Cleaning the office

Last week was interesting on the Apprentice. For the first time I can remember, they were all asked to meet in his office. Once there, he introduced them to the folks at Staples. They were asked to design a product that would make life easier for offices. It would also be shown to a group of store managers. That week, Magna chosise Craig as the leader. He put the law on them by asking them to write down what ideas they had, which made Kendra a bit annoyed. They then met with Staples and were told that it was good not do to things anew, but to start with what they had. After this, Tana and Kendra went on talking to folks in the store, asking them what they wanted. Craig did not help at all. The focus group reveled thar people were into stackable shelf dividers. At Staples, the row between Kendra and Craig got a bit worse when Craig talked to her slowly. That made her angry. They also disagreed over the use of folders. Before Magna's presentation, the row blew up with Kendra and Craig trading charges of lying and talking down (in Craig's case). Their gadget ended up being a all-in-one cubby system that was a little big, but store everything in it's place.

Net Worth was down to just Bren and Alex, who had became friends. They decided to go to an R&D lab to see what they had. Thy also wanted to have a focus group. They started with a fatal flaw: they wanted to contact the folks at Staples. They tried this twice, but the cell phone dropped their call. Bad idea. Their focus group failed. Net Worth's idea ended up being a separate desk to store papers, which left the design team shaking their heads.What resulted was a mess. Their product ended up being a cart with holes and the bottom and an in/out basket shielded by plastic. It really stunk. They lost and it was no surprise.

The boardroom was very good. It seemed that Bren and Alex had brainwashed themselves into thinking the cart was perfect. The focus group hated, as did the Staple's folks. George was amazed at the lack of creativity out of them. Neither of them understood it. The conversation then turned to risk. Bren admitted he had none. He also admitted that he was learning how to take risk and not liking it. Alex ran off a rap sheet of things he had done, such as being an athlete, going to law school, lobbying on K Street, studying in Israel. With this Bren couldn't match up. He was too timid and meek. Trump didn't want to train some at that level. For that, he got fired.

What can I say?