It really stood out to me this week in the boardroom. I was reading the thread about the earlier seasons of The Apprentice where Alan Sugar let the candidates speak for themselves and actually defend themselves before offering judgements. With superior experience and in the mold of a mentor, that Alan Sugar seemed to offer blunt, but fair, constructive criticism.

This week (for example) he speaks over Selina and Ruth multiple times, and when they try and defend themselves or frame things professionally, "I'm sorry I came across that way" or "I'm sorry you see it that way" - trying to accept the feedback while also explaining that it wasn't a deliberate attempt to be useless - he flat-out tells them that they are wrong, and in what I felt was quite a bullying manner, basically tells them that they are useless.

He has Ruth's CV in front of him. He himself says to her that she specialises in telesales. She explains that she used a particular technique, based on what she does in that role, here in a face-to-face setting and he basically treats her like an imbecile.

These are not children and he is not their parent or teacher. He may be the boss, but everyone here is an adult and a business owner themself who has experience of working in professional settings in a professional manner. I just feel that the way he treats people - whether it's for the TV show or for drama or whatever - is unprofessional at times. These are people thrown into tasks and roles they haven't worked before. They should be allowed to at least explain their reasoning behind their behaviour without a bigshot and his cronies sitting opposite sniggering at them and putting them down and making snide remarks about why they would ever think a particular technique would work. It left a poor taste in my mouth.

As we only see a clipped version of a longer event it is impossible to make a judgement.

What is multiple times? Does it mean the same as many times?

I agree with the original poster.

I thought the most unfair thing was when he suggested that Selina's achievements in Dubai were about as impressive as earning a tenner. I don't even like Selina very much, but I was proud of her when she stood up for herself and told him her figures. He should know that anyway, it's presumably on her CV. To be honest, it made me have a little more sympathy for her than I had had up until now.

He knows a lot more about the contestants than we do. Selina is a podium dancer and by Dubai terms what she makes is peanuts. She is imo a stroppy-self obsessed person.

After this evening's episode showed Selina having a boardroom disagreement with Karren Brady and Claude Littner, the contestant tweeted to say she wouldn't be appearing on spinoff You're Fired when her time comes to leave the series.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s108/...-the-show.html

Ok I'm going to address the situation tonight: Karren was clearly jealous of my dress and Claude of my hair

From her Twitter.

The first point is irrelevant, the second leaves me wondering why we haven't all set up business in Dubai if earning >£300,000 is so easy? It doesn't give anyone the right to be rude and demeaning of people's achievements.

Nevertheless, she's not exactly covering herself in glory with the tweets.

She has not earned £300 000 that is her turnover figure. And we only have her word for it.

She has received a verbal warning for her unacceptable behaviour.

http://www.standard.co.uk/stayingin/...-a3099821.html

All the same, it's a pretty impressive figure and is probably more than the majority of the other candidates in the process have earnt. By your logic we only have Ruth's word that she's a sales trainer or Richard's word that he runs a digital marketing agency Should she be publishing her accounts on the show for the viewers at home?

Lord Sugar has always been grumpy and rude, it's part of who he is and what viewers expect. It might be a little more noticeable now at times, but generally I prefer his bluntness to the wishy washy BS that the contestants spew out.

Lol, Selina is deluded. Karen jealous of her dress and Claude jealous of her hair? More likely they just think she's an asshat!

Also not relevant to the point of the article. She might be a thoroughly unpleasant person at times, but this wasn't shown in such a way that it should be seen as acceptable for Sugar to put her achievements on a par with selling a fivers worth of goods.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

We only have their word for all of what they claim. The finals interviews prove that a lot of what they have said is utter garbage or complete phantasy.

Sugar did not dispute the fact that she'd brought in £300k revenue though - which you'd imagine he would if it was incorrect. He simply dismissed it as if the information was like a crusted child's drawing. There are ways of talking to people and as the OP has alluded to, Sugar seems to have forgotten this.

I thought the way he fired Ruth seemed very abrupt, of course it was probably the way it was edited but it still seemed like he'd just got fed up thinking about it and chose Ruth.


So we know she doesn't win then.

I've just realised that these days, Lord Sugar doesn't even ask the candidates who should be fired or why it shouldn't be them. I'm not quite sure when he stopped doing that, but I recall it being a staple part of every boardroom as recently as three years ago. Maybe that's why he has less appeal than he once did. In the past, it seemed like he was genuinely interested in what they had to say, and only made up his mind about who to fire based on all of their accounts of the task. It was interesting - you'd have no idea who was going, because boardroom performance could make all the difference. These days, it seems like a lot of the time, the decision has pretty much been made right from the point where the three final people are brought back. (The one exception to that this series has been Elle - Lord Sugar said at the end that he was thinking about firing her, but she defended herself well enough to be given a second chance. A brief flashback to something that was once a regular occurrence.)

I'm not even sure what the point of the boardroom is if Lord Sugar isn't really listening to what the candidates say. They may as well cut it, show us more of a chance and just have him telling them who's been fired in the last five minutes.

Has LS sworn before last night,he probably has but can't think of any moments off hand

I think it's fine to tell candidates off but making fun of their approach or achievements is crossing a line, I think. Ultimately, he wasn't there and he isn't even any more the boss.

The firing of Ruth here is similar to that film girl - was it Ella Jade in the last series. If Ruth worked in telesales and here, struggled to sell glorified cat baskets face to face, that's not exactly the same task. Ella Jade, I recall, was slammed for not being able to do some aspect of filmmaking that was completely unrelated to the area she was planning a business in.

How would Alan Sugar himself have fared being told to bring his hard-line market trader selling style to a completely different medium? Would he have been laughed at by his boss, ridiculed, and fired on the first day for failing to adapt, just because his background was already in sales? Or would his manager have offered some constructive criticism and advice on how to do better the next day?

My take is that he has become less credible series on series, playing up to the cameras and probably following the producer's will to make "good TV" rather than staying true to himself and his values.

There's also been a fair few cases over the years where I felt he was deliberately keeping in a "joke" contestant, X-Factor style, longer than they should be, because it makes for "good TV".

It's just an entertainment show, that's it. For me, it stopped being about business a very long time ago.

He asked Dan in Week 1 and Ruth last night. But yes, I miss when it was a staple part of the boardroom.

To the point, I did feel what he said to Selina was so disrespectful. Perhaps it's time for Lord Sugar to be fired.

Looks like it, very bad form of her imo. What a spiteful thing to do.
I like her even less after seeing this.

I thought Sugar was right to give her the verbals. She brought up the 300k Dubai turnover first. Sugar was only pointing out the obvious - it doesn't mean whole lot as she could be spending £299,990 of that on the events themselves and only making a tenner profit.

It looked to me that she was trying to leverage her business idea against her awful behaviour in persuading Sugar to keep her. That probably really annoyed him so he dismissed her "achievements" out of hand. Her inability to take a b8llocking without scowling like a spoiled child marks her out as not suited to business imo.

He has always been an ignorant bully barrow boy and not even a pretendy faux title will change who he really is at heart, he was and still is a purveyor of tat.

Frankly the contestants need to stop allowing him to talk to them like they were dirt, I would not accept it from my boss who would be told in brutal language where to shove his nastiness.

As for that Brady idiot, she is no better than sugar, she reminds me of the makeup caked chavs of my teen years trying hard to look cool and impress when all they really are is sad,shallow and tragic.

If the contestants did that they'd be fired on the spot, i remember Debra getting a dressing down & nearly getting fired in the boardroom from LS for talking back at Nick

Interesting that profit figure wasn't given which would determine the actual health of the company. Selena (and/or investors) could of spent £500,000 thus making a loss. We can't tell anything from turnover alone.

Back on the thread topic I think Sugar has always been rude to the candidates. Remember when he said suggested pulling down someones trousers to check if they were Jewish?

He must have different scriptwriters this time. It's all down to whoever is spoon-feeding him his ideas and lines.

I think it's absolutely necessary. I also like how when the PM chooses who they're bringing in, there's no chance of getting out anymore. LS will just say "well you can speak later in the boardroom" or something of the like.

And boasting about REVENUE a start up makes it only half the story, as others have mentioned profit is key.

Those scriptwriters must have been having a right giggle with that link between Sam Johnson and pet shows.

I would SO love to see a contestant telling LS as they got up from the table that they were more than happy to go whether he fired them or not - because he'd shown them by his bullying that HE wasn't good enough to work with them anyway.

Nasty man, and equally nasty "advisors".