Quite.

As I said, known exit strategies.

I kept saying that Helene hadn't been trained but after hearing so many times that she had I became convinced that my creaking memory was just failing me. Am I imagining things, or did Suralan not SAY to Helene in the boardroom after the task that she should have gone on the training? I thought Helene said that she wanted to concentrate on managing which is why she didn't stay for all the training. I have a vague memory of it being pointed out to her that id she's done so, she could have helped to fix the problem Lucinda was having more quickly.

Or was that the other team? Or a different task?

Actually Lucinda seemed pretty happy in the training place. From the "deconstruction thread"

Lucinda: [also laughing] Absolutely. I'm going to be great at it as well. You watch me learn.
Helene: You're going to be able to put on you CV: digital camera expert.
Lucinda: Absolutely
[All are laughing.]

She sounds quite confident and is laughing.


She said in YF that she was under pressure as team leader. I suspect she did consider switching but didn't think she could because no-one else was trained and there was nothing else for Lucinda to do.


You have a false dichotomy there. It's possible that the job was simple enough that Lucinda could be expected to do it with some training, but not so simple that someone else could do it without training.

Helene may not have realised she was allowed to get the support guy to train up new people. She obviously made some mistake here.


Well, no. She said something that was untrue, but she might merely have forgotten. Saying she lied implies she knew it was untrue when she said it.

Lucinda raised her concerns again during the training after she saw the equipment echoing what she said before. Helene then said "You're soon going to find out" and the above conversation followed. Helene was therefore warned twice: The first time when she allocated the roles and the second time during the training. This is why I believe Helene should have at least paid attention to the training to make sure that Lucinda was capable of doing her role.


Again at least someone else should have attended with Lucinda to establish the nature of the problem. If it was a bug, then anyone would have understood the problem better. If the problem was related to Lucinda's training, then according to Nick the job was very easy anyone could do it and he was the one who suggested shuffling the team in the boardroom. Leaving it all to Lucinda again was just madness. Helene had nothing else for Lucinda to do and the whole team had nothing to do because they were all waiting for the problem to be fixed.


Again Nick was the one who suggested shuffling the teams. The technician said his daughter could have done the job. We will peobably never know but I can only depend on what Nick said.


I assumed at the beginning that she forgot about it but I found that Lucinda told Helene about it 3 times. The third time was during the argument that took place in Blue Water. Here is part of the argument:

Raef to Lucinda: "Are you happy with the computer?"
Lucinda: "No I am not because as I said I .. really .. no matter how I hard try I am not a technical person"
Helene: "I am not either .. but.. "
Lucinda interrupting: " yeah but I told you this in the first instance"
Helene: "I know you did but what do I do ..don't put you on things. It's my decision"
Lucinda:"Ok..ok..ok" Lucinda sits down
Lucinda "I have to say you were there for training as well"
Helene interrupting: "No I wasn't, I was do..."
Lucinda interrupting: "why aren't you comfortable with doing this?"
Helene:"I am the project manager and I said you're going to be doing this like when I was assigned to the kitchen i cooked for 10 hours. It's about team work, it's about being assigned a work and getting on with it"

It is clear that Helene lied in the boardroom because she clearly remembered the previous day that Lucinda objected to being put on the computer.

It is also clear from the above argument that Lucinda did believe that Helene attended the training and Helene didn't pay attention to the training because she was doing something else. Helene was going to explain but Lucinda didn't give her the chance. Lucinda did not have a clear idea about what Helene was doing during the training. Otherwise, she would not have confronted Helene.

Its selective editing of about 5 mins of the total time on the task. They won didn't they!

If the technical parts of the job were so crucial to the task, then more of the team should have had the training, including the PM, so they would be able to support the person doing it, or take over if there were major problems. You don't expect someone to fall ill at short notice etc etc, but anything could happen and its useful to have a back up plan.

Also Helene should have been more supportive, and could have employed Lucinda as a co-ordinator between the sales and technical teams. After all, that is what Lucinda is good at.

Now about to go to work to my very technical £20k a year job.

At which point all concerned seemed confident Lucinda could cope.


Yes. As I said, Helene did make a mistake here.


No, firstly because the boardroom was the day after that conversation, which is long enough to forget. It was a long day, they'd have had a lot of arguments, and she might not remember what was said in each one.

Secondly, what she said to Lucinda might have been conciliatory. She might not have remembered then what Lucinda had said the previous day, but rather than say, "I don't remember" which would only lead to more from Lucinda, pointlessly rehashing the past, she instead moved on to what they should do next.

What Lucinda said the previous day in the clip we saw, could be construed as saying she didn't want to operate the camera. "I don't take photos" etc. Evidently Helene wasn't paying much attention anyway; it was just Lucinda moaning like always and there wasn't anything else for her to do.

Once she'd been assigned the task, Lucinda seemed happy to do it, and she was all "watch me learn" and there was talk of her putting "digital camera expert" on her CV. Helene may be remembering that attitude rather than the initial moaning.

I like to see very strong evidence before I say a candidate has lied.

It didn't look like Helene needed anyone dedicated to that role. We see one of the boys, Kevin I think, turn up with a memory card for printing, but he was primarily on sales.

I have wondered whether Helene herself did a bit of that. As project leader she ought to have been overseeing both sides of the task. Although we only see her in the back office, I doubt she spent all her time there.

SAS specifically asked if Lucinda raised her concerns the minute she was allocated the job. When the production was allocated to Raef and Lucinda, they were specifically asked by Kevin if the are good at technology. Lucinda and Raef started talking then Lucinda repeated what she said to ensure that the whole team was listening.

Therefore, the requirement was not to remember what has been said in each argument, the requirement was to remember what happened when allocating the roles. In the apprentice, this is a very important part of the task and I doubt that Helene forgot what Lucinda said. We can assume that Helene chose to ignore Lucinda's concerns and didn't take her seriously but I doubt that she didn't remember what Lucinda said all together.


If Helene didn't remember, she could have simply said "What do I do ..don't put you on things. It's my decision" instead of replying immediately "I know you did". In addition, the rest of Helene's reply was not conciliatory at all.


It can't be interpreted as saying she didn't want to operate the camera for one simple reason: Helene had just said "I am gonna ask Raef and Lucinda if they will go at the back .. at the backroom". Taking the photos was obviously not one of the jobs done at the backroom. Kevin then asked "Are Raef and Lucinda good at technology". Therefore, Lucinda wasn't moaning she was just answering Kevin's question.

The job given to Lucinda was "Computer processing the images". All what Lucinda said was relevant to the job she was given. If she didn't have a digital camera and she was not interested in photography then she didn't know how to process the image files in the computer.


Lucinda wasn't happy once she was assigned the task in the cafe and she couldn't have been confident because she didn't know how difficult the job was going to be. She made sure for the second time in the training (after seeing the equipment) that Helene knew that she had no experience whatsoever and she echoed what has been said during the initial allocation of the roles. Helene was supportive at that point. Lucinda was simply showing good will and she clearly thought that Helene was going to attend the training with her which probably made her more confident.

Oh, there are so many assumptions there, all based on a view about the characters of Lucinda and Helene, as opposed to informing a view as to their characters, that there's no real point in debating it any further.

With Lucinda covering her ass on every possible task she could have been assigned by expressing the fact she couldn't do any of them, Helene's mistake was not leaving Lucinda in the café.

I believe I have drawn my conclusions from what actually happened. I have no assumprtions about Helene or Lucinda. Both women have their strong points and obvious flaws.

In this case, I just don't share the view that Helene didn't make any mistake whatsoever in that photography task and I believe that she wasn't telling the truth in the boadroom and I suspect that this wasn't the only time.

As for what Helene could have done, she could have asked Lucinda what she preferred to do and if Lucinda refused to do anything, then Helene could have ignored her as you said. Had they lost, Lucinda would have been fired. Anyway Helene had more team player than the other team.

What really annoys me about this whole debate/issue is that we aren't really talking about computer training at all - they all have notepaper upon which to record a three or four step process. They aren't being asked to Photoshop the pictures, merely grab the things from the card and press 'print'!
Given that their is only a BASIC need for knowledge and given the fact that Helene was project manager more fool her. She was an absolute idiot and lucky not to get caught out.

I agree with the comments regarding the trainer saying he could teach his kids to do that - think about when you take your SD card (insert whatever you use) shove it into your PC and view your pics...yup - that's all they had to do!

I think Lucinda, despite her not being a sales-type, would have been an obvious choice for the front-end. Her charm and looks would have been put to good use bringing in the customers -- not what I think of as hardcore sales. She would have been a lot better than"get your a....self on my couch now" (even though that was probably the other team).

Helene definately lied in the boardroom. That was quite shocking and she is a basketcase in my view.

Lucinda's way of confronting people when something is wrong definately needs work. She needs to think about what is in her best interest. You could see her occasionally catch herself.

This thread has degenerated, unfortunatly, into tit-for-tax exchanges on the level of "my dog is bigger than your dog!

Perhaps all combatants might like to reflect that: -

a. We only see 60 mins out of approximately 180 hours of video shot.

b. This is, by definition, heavily edited in advance, without foreknowledge of what will be of apparent interest to thread-readers/posters.

c. We should remember that Nick and Margaret are with the teams throughout, and see much more than is apparent to us from seeing an edited programme.

d. That Siralun makes his decision without having seen the programme, but based almost solely on the advice he receives from Nick and Margaret.

e. That whether Helene or Lucinda lied is immaterial; its an entertainment programme, you have never met them and are unlikely to, their well-being is not going to be affected over any opinions expressed here, and it isn't going to change the result.

Perhaps its time to move on (lol)

If I were either Helene or Lucinda, I would be so freaked out by this forensic investigation that I would leave this forum and never come back. It's getting beyond silly now.

Lucinda and Helene were about to have a similar exchange after 7 months after the incident in the you're fird show. At least we are discussing it 1 month after we saw it and it is about to die now.

Yes the program is edited and all but discussing it is part of the enjoyment. Like the members of this forum, the you're fired panel use the 60 min edit to judge the candidates in the context of the program. Unfortunately this is all we have to base our judgements on.

Of course we all know that the candidates are not affected by our opinion of them and that the result won't be change!!! The thread is discussing an incident that was clearly important to the candidates themselves and therefore led to a later exchange between Helene and Lucinda in the you're fired show. The incident itself was trivial because it didn't affect the results of the task itself but it shaped the public opinion of both Helene and Lucinda and perhaps this is why they were dwelling on it in the last show.

However, I agree it is time to move on (both the two candidates involved and the forum members).

This is not the only inquest, after the only disaster. There are inquests after EVERY disaster to see if generic lessons can be learnt and structual changes made to avoid disaster repetition.

After the Northern Rock debacle there was a Helene-Lucinda debate over which of the three overseeing bodies failed to raise the alarm in time:

The FSA
The Bank of England
The Treasury

The Treasury have now forked out 25 billion pounds of your money and mine, so structural accountability is not academic. To show this Apprentice situation is relevant, lets imagine what -

You (Lucinda) would have said and done at every stage to
Your Boss (Helene).

No - lets not!! Lets leave la-la-land and MOVE ON!!

jjackson if you want to move on that's fine, but please allow others the freedom to debate or not, as they wish.

If only it WAS debate!! See my post further up!!

jjackson42 has a good point re the negativity and repetition.

Unable to reach a safe verdict in the absence of sufficient evidence or testimony from witnesses, perhaps the Forum can move onto positive proposals re --

what to do when, not if, similar predicaments arise in the office.

These are all valid points. What interests me is how they are not applied equally to judgements about all the apprentices.

For example, I remember in the "bullying" debate, one way Lee was defined as a bully was that he interrupted Sara. In the photography task, Lucinda interrupted Raef and Helene, the latter on many occasions. Does this make Lucinda a bully? If so, why does Helene have the reputation on this forum?

I think this is an interesting question. I also think it's interesting to see different takes on what we see in common (once we've established what we have seen as what we've seen is frequently distorted by our views of the characters involved). I think the better debaters are the ones who recognise the points above but also recognise that their own opinion may be influenced by favouritism and try and strip it out. This includes stripping out broad assumptions such as we've seen here.


Certainly, feel free to do so. Or start another thread if what you want to discuss is not the computer training in the photography task.

However, for anybody still interested in discussing this topic, then they should be free to do so without the suggestion that they are in someway deficient or stubborn for failing to move on.