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David shouldn't have been fired


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Old 26-11-2015, 10:14
spursguy
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Noticed a few people saying David should've gone yesterday and I'd like to counter that with a few arguments for why I disagree. Feel free to disagree with me if you feel I'm wrong of course:

1) The downfalls of David's time on The Apprentice often came in the manual labour tasks. There's nothing wrong with being a labourer, but if you're a businessman wanting to earn investment for your business plan, what relevance does being able to cut metal poles carry? How does knowing how to perfectly iron a photo onto a t-shirt factor in? In terms of the tasks where he did do well, he showed business skills that are essential in Entrepreneurs (Creativity in the Shampoo task, client rapport and an eye for popular consumer products in the Pet Show task). It's no coincidence to me that he was on the winning side for the first five weeks, and two bad weeks on tasks that aren't suited to the mans skill set shouldn't have dented those early achievements.

2) Gary was an absolutely hopeless Team Leader. For the second week running. How can you justify letting him stay in the competition when his own business plan is based in Events and he fails an event management task? Even worse, he made a number of basic event management errors and was generally week. Why no thought to entertainment on the party bus? David might have mis-ironed the t-shirts, but as a novice in that field, why would you not cover yourself by ordering more blank t-shirts as spares in case of wastage? Why would you not be stronger in rubbishing the party bags?

3) Which brings me to point 3. In the boardroom we saw Charleine and Joseph gang up on David, barely allowing him to get a word in regarding the party bags. They claimed that he was responsible for the reduction in profits received for the bags, but surely he added value by sticking the waterguns and sweets in there? If they'd left it with two glowsticks and a naff pair of sunglasses they'd have got the full £9? Give me a break, they'd have been lucky to get £3 per bag. These punters were paying a fortune for these birthday parties, and whilst it's essential to drive profit, you also have to provide a certain level of quality. Two bob Joseph's intention was to flog a load of rubbish at parents and essentially rip them off for cheap tack. It's not a sustainable business plan and yet again shows Joseph's short term thinking.

4) The cake. It may have only contributed to £100 off the total bill, but there are other factors to consider such as the drop in morale of the parents that would've occurred as a result of this mess. Perhaps the parents would've been more accepting of the party bags and t-shirts scenario if they hadn't had their day messed around so much by the uncertainty of whether the mum was likely to keel over and die at any point. The responsibility falls to Gary for not putting the customers at ease and Joseph and Charleine for not being absolutely certain of ingredients. Also, why couldn;t they have just avoided the whole incident by just making a Jam cake? Knowing someone who is heavily allergic to nuts, they won't even go near anything with traces. It's always best to be safe rather than sorry.


So yes, this is long winded and some of you may disagree with but I don't think David should've gone just yet personally.
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Old 26-11-2015, 10:16
spursguy
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Oh and 5) Charleine's conduct in the boardroom should've seen her sacked alone. Utterly unprofessional and ignorant to what she'd been told only seconds before. Horrible woman, and I'm starting to actually side with Selina in their spat!
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Old 26-11-2015, 11:29
Philip Wales
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I think the thing that went against David was the fact a price and contents for the party bags had been agreed before hand with the client, they knew what they were getting.

At some point in the show, and this wasn't mentioned in the boardroom David said "let's give the kids the glow necklaces from the bags, then the parents will have no option but to buy them". So not only was he sneaky, he then de-valued the bags, so he then could make a big thing of "adding things" back in to them, showing everyone that he was right and was now "saving the day".
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Old 26-11-2015, 11:43
The Rhydler
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David throughout the episode spoke wisely of the mistakes the team were making, he vocalised this and as it turned out, he was right. He was also positive in the task (though not very fun for the kids) and didn't let his feelings cause negative vibes for the team, rather gary's pi**-poor party planning that was no fun for an 11 year old boy.

He was the one person on the team that shouldn't have been fired, the failure of the t-shirts wasn't the major factor in losing the task, Gary's laissez-faire attitude to the nut issue, not listening to David over the party bags and being bloody boring on the party bus should have seen him walk.
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Old 26-11-2015, 12:01
spursguy
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I think the thing that went against David was the fact a price and contents for the party bags had been agreed before hand with the client, they knew what they were getting.

At some point in the show, and this wasn't mentioned in the boardroom David said "let's give the kids the glow necklaces from the bags, then the parents will have no option but to buy them". So not only was he sneaky, he then de-valued the bags, so he then could make a big thing of "adding things" back in to them, showing everyone that he was right and was now "saving the day".
The price might have been agreed but when they'd seen the bag - which would have been even more lacking than what they eventually got - they'd have almost certainly taken away even more from the price to pay. The whole task allowed deductions for failed expectations so this would definitely have been an issue.

I do agree that David giving out the glow sticks might've been naive and he probably harmed his chances by sticking his head above the parapet for criticism. However, if he hadn't of handed those out on the bus, the kids would've had nothing to interest them for the whole journey. It at least added some value - albeit not much - to a particularly poor segment of an expensively valued day.

I've seen a lot sneakier than this tactic on The Apprentice in fairness.
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Old 26-11-2015, 12:07
Philip Wales
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^^ read my post again, David always knew he was going to give out the glow sticks, so it wasn't naive, it was done A: to make the parents "have to buy the bags" and B: to de-value the bags, thus allowing him to put more things in (my opinion).

And were did this extras come from? it was mentioned they had them lying around, I mean WTF!!
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Old 26-11-2015, 12:15
Tallywacker
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Totally agree with the first 2 posts. David's mistake was to do with the transfers on 2 t shirts, hardly a critical skill to spending sir alans £250k but for some reason it's a firing offence. Charlene's petulance should have seen her go and there's no doubt she won't make the final.

I started out as a bit of a critic of Davids but I thought he was coming along well so it was a surprise to see him go, especially over ironing some tshirts!
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Old 26-11-2015, 12:19
Philip Wales
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^^ to be fair it wasn't even ironing, which can take some skill. It was putting a transfer on a piece of material, dropping the head and waiting. It not rocket science, and lets not forget the image was also backwards. This is basic stuff guys.
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Old 26-11-2015, 12:28
Tallywacker
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It's basic, but is it critical? Could Nick, Claude or Karen get it right first time, or is such a petty task below them. What I'm saying is it makes no difference in the real world of business, whereas Charlene's attitude certainly does. Obviously Sugar was going to let David go regardless, mustn't have liked his business plan. I could see David's point about the party bags too - the dad wasn't a fool and would know a glowstick and sunglasses were short of the £9 price, and even though they'd agreed it, the dad could have knocked more off the final price if he felt they were taking the michael. This was of course the great Unknown, and only revealed in the boardroom so David was right to be voice his concern.

I also wondered where the Haribo appeared from!
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Old 26-11-2015, 12:35
Philip Wales
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Well it does demonstrate a lack of awareness and common sense, print out an image, turn it over, obviously the image is back to front, even more noticeable with wording.

And I will assume they had some training off camera. There's several processes involved in transfer printing, so someone would of had to explain the process.
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Old 26-11-2015, 13:37
spursguy
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Well it does demonstrate a lack of awareness and common sense, print out an image, turn it over, obviously the image is back to front, even more noticeable with wording.

And I will assume they had some training off camera. There's several processes involved in transfer printing, so someone would of had to explain the process.
Surely the Project Manager covers his back though and orders a couple more t-shirts to cover wastage? They're so cheap to purchase and wastage was always likely with someone who'd probably had maybe 10 minutes training off camera.

It's not a business critical skill though. Patience, teamwork and understanding customer behaviour are though and I feel Charleine, Joseph and Gary have displayed less of these skills in the process than David. Albeit they may be better at printing t-shirts...
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Old 26-11-2015, 14:03
Philip Wales
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I'm going to imagine that they could maybe only buy x amount of T-shirts from their handbook.

Which leads me back to an early post that sometimes this book can be very inflexible. I also assume they only had x y z choices of venues / and party ideas + props to go with the theme.
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Old 26-11-2015, 14:39
Phoebica
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David was no way the worst person on that team. The thing that ruined the day the most and caused the parents unnecessary stress was the cake - David was the only one not involved in that debacle.

Also, given David's business plan, I'm surprised LAS didn't keep him. It sounds like something he'd be interested in.
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Old 26-11-2015, 14:49
AaronWx
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Thanks for the spoiler. I was avoiding the apprentice part of the forum but this came up in the "new posts" part.
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Old 26-11-2015, 15:19
StratusSphere
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It was a flimsy reason to fire somebody. As David rightly pointed out, even if the T shirts and the goody bags hadn't had the money deducted, they still would have lost the task, hence failure wasn't just down to him.

They could have avoided the whole chocolate spread issue by looking up a cake recipe that used buttercream or something similar. Even whipped cream as a filling! They obviously were able to look things up as they were seen doing the shopping online. I do think Karren was to blame for that one though, catastrophising the issue. Gary was in general good at getting rapport with the clients.

To be honest I would blame Joseph for the cake. It was pure laziness not just reading the jar label over the phone when he was standing there in the kitchen. If that hadn't put a damper on the day, the parents might have overlooked the goody bag issue.

Of course, all this could have been avoided if they'd decided not to go for any extras whatsoever and just put a party on for half of their 2 grand budget. Spend more and you have to make more.
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Old 26-11-2015, 15:59
Philip Wales
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^^ Hmm not sure, I think they have a set recipes to follow, from the "famous book"

Otherwise you'd just buy the cake
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Old 26-11-2015, 16:00
lammtarra
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I do think Karren was to blame for that one though, catastrophising the issue.
Surely Karren defused it? Gary was freaking the parents out until Karren intervened to say he needed to check precisely what this ingredient was before they all checked into A&E.
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Old 26-11-2015, 16:22
lammtarra
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David should have been fired but not for messing up the ironing or sucking the fun out of climbing.

David should have got his marching orders for what he acknowledged was the ethically dubious ploy of having the boys use the glowsticks before they were paid for (and tbh I'm not really sure why he thought this would compel the parents to buy the bags, but he knew it was dodgy).
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Old 26-11-2015, 18:59
Hitstastic
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I knew David wouldn't win but from what I've seen of him, he comes across as a genuinely decent down to earth lad. Regardless, I'm sure he will have made a good impression during his time on The Apprentice and it'll stand him in good stead moving forward.
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Old 26-11-2015, 23:12
MissMonkeyMoo
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Interesting points. For me, David was never going to win but I do think it was an unfair firing last night. Charlene's outburst was disgusting and she should have gone for that alone (I am so on selina's side now), the party bags were crap and David was absolutely right to tell the pm. Gary was completely ineffectual as the pm, he should have ensured everything was as per the spec and kept the parents at ease during the day. Telling the parents they'd used Nutella in the cake was just idiocy. Gary and charlene both should have been fired on the back of this task.
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Old 26-11-2015, 23:28
djfunnyman
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David wasn't great on this task but he's been a considerably better candidate than Gary and the cake wasn't his fault
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Old 26-11-2015, 23:45
SwanGirl
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I think David was rather unlucky personally. Okay, he messed up regarding the t shirts but Gary was right there with him too, why didn't he lend a hand or take over if he was so concerned about what David was doing? He just seemed to leave David to it and I think in his mind put David right in the firing line were they to lose the task.

What I cannot understand is why it was so difficult to make sure the cake had no nuts in it. The concern seemed to arise from the spread they used so if they weren't sure about it, why use it? Why not just make some buttercream instead and make absolutely sure the cake was okay? I know some think the parents overreacted but a severe nut allergy is very dangerous, from the moment Gary flip flopped on that issue and Charleine and Joseph seemed to be totally clueless they lost the parents trust.

David at least tried to put effort into the task, okay it was cringeworthy at times but Gary seemed to take a back seat as did Charleine and Joseph. I think the three of them had planned from the outset that if they were to lose, they'd all gun for David in the board room.

Seeing as Gary's business venture involves events, would you really want to hire someone who can't cater to someone with a nut allergy? These days if you're organising an event, my guess is out of 200 people at least one of them is going to have an allergy or be a vegetarian/vegan, with all the flapping he did how is he going to cope with that?

I think he's been a terrible project manager, last week I think winning was more down to the sales skills of his team, not down to him being a brilliant leader, this week he seemed totally clueless in something he claims to be a master of.
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Old 27-11-2015, 08:50
Philip Wales
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^^ But I've already said, I think they have "set recipes to follow", they don't just pick it out of the air. And your assuming they know how to make "butter cream", it's the Apprentice not Bake Off
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Old 27-11-2015, 09:38
spursguy
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^^ But I've already said, I think they have "set recipes to follow", they don't just pick it out of the air. And your assuming they know how to make "butter cream", it's the Apprentice not Bake Off
By that logic, you can't slam David for not knowing how to perfectly transfer a print on 10 t-shirts. It's a business show not Print Off
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Old 27-11-2015, 10:49
Philip Wales
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I will because I assume they had some sort of training, while it's an easy process, it does take maybe 10mins training, and can be quite dangerous, if not taking proper care.
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