Lesson Four: Nobody Cares

The Apprentice 6×04 – “Selling To Trade”

Episode Grade: A

Stuart Baggs™ is the phone-answerer this week, and receives the news that the Apprenti are off to the Science Museum to receive their next task. Jamie, who apparently has never paid attention to the esoteric nature of LSAS’s segues, predicts that the task will have “something to do with science or museums”. They arrive at the museum, and Nick and Karren are standing there, of course, right next to a conveniently placed exhibit that LSAS can jump out from behind, dressed in a hockey mask and carrying a chainsaw, which he does. “This building is full of objects!” he starts immediately, not even giving the candidates a moment to break wind. These objects have changed the world, but they all started out as someone’s crazy idea, and LSAS has ten people with crazy ideas of their own, and he wants the teams to pick two of these crazy ideas and sell them to trade. Also, to increase the drama and petty infighting that Apollo are so good at, each candidate will have their own order book to fill up, so they all need to make some sales. Ostensibly, this is done so that no one can coast on this task, but really, it’s for the drama. The teams are currently split 7/5, so LSAS sends Alex over to Apollo, and away they go.

Now we get one of those increasingly rare bits where LSAS sits in the back of a limo and tells us which team wins ahead of time. Donald Trump does this every week on the US version. It’s kind of patronising. LSAS explains that he has lined up appointments with some large retailers, so the key to this task will be picking the right products for the right retailers. So look out for that.

Synergy set to work choosing their PM, and they have two volunteers; Melissa and Jamie. Just like last week. Melissa is doing it because, surprisingly, she did actually pay some attention when LSAS said “the team won in spite of you and I’m going to fire you ASAP”, so she thinks she needs to prove herself. Oh, and this task “speaks to [her] skill set.” Like it does every week. Jamie freely admits that his experience is less relevant to this particular task, and it’s a unanimous vote in his favour, obviously, because they were all there last week. Melissa looks absolutely crushed by the team’s lack of faith in her. Which is dumb, because yes, OK, they all think you suck, but also because even if you’d been the best PM ever, nobody gets to be PM two weeks in a row, this early in the competition. But to realise that, Melissa would have to realise that the candidates are all equals, competing for the same prize, and not robots sent to obstruct Melissa personally in the pursuit of her ultimate destiny.

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