If you think this is a business related programme I would have to say you are deluded. It's a TV entetainment show. The contestants are recruited because they want to be on TV to bolster their egos.

Yes, true, but in that instance the boss would expect the skeleton to be fully assembled before it is actually needed. I am not saying that no one would ever buy a disassembled skeleton at ALL.


I meant 'people thinking like lawyers looking for an ingenious loophole', as opposed to 'people thinking like someone trying to pass a task on The Apprentice'.

If someone can remember a time when someone has won a task because they thought of an ingenious loophole that the other team (and, critically, LS) had never imagined, I would be interested to hear it. On the whole, the interpretation demanded of the tasks is extremely literal. If they are asked to buy widgets from a designated warehouse and sell them on a market stall, that is exactly what they are expected to do, not find an amusing way of sourcing widgets from someone's aunt, who will let them have them for nothing.

So?


I gave you an example of the sort of situation you described, and it would not be hard to find others.


Why must it be seen as finding "an ingenious loophole" or "an amusing way of sourcing"?

Especially when you contrast it with "extremely literal". If anything, it would make more sense to charge Felipe with being too literal and going too much by the words rather than the probable intent.

Sugar doesn't like lawyers and so a lawyer will never win. He also can't stand anyone taking him on or thinking they can get one over him.

Depends who you are, and how well you do. He tends to mostly go for people who might not do as well without help as winners- with the exception of a few who were already successful, or ready for investment. A lot of other people who did the show have been noticed for other jobs. An awful lot are doing very well. Quite a few have managed to change career into carrers guidance,business education or public speaking. A few have made careers on TV, or as pundits. Fewer still have become full or part time media personalities. Some who looked pretty dumb, have done well - either because they proved better than the show suggested, or they have fooled other people. The most convincing candidates from series 1-6 tend to have the most substantial real world jobs. And, post series 7, there's been a significant number of candidates genuinely looking for money, pr publicity to get it, to set up a business - its just he's been more interested in keeping wide boys in , and uninterested in many fields proposals come in. There's relatively few complete dullards, or people thinking they are on big brother - more are just deluded.

Read the whole thread and the whole thing's pretty clear to me.

We saw the specs, and nothing from the show tallies with Sugar saying on Twitter that the candidates had more detailed instructions, or they would have known it was wrong from the off and the boardroom conversation would have been completely different.

The specs were simply a word or two short short of being clear, whoever designed the instructions messed up, and Sugar got a bee in his bonnet about it and/or wanted to sack Felipe.

The rope, the diamonds, the oil, the sink...all were jokes too.

I suppose you could argue that without assembly you wouldn't know if the cardboard one was correct as claimed on the box, not missing a piece, or whatnot, but Sugar hasn't - says it was the specs. Did he get two independent skeleton experts to check the plastic one? Don't think so! Same with the quality of the oil, diamond etc.

I agree that since the format change the show's a farce - it just isn't what it says on the tin (unlike the skeleton!). It's just that while at first it took a while to see it and some 'old style' candidates still took part, but that's slowed to a dribble now (I think Tom winning simply on his product really accelerated that).

Out of the 20 there were really only half a dozen or so that would have fitted on the show 'proper' for me - five left that spring to mind are Katie, Noirin, Bianca, Daniel and Mark (two not very competent imo mind, and not saying I like the last two!). There may have been more who we didn't really see enough of because they left so early.

Margaret got out at the right time!

The last couple of series I've watched just as pure entertainment and, I think, habit, it's more that type of show now particularly for the cock-ups and cringey bits.

But added to the poor, padded line up, the tasks this year are both embarrassingly slapdash, particularly unrealistic, and arbitrary imo, and the 'reality' veneer blown to bits. Personally I think the worst was the coach tour, but this is Sugar's biggest cock-up I reckon.

But I digress rather perhaps!

While I appreciate that Felipe is a very good and charitable man, if that was Felipe's idea then it just proves that he is not an entrepeneur

Awwww poor Felipe. He looked SO NICE and had good father vibes but man Sugar wouldn't appreciate it

The post you quoted gives no indication of what his idea actually was! There could be many entrepreneurial ideas related to disability and health.

No, I'm not deluded and it most certainly is a business-related programme. The tasks are intended to be simulations (albeit fairly loose ones) of business activities testing some fundamental business skills, and there is a business-related prize at the end of it. Is that not business-related enough for you?

No one's saying we have the best and the brightest business minds on the show - even the narrator doesn't even peddle that any more! - and I'm certainly not denying it's as much about entertainment as anything. It's certainly not a business show, but to say it isn't business-related is, to use your word, deluded.

Well said.

It's interesting how many people there are around spouting off their opinions as facts without any sources, isn't it? Personally, I try to always say where I got whatever information I am quoting from, how confident I am of its accuracy and to specify when something is just my belief without a particular source. I don't see how anyone can say what a candidate's intention is - we can only guess on that front. Even Katie Hopkins potentially could have been genuinely interested in a job; I sincerely doubt it, but we can't say anything for certain.

Yeah, we've had vaguely similar discussions along these lines before, haven't we? To be honest, I don't doubt that some candidates are in it for the fame more than the propsect of winning, but that's just par for the course for a reality format and even the more serious Dragons Den has started to go that way in recent series. But that doesn't make it invalid as a business-related or themed competition.

Every contest has its also-rans, whether it is TV, sport or life in general. Eddie 'the Eagle' Edwards or Eric 'the Eel' Moussambani or Trevor 'the Tortoise' Misapeka didn't invalidate the concept of Olympic or World Championship competition.

I still think TA remains a business-related, entertainment-based concept. (We've had the discussion recently about the balance between business and entertainment, haven't we?) The standards may not be what they once were, but it's still what it always was - a reality concept based around business principles with a genuine business prize at the end, rather than a luxury family holiday or the coveted Pointless trophy ...

As for facts without sources, it's very easy to believe that a firmly held opinion is fact and that someone else's firmly held opinion is fiction. But the argument about the merits of professional journalism/old media versus citizen journalism/social media is one for another day!

So if we know this, isn't it a bit silly for a candidate to find a way of "getting one over on him" as a means of ingratiating himself.

Exactly the argument I've been making for the past few days! Apparently without convincing anyone that this is a superior argument to "it should be fine because it was *technically* correct".

When in doubt, make friends and influence prospective employers by making them look a complete ninny ...

Frame the argument differently. Imagine seeing a skeleton, anatomically correct, over 150cm, going for £18.00. Would you rather be the candidate who said, "Brilliant, great saving, let's buy that," or the one who went, "Yes, it matches all the specifications, but let's wait and see if we can find a more expensive one somewhere else and get a discount on that?"

Or, if you want another way to put it, "Knowing what we know about our customer, Lord Sugar, which decision is more likely to please him and what are the upsides and downsides of taking this option?"

We can speculate and reframe all we like, but the only question that really matters is whether Sugar was likely to be happy. As I've said, I think Felipe's case would have been stronger if he had managed to assemble the skeleton for the boardroom - as it was, he delivered something that did not meet the customer's wishes.

Of course, in real life (which this isn't) anyone with half a brain cell would have picked up the phone and called the customer for clarification. As it was, they had to guess. But my take on it while watching the episode live was that Sugar doesn't like smartarses and this is how it was likely to be perceived on a task which was supposed to be about negotiation. (Yes, I know it ends up being about fines and timing and a lot of luck, but that's the principle of the task.) It's a judgement call, yes, but pointing to the rule book and saying "well, it meets the spec" to a customer isn't the argument of a mature businessperson.

What Felipe did is like a candidate going to a job interview and showing how clever he is to his prospective boss by reinterpreting the rules of the application process in a way that potentially makes them look a bit silly. It shows initiative but it isn't going to get you the job, is it?

I'm always happy to listen to a convincing argument - I've just yet to see one on this particular topic.

I do get the impression there are a lot of extra conditions about the scavenger hunts. Just think of all the clever things they don't do. They may, for example, telephone a library and ask what something is (I have forgotten who did that in a previous series, but it was seen as a clever move). But they may obviously not telephone anyone and ask them to source something online. It was never explained, unless I missed it, how the Oud-in-a-flat was sourced, but it can't have been because one of them rang a friend and asked him to move like lightning through google. They are obviously not allowed to promise someone that they will get a free plug on The Apprentice if they give them a stupendous deal, though presumably this might happen without them explicitly saying it. Presumably they are not allowed to cheat: to put olive oil in a little bottle, then print up a label saying Oud. I get the impression that they have a target price in mind before they start. It is difficult to hair-split about the terms and conditions of the task without seeing them.


I don't suppose there is anything new to say about the actual skeleton, after two long threads. I still stick by my belief that they should have read Lord Sugar, and known, as I did, that he would never accept anything that didn't look remotely like a skeleton.

I agree that there was a jokey element to the task. It is, after all, an entertainment programme. Someone thought it would be funny to tell them to find a meter of old rope, and the kitchen sink (in the hope of inspiring 'everything but the kitchen sink' jokes).

Aside from the skeleton, i also thought the diamond aspect was more to do with luck than anything else.

Had the teams arranged to meet diamond dealers and had gotten the other one the outcome wouldve been different. Roisins diamond was a lot cheaper to start with than the other one. It wasnt just her skills that helped them win, but that her dealer gave a cheaper price and was flexible. You could tell nothing was going to work on the other man.

Had they both either gone to the same dealer then you could compare, likewise if they had both gone to seperate dealers but they were either both unflexible on price, or both very flexible then you could compare them.

That was Zara in YA2 (though there was argument in the boardroom about whether it was she or Harry M who suggested that - watching it, I am entirely happy with Zara having credit for it). Interestingly, that has never happened since, which makes me wonder if that has now been banned - although it may just as easily not have come up, especially given the circumstances ever since. There wasn't a scavenger hunt task in Series 8, in Series 9 they were in Dubai so that tactic was harder to do, and this year there didn't seem to be any issues with knowing what any of the items were. So the only time that it may have been suggested was in YA3, and maybe they'd just forgotten what Zara did.

Don't think its an issue of smart arses .From linkedin, Felipe has a first in his first degree and a distinction in his postgraduate law degree.If he tells you it meets the specifications, for all business or legal; purposes , it probably does. A contract that legally doesn't say what you think. doesn't say what you think for any real world purpose. The thing they produced was useable for teaching, or visual purposes, assembled was not specified, and other materials than bone were not excluded.

Lord Sugar has virtually no education and it shows when he assumes things mean whatever he thinks they obvioulsy mean.A levels should weed people who think like that out. He doesn't allow for different interpretations, and he doesn't get into ensuring his task specs actually serve their purpose. Felipe is hardly the first person he's sent home because he thought they were too smart for him, made him feel uneasy, or he couldn't understand an argument.

You can't run tasks on the basis that the meaning is clear - even if the rules have been written by a TV team with media degrees, and the rules are vague. You can't then fire someone for willfully stretching what was there, and then claim that things were clearly specified . If it was specified, you sack them for not reading the specification, not for not doing the obvious. You also can't do what he did back in series 2 , which was to assume ,on no evidence presented, why some people had ignored what was written.

True, and its difficult to believe that a diamond offered to one team - at much less than the initial asking price for the other team - was of equal quality.

Its also unknown what happened with the oud. If Katie and Mark could find an online source, why didn't the other team? If they both had access to the internet why didn't the other team find him? If they both had access to the internet, why did no one find the skeletons there at half the price? If they don't have access to the internet, and the oud seller was in a printed source they had - why did the other team not see the same source? There's clearly not going to be a long list of oud sellers on their list.

You just wonder what they can do? Can they phone around as they used to. Can they bargain and research prices on the phone? Or do they just get taken, or led to, one supplier, or are given a selected few to pick from? In which case, its all a bit of a nonsense - because where you are taken dictates how good a deal you can get.

I'm pretty sure the oud seller was listed in one of the business directories, that he was principly an on-line seller was by-the-by. They were lucky to spot him and realise that he might sell oud and also that he was able to meet them.

Pretty sure they're allowed to find their own suppliers. If they weren't, Sanjay wouldn't have needed to waste two hours on planning the task. Not to mention that Karren's main criticism of Roisin was that she was calling diamond suppliers all over London, instead of listening to Bianca's advice on where to find the best deal.

But when the first team went to the scrapyard for the sink they tried to get the owner to agree that he wouldn't give the other team a discount.

They seemed to know, or at least be sure, that the other team would go to exactly the same place?

Both teams seem to use the same source quite a lot in this task, seems too coincidental to me tbh.

Yeah, I knew about Felipe's qualifications - I've mentioned them on the forum somewhere before - but him being smart is nothing to do with being a smartarse. The main point is that at no point did Felipe consider whether what he was buying was what Sugar might actually want (on the basis that the customer is always right). Instead he was concerned with it being *technically* right (which it was, I don't deny that). But if a supplier turns up at a customer with something he doesn't want and tries the defence that "well, it's what you asked for", he won't get very far.

Of course, in the real world - which this isn't - you'd phone the customer to check first. Instead Felipe used his judgement and to my eyes made the wrong call. If someone did that to me in my job, I'd have been as livid as Sugar was.

I accept that many people see it differently on the basis that "it wasn't fair", but in the real world - where the series winner will have to operate - you don't always get clear instructions. You have to use your head and make good judgements - you can't cry foul after the fact. Felipe, to my mind, simply didn't do that.