop you ?

Nope, it's really not.

He doesn't mean that the fact that it's your opinion is open to debate he means the facts of Jim's personality are open to debate and that must be true.

Precisely Jepson.

No different to discussing politics. People with entrenched views debate not to change each others minds but to influence others.

You really are desperate to justify this girl aren't you? Susan has a lot going for her but I'm genuinely puzzled why everyone is prepared to overlook her obvious mistakes. She is allowed to complain no one listens to her even when she is in charge!
[ps - St James is in the West End; The Rare Tea Company in NW1 - there are any number of retailers selling camomile tea (never mind wholesalers!) in Camden within a stone's throw of NW1 should Susan have chosen to direct her team that way. There's nothing magical about 'the East' as you keep referring to it! parts of east London are actually very much pricier than North and South]

I was talking about a DS poster, not Jim...

Point still applies.

HTH.

Oh, the irony.

Please reply to my PM xx

As did that.

Strange you were busy telling us that as boss people would do what she says, but actually when she's not the PM everyone ignores her ....... when she is the PM everyone ignores her ......... so tell me again how we should ignore all this evidence and just write her a blank cheque and say 'Hey blow a quarter of a million on a business in which no one will listen to you.'

If I am it's only because she has been subjected to a great deal of unwarranted opprobrium from some.


She isn't perfect by any means but a lot of her problems are down to her age and would be likely to affect anyone of that age. The producers should be aware that 21 y/o graduates are going to find the environment of the programme particularly difficult (because their main experience is in education where they are not really in competition with their peer group and generally have to defer - in a work sense - to those older than themselves (i.e. lecturers). If they feel that they cannot make reasonable allowance for that handicap then they should not select such young candidates.


Well, that would be the time that the complaint would have most validity!


I refer to the East[ern part of London] because that is where she specified. You can't expect all candidates to have a working knowledge all areas of London but you can expect anyone to realise that the central area is going to be the most expensive. That is the salient point and she nailed that.

I'll concede that she may have fouled up the tea section of the task but we really don't have enough information one way or another. If the 'correct' price for that tea was well known we could be harder on her but if it was it is unlikely that the woman selling would have come up with such an outrageous price.

So when she wins the Apprentice, Sugar is going to put the business on hold until she 'grows up'????

You are completely wrong. The producers shouldnt make any allowances, if she isnt big enough to play in the deep end of the pool then she shouldnt have applied.

Can you not understand the fundamental difference between how people treat the instructions of someone who has no influence over their life other than being a PM for a day or two and people who accept employment form someone and are reliant on them for their career progression - not to mention their continuing income?

If human working relationships in the real world were anything like what happened on TA tasks we'd still be struggling to get past a simple agrarian economy.

That should be in spoiler tags.

As I said above, you need to understand the difference between people doint TA tasks and people operating in the real world.

On a TA task you can chance ignoring your manager. Do that too often in the real, working, world and you will be looking at a P45.


But she is big enough to play in the deep end.

That's why she's got more than half way through the process and she's still there whilst eight other older and more experienced candidates have gone.

The only real problem is actually not on the programme, it's here where a small selection of posters have nothing better to do than whine and mewl about every aspect of her performance.