The apprentice task this week was to feed people – hungry people in the city of London.

The apprentices had a day to prepare a sandwich/catering business, source the ingredients and get bookings for both a lunch and an evening event.

(As a slight aside, did anyone else notice a brand new suit, with tag still attached being hastily put on?)

Same comments last week I am afraid to say. To treat the customer with such breath taking contempt is staggering.

The client was a Chicago law firm with offices in the City and they were being served ASDA smart price crisps and bread. The “manager” was even instructing staff how to put as little filling in as possible.

Resource Power

To disturb city high fliers with lunch was a fine example of “resource power” – The meeting is stopped by the (relatively) lowly sandwich worker delivering lunch when THEY decide rather than discretely leaving it outside.

Quite a few years ago, I was delivering a classroom training session and I asked delegates

“what time is lunch?” and they replied

“whenever the serving lady decides it is..”

Illustrates who really controls operations…

Lack of negotiation skills

To negotiate a price of £60 per head based on ONE (1) phone call and then be bartered down to £15 shows a complete lack of negotiating skills.

If I was going to sell it to you for £60 and now I sell you the EXACTLY same thing for £15 – it means that I don’t value it at £60.

Not what you or I would get

The toga theme was a fine example of how what we see on TV is different to real life. If any of us went to a professional) event with actors/actresses wearing togas, we would see bronzed beauties and rippling muscles – not spotty backs and flabby bear arms.

In short

A real toe curling episode where people who take themselves far too seriously (“I can taste success in my spit”) showing a complete lack of judgement and make complete fools of themselves. Maybe The Apprentice is the 21st Century version of the Generation Game where the bottom line was that contestants weren’t actually supposed to do very well.

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