I can't believe you think that Lucinda is smart!

She was made to look a complete fool in the boardroom when she made the accusation about Jennifer as well as the remark being fundamentally ill-considered its credibility was immediately undermined by the Helene, and Lucinda looked very flustered as a result as well she should. Helene and Jennifer were further alienated and the rest of her team must have felt it was a stupid remark and reflected badly on her professionalism, overall she was also made to look petty, weak, unprofessional, desperate and a poor decision maker.

Everything about that incident was damaging to Lucinda's image and will ensure that she has continued problems with other apprentices, it was a terrible decision.

Probably more a case of letting lying dogs sleep?

It seems to be the general consensus on this board.

after weeks of consistently NOT impressing me - esp with the lack of technology skills - Lucinda impressed me greatly this week. I think I would work well under her and what to do things to please her. Being all bossy and "I'm the project manager" style doesn't work for me at all as a PA - but someone like Lucinda would bring out the best in people just because she is so darn nice - and in my book that goes a long long way!

i think what she said was most likely true, but didn't need to be said. It will only cause friction between her team, especially making it harder for herself, as her relationship with Helene looked to be imrpoving up until that point. It was unprofessional, pety, and unecessary. This kind of stuff happens in the playground, all this stirring. I can understand she was trying to give reasons for not mixing the groups, but it was a bad move. And, not a very good reason. Personal problems should be put aside during tasks, and i think both helene and jennifer would have worked together if they were forced to. I got the impression Michael didnt like Claire, but they were getting on in their task, and even seemed to be enjoying themselves.

I think you are delusional.

Lucinda has demonstrated her idiocy at a technical, management and personal level. She might be an ok person, but she is an idiot.

She didn't insist on selling curry that nobody knew how to make.
She didn't try to cook sausages in a tin can.
She didn't assign people to work that they had no knowledge of.
She didn't get the others selling fish without knowing the cost or retail prices.
She didn't throw away the chances of potentially lucrative contracts to satisfy her own ego.

There are lots more.

idiocy at a technical, management and personal level?
She isn't an idiot at technology, she just hasn't learnt it. Why would she need to? She will probably be in a position where she tells the IT minions what she wants and they will have to come up with the goods.

Her management and personal skills are not lacking either.
People will work harder and more conscientiously for a boss they like, and Lucinda is very likeable and not in the slightest bit dictatorial.
She perhaps needed to be a bit more forceful with the arrogant Jennifer and Lindi, who more or less refused to carry out her instructions, but in the end she was proved in the board room to have had the right idea. In a real-life situation maybe she would have stood her ground.

I agree. All Lucinda needed to say in order to defend her decision was that her suggestion of mixing the teams had been met with an unenthusiatic silence, and that she thought at the time that it was better to stay with the status quo than affect the team morale. To quote derogatory and personal remarks that someone else has (or hasn't) made is very unprofessional. Up to then I had some sympathy with Lucinda and had thought she was doing a good job as PM, but that completely turned me against her.

So you think the boys deserved to win?!

I don't think either of them deserved to win actually. The boys did get it together better but they made a complete mess of buying the ingredients, and Kevins's 'bland' spaghetti..
Not a great advert for Dolmio.

She also didn't poke her own eye out
She also didn't set light to the building

I could go on, basically she never does very much so she is not in danger of making too many big mistakes, she is the classic case of someone who shuns responsibility where possible to avoid blame for fouling things up which I suspect happens to her a lot.

You don't have a point.

She is technically inept ( and I mean that in every regard including processing information in her head )
She is professionally inept
She is not a productive team member
She is stupid
She is almost devoid of business skills
She is inept in her personal interactions
She is lazy
She is disorganised
She has as much drive as a reliant robin
She doesn't plan
She isn't task orientated

Now she may be likeable as a person but that is not the key quality for a team leader. Anyone can be weak, limp and not impose themselves on their team because they lack drive and competence. The inept and incompetent are usually those people who do not try and drive a team, and that is because they can't as they have little idea how to determine objectives or how to achieve them.

I get the impression that you are not familiar with a business environment where objectives and productivity are important. A work environment where objectives are not important such as some sort of public or caring or customer complaints or other similar role might suit her perhaps.

She didn't have many ideas except how to organise the personnel and a good project manager has to be more capable than that. Lucinda's only business merit seems to be that she is less inept than Lindi, leaving a team to do pretty much their own thing is not a business or project management skill.

It was incredibly unprofessional and she presented the information in the most limp and inept way possible.

She could have phrased the comment in innumerable ways that were preferable, but basically it was a stupid point when in fact it was invalid, Helene would have worked quite successfully with Jennifer even if she did think that Jennifer was a snake. Lucinda should have realised that unless there was an incontrovertible problem she couldn't use it as an excuse. All she had to say was that she got resistance for mixing the teams up, but hey so what?

I'm sure she is telling the truth. Lucindas problem is she is missing the big point of this show. It's dog eat dog. They are all bitching about each other behind each others backs. It happens every week, every day of this show. The big mistake is making out that this is some huge issue and the bigger mistake is taking it into the board room as an argument. It will never work because none of the three people who decide who goes hear that stuff.

Lucinda needs to realise this because if she doesn't, she will end up digging her own grave.

Sir Alans response to all this bitching would be... "It's not like I expect you all to like each other, you're all going for the same job" and this is what Lucinda needs to remember.

I can't speak for anyone else here, but I personally am VERY familiar with a business environment such as the one you describe. I think Lucinda is far from stupid...her decision to repeat what Helene said (and I do believe that Helene said it) was ill advised, as Helene and Jennifer M will be out to get her now, and it's just not very professional to say things like that in a boardroom situation. However, I would dispute your assertion that she is stupid. Being technically inept does not mean someone is stupid. She was the one of the very best team leaders of the whole series, and I would be happy to have her work for me, in the right position.

If you remember the photography task, Lucinda told Helene very early on that she was technically inept, but Helene gave her the job of working the computer. Helene also lied in the boardroom and said that Lucinda had not told her that she was technically inept. SAS agreed that Helene should not have given Lucinda that particular role which was basically what Lucinda herself had said.

SAS also agreed with Lucinda's idea to mix the teams up this week...and whatever Jennifer M says, her lack of enthusiasm for mixing the teams was very apparent. She might not have said anything, but she made it quite clear (and she was not the only one) that she wasn't happy with that idea. She even said so with Lindi afterwards.

So we're all out of step except you?

Simply stating your opinion as fact doesn't make it so - you allege ineptitude in every department; perhaps you'd like to back it up.

Certainly Margaret, whose views are highly respected would disagree with you - particularly regarding last week's task.

You appear to think that no one but you is familiar with a business environment and that no one but you is qualified to opinionate on the candidates - does the fact that you are grossly outnumbered tell you nothing?

Up until the point Lucinda said that - I thought she'd done pretty well AND pulled off a miracle getting Helene on side. Then she "quoted" Helene and I just spent the rest of that sequence banging my head against a table.

I had a headache for days after that!

Unless it was about the task I dont think personal comments should be brought into the boardroom. It is so unprofessional and tacky. Lucinda went down in my estimations at that moment. I wasn't keen on her anyway because she always came across as lazy in the previous tasks but I actullay liked her style as a PM at first. I felt the second day as PM was unsure and she did not come across as leading the team at all. Her idea of mixing the teams was great and I think would have worked much better but she bottled actually dividing them so she failed in reality.
I do not think she kept an eye on sales the second day. I know she put Lindi in charge of sales but she was the manager and should take some responsibility for not overseeing that side of things. I think Lucinda was let off lightly really and wont go the distance