Let me preface this with saying, "I don't like Donald Trump." I never really did like him, but his latest publicity fiasco isn't going to stop me from watching the show. I've watched it since the first season. Hey, I don't even like the corporate world much. But I usually enjoy this show despite myself.
One thing I didn't do this season was check out the website prior to the season premiere. I usually do that to get a handle on the names with the faces and such. But this season, I went in blind to anything but first impressions or what I get from the candidates from watching the show itself.
Go figure... the two candidates I decided I liked the least ended up in the boardroom and the one I thought should go, did. But I'm getting ahead of myself here, aren't I? There are a lot of changes this season which need to be addressed before anyone gets fired.
- The Los Angeles location instead of New York City. Now, I enjoyed the NYC location as I know the area so much better. I moved away from the L.A. area after first grade. I don't remember much more than mountain fires and Disneyland. Due to the location, unlike filming in winter in NY, lots of bugs were flying around. Perhaps one will fly into someone's mouth?
- No more Carolyn as she's "no longer with the company" as they say. Unless I missed the news, George is still a lawyer on Trump's staff, but not on the show. Instead, there's dear daughter Ivanka and, in the beginning, an empty chair to accompany her on the board with Daddy Trump. I won't be surprised if Donald Jr. doesn't show before the end of the season, but he wasn't in the premiere.
- The Project Manager of the winning team remains the same as long as the team is winning. I'm not sure how much I like this change. It's going to affect the dynamics of the other team members who might not get the chance to step up to the plate if one team keeps trumping. (I couldn't resist.)
- The winning Project Manager fills the empty chair in the boardroom and discusses who will be fired with Trump and Ivanka. Odd move, that one.
- The winning team stays in a luxurious house overlooking the valley, all amenities you could imagine.
- The losing team stays in Tent City. Everything is outdoors, including their showers. They're close enough to peek at the Haves' pool and hear them, but they're the Have Nots.
- There's a butler named Otto.
- One of the candidates, Angela, was a winter Olympics gold medalist.
Article comments
1 - ClubStyle_DJ
Jackie,
Thanks for the recap...I had been anticipating this show for months now...and freakin missed it! I got an alert page this morning about who got fired. Freakin thing didn't tell me the show was on last nite tho. I was watching Kill Bill I & II back to back for the un-teenth time. I'm sure CNBC will do the rerun again this season. I like to go in viewing cold too however, I did glance at the website to see the faces and make a preliminary judgement on who would do what. OMFG where are the Fashion Police when you need them. I think Joan or Melissa Rivers would have blasted Mr. pic-a-nic table. Brent/Raj all rolled in to one and gone already...huh, tisk tisk, looks like it's gonna be vicious from the gate huh? I'm gonna set myself up on the fantasy game site again (even tho I cant get to it at work <-{oh yeah new job BTW in San Diego) Last time I blogged here, I was facing my own boardroom. I resigned before I heard the famous phrase, and I took my little suitcase on wheels (a 6x12 uhaul) and rolled outta Cleveland and am taking root in SoCal (1 block away from the beach I might add). The change of venue seems to be working out for me. :^) Let's see how it works for them. Again, thanks and keep up the good work.
Always,
CSDJ
2 - Dynamo of Eternia
The first episode was interesting.
It will take a while for me to get used to this whole change in location. I just got so used to the old board room, waiting room, Trump Tower, etc from the previous seasons that it is going to take a while to adjust to the changes.
As for this first task, it was a toss up as to who should have been fired.
Martin certainly wasn't the strongest candidate there, at least not from what I could tell. (And my wife and I were both laughing about his picnic table cloth shirts and wondering what was up with that). I can certainly understand the reasons for him being fired.
None the less, I agree with the majority of the losing team and say that Frank was more deserving of being fired.
Honestly, Frank just came across as a total disaster to me.
Yeah, he had enthusiasm, which Donald Trump and his daughter seemed to put way more stock in than they logically should. The problem is that Frank was enthusiastic to a fault. He just ran into things head first without even stopping to come up with a solid plan. Sure, they were pressed for time, but I think taking 5 or 10 minutes to do some brainstorming and to come up with a more concrete plan would have been beneficial.
He just took off to go make flyers (which, given them trying to atract cars off of the street, was not the optimal way to get the attention of people in cars), and his team was left sitting there thinking, "Ummm... okay... what the hell?"
In the board room Ivanka (sp?) made the point in Frank's defense about how he just met these people and didn't know what their strengths, weaknesses, and individual skills were. And granted, there is something of a point there. However, if he had taken 30 seconds to ask who has a great deal of strength and experience in dealing with people and gaining sales, maybe he could have gotten a better idea of who would fit in. Granted, he would have had to accept their word and not been able to look into the matter, and maybe Martin would have still ended up in the sales position resulting in Martin screwing up, but at least Frank would have been there to make a more sound judgement, rather than taking off and letting the pieces fall where they may. It would be on person, a leader, listening to everyone's strengths and making a decision based on all available info rather than all of the people scrambling together with no specific direction to try and make a collective decision.
They eventually made posters, but that was too little, too late, and were still not nearly as big or noticable as those of the other team. I think that was a fatal error on their part. If they had better means of getting people's attention, then they could have easily gained additional sales for the win, despite Martin's seemingly lacking ability in that area.
All in all, Frank just seems like an overall disaster to me. He's got a lot of energy, excitement, knowledge, and drive, but it's all unfocused and just all over the place. He really needs to calm down and take some time to make a plan, and then maybe things will pan out better.
As for Martin, okay, he came off badly with the having to pee comment, with saying he was tired, and with the lack of sales. But for the pee issue, hey, if you gotta go, you gotta go. As for him saying he was tired, maybe he just didn't get a good night of sleep. Granted, he shouldn't have made that comment (and doing so was dumb on his part), but none the less, I think more was read into that comment than was actually there. His sales were weak, which hurt the team to some degree, I don't deny that. But still, I don't think he was given a fair chance to really step up and prove himself in one way or the other. At least not to the same degree that Frank was.
I look at it like this, if Martin had been a bit stronger in sales and specifically upselling, they might have beaten the winning team by a small margin. However, I think if Frank had been more of a leader and had come up with more of a solid plan and tied up a bunch of loose ends in many areas, including the posters/flyers, determining who should be selling, and many other areas in general, then they could have one by a fairly significant margin. If they came THAT close to making the same amount of money as the winning team under such unorganized management, imagine how well they would have done if everything had been more organized!
In the end, I'm not really mad that Martin got fired, because honestly I didn't see him lasting long anyway, and he didn't really do all that well in the task. But still, of the two, I think Frank was more deserving of being fired. But, that's just my opinion, whatever it is worth.