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The Apprentice 25/11/15 - PArty Planners


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Old 27-11-2015, 13:47
Thrombin
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If the basic fee was £2000 and neither team received £2000 how could either have been said to have won?
If the winning team had made a loss there might be a case for calling both teams losers but, since both teams made a profit I don't see that this is particularly different in principle than any other task in which the biggest profit wins.
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Old 27-11-2015, 15:02
The_Bonobo
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If the winning team had made a loss there might be a case for calling both teams losers but, since both teams made a profit I don't see that this is particularly different in principle than any other task in which the biggest profit wins.
But you have to factor in how different businesses work. If you are selling tat on a market stall you can maybe get away with things and just count your profits knowing another sucker will come along who has no idea about your previous dealings. This type of business is not just about profit but also getting more business due to word of mouth or positive reviews. If the clients want a large refund and are fundamentally unhappy you have failed regardless of whether you made money because you would find it difficult to get much more work. I was disappointed that the show didn't focus on that as it is exactly the business lesson component of the show they constantly claim is there. I would also query how realistic it is that a novice company could charge £2000 anyway. That figure probably benefited from association with the show. It is not hard to imagine that the parents of both kids would begrudge paying £1000 for what they got in a real life situation, which would result in losses for both teams (and poor reviews). Regardless, given that both team leaders have experience in the field or a desire to work in it I would say this is one of the times when both teams clearly failed.
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Old 27-11-2015, 20:09
Sammy2
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When Karren and Claude began announcing the sales figures, it was immediately clear that Selina's team had won because we still hadn't seen the "try not to poison your client" line from Alan Sugar that was shown in the trailer from the previous week... (and this remark obviously applied to Gary's team)

That said, I think I've previously seen lines in trailers that weren't shown in the actual episode Such as the football stadium manager saying "How did you come to that [figure] ?" during the cleaning task a few weeks ago (but I might be wrong)
I remember a "We painted over someone's cat!?" trailer for the Handymen task but don't remember it in the episode
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Old 27-11-2015, 21:42
bookerg
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I remember a "We painted over someone's cat!?" trailer for the Handymen task but don't remember it in the episode
If I remember rightly, the quote was taken out of context - in the episode itself, I seem to remember Richard saying something along the lines of "I don't want a phone-call from the other team saying: 'We've painted over someone's cat' " (the first part was deliberately cut out in the trailer to make it sound like somebody had actually painted over a cat !)
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Old 27-11-2015, 22:03
Sammy2
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If I remember rightly, the quote was taken out of context - in the episode itself, I seem to remember Richard saying something along the lines of "I don't want a phone-call from the other team saying: 'We've painted over someone's cat' " (the first part was deliberately cut out in the trailer to make it sound like somebody had actually painted over a cat !)
Ah thanks for clearing that up for me
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Old 28-11-2015, 02:01
JaneFinn
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The problem was not that they had used chocolate spread that "may contain nuts". Given that the child had asked for a chocolate cake and that pretty much all chocolate spreads you can buy have the disclaimer "may contain nuts" just to cover themselves, that was fairly unavoidable. The problem was the way in which this was communicated to the client. The client was told that the spread used on the cake may contain nuts but was left uncertain whether it may actually have been a nut-based spread like Nutella. Until that could be confirmed one way or the other the mother was left sitting on the side-lines, unable to participate at all, until the exact nature of the spread could be determined.

She probably never intended to eat the cake and it eventually it turned out that it was the usual disclaimer which meant that she could actually be at the party after all but, in the meantime, due to the uncertainty with which she had been left with, she had been subjected to a fair amount of stress which could easily have been avoided if the nature of the spread had been communicated clearly and unequivocally from the start. It was the communication that was at fault and that's a fair thing for the candidates to be tested on.
Ahh! That makes a lot of sense. Thanks, Thrombin! Im hoping I'll manage to actually watch the episode tomorrow. Reading this thread, i feel like I've already cringed through some of its horrors already
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Old 01-12-2015, 01:43
frost
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Gary made the same decision Sugar did - he couldn't decide on the cake team. Gary had an impossible choice. Sugar avoided it.
Nah, he should have said he'd bring all three back in with him. the t-shirt guy because he messed up and cost them a lot of money and the cakes guys had said it was completely 50/50 with them. I have no doubt that Sugar would have accepted that reasoning.

In the end they used a Cadbury's Choc spread which said "May contain traces of nut".
I think it came down to the them not communicating this well enough, which lead to the wife having no confidence in them and staying awy out of concern due to her allegy.
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Old 01-12-2015, 13:03
MrsWatermelon
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But you have to factor in how different businesses work. If you are selling tat on a market stall you can maybe get away with things and just count your profits knowing another sucker will come along who has no idea about your previous dealings. This type of business is not just about profit but also getting more business due to word of mouth or positive reviews (snip)...
You've described the problem with most of the tasks but it all comes down to Sugar's ineptitude and business "ethics". He's nothing more than a market trader who got lucky.
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Old 01-12-2015, 13:35
lammtarra
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You've described the problem with most of the tasks but it all comes down to Sugar's ineptitude and business "ethics". He's nothing more than a market trader who got lucky.
No, he really isn't. One success might be luck but over the course of his career, Lord Sugar has had 4 or 5 really good ideas that led to him dominating different markets. For instance, at one point Amstrad was the second biggest computer manufacturer in Europe. Now, it might be a valid criticism that nothing lasted, but where are all the other European computer makers now?
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