Lessons Learned - The Apprentice Week 9 - So Anand lied

Lessons Learned - The Apprentice Week 9 - So Anand lied


It should be apparent by now that lying in this day and age is not something that everyone can get away with anymore with a world that records everything on a scale that the ancients could never imagine.



Anand should have remembered that when he lied to Trump about the text. Not did he lie about texting, he lied about the content of the text, which apparently clearly violated the rules of the game.



I pointed out to a friend who watched the episode that the Celebrity Apprentices, did this with abandon. That is, they texted, tweeted, called, and emailed their contacts to get them to show up to the site of their tasks so that they could get some business and more money. I was told that because that format was for charity and not personal gain, it was allowed. This contestants for this format signed an agreement and Anand violated it by texting and asking for people that he may or may not know to come to the pedicab.



I personally don't see the harm-that is, it seems to me that the Apprentice contestants should be able to drum up business using social networking tools since in real life, many businesses do with varying degrees of success. however, it became apparent as the seasons of the Celebrity Apprentice wore that you can only hit up your connections so much before they become tapped out. For some this happened sooner than later.



However, if you agree to play by certain rules, you play by those rules.



Which is why you have to make sure that you read and understand everything that you sign-Business 101.



Moreover, the larger sin Anand committed in Trump's eyes was that he lied about it. Right there. In front of him. In front of the other contestants.



When I watched the episode, I could tell by way Trump asked the question and the fact that he kept repeated the questions that Anand did do commit this 'transgression' and he could prove it.



Trump summed up his feelings by saying that Anand's behaviour is what is wrong with the mindset of Wall Street today. I admittedly gave him my Rosie O'Donnell face-Wall Street did not recently become morally corrupt and I'm sure that while Trump may not have done anything illegal that can be proven, I bet when the illegal activities of Wall Street benefitted him indirectly, he didn't bat an eye.



There is no doubt that Trump would have fired Anand for the texting, no matter if he owned up to it or not. However Anand sealed his fate, I think with potential employers and business partners, by lying about what he did. He demonstrated poor judgment in both the texting and lying about the texting. Then when caught, he tried to downplay his crime, by saying that he really didn't really do it in a way that was really wrong. When the test was read and it used words like "pretend you don't know me," he then tried to further downplay it by stating that his team really didn't profit from it, which says, what exactly? That what you did, even though it was wrong was not important because your team didn't profit from it?



His team never knew he did this. So if it had panned out, this win for their team might have been vacated and Kelly, who was fired for being the losing project manager, might be back. It also calls into question every win the mens team had. Did Anand cheat in ways that brought them wins? If I were on the women's team (formerly all women, since they were now integrated), I'd question it. Unfortunately, Kelly's weaker decisions as a projectg manager are what cost her the task and I don't see Trump bringing her back. Although, she played by the rules and was honest in some cases, to her detriment in that final boardroom and I wager that future employers and business partners value that a bit more than someone who can ride a pedicab, but is underhanded in his business dealings.



I could comment on the rest of the episode, but it was straightforward-Cats, Inc fell apart due to in-fighting and "mean girls" behaviour and Poppy, who could have taken some lessons from Poppy Montgomery, formerly of Without a Trace, on diplomacy and team leadership, got the chop.



I will say that I was not pleased with Clint and his being gobsmacked about Brandy's lack of "feminine perspective." I'm all for leveraging assets and resources when you have them, however Clint's insistence/reliance on the fact that Brandy was female and therefore she would be able to deliver some deep insight into what would attract women to this product skirted the line of discrimination. Just like I would not expect because Clint is a Texan, that he would have any particular insight into cattle or the oil business or being redneck, he should not have judged Brandy's contribution on how girly-girl she is. Too many men do that in various ways. There was an episode of Grey's Anatomy, where Dr. Sloan wanted to get some kind of baked good for the going away party and decided to "delegate it" to the one of the women because he felt they would do a better job. Dr. Bailey, the first woman he approached, told him in no uncertain that he was crazy to expect her to take time out of her equally busy schedule to do something that he is supposed to do. Period.


I often am amused that some men, who would never allow themselves to be pigeonholed or pushed around in that way have no problem doing to women.



I hope that this is an aberration with Clint. Whether he works for Trump or not, he will have women on his team from different backgrounds and he must know that in most workplaces basing task assignment and judging job contribution on a person's gender is illegal.

Conspiracy Sunday on AMC

Well it looks like in anticipation of a tv series that can possibly be called the Gen-Xer/Millenial "JFK," the cable channel AMC decides to air the original "JFK," Oliver Stone's magnus opus, hich set the tone for all of the Boomer conspiracy theory movies that would crowd the landscape of the 90s.

I did eventually see "JFK" in its entirety, almost 7 years after it came out in the theaters. I think I spent more time identifying the all-star cast at first, than paying attention to the story as by the time I saw it, it had been analyzed, vilified, scandalized and satirized (most famously by Seinfield in the episode that analyzed a spitting incident. Wayne Knight, who portrayed Newman and who was in the movie, played a part in this episode). I was therefore not learning anything particularly new. The one scene that stayed with me was the confab between Kenvin Costner and Donald Sutherland. As most people attest, Sutherland is good at being in memorably creepy scenes. He portrayed 'X' and gave what I think was some of the best advice for anyone wanting to get to the bottom of anything next to "Follow The Money" and anything written by Sun Tzu.


I don't know if I will watch Rubicon. Admittedly, I think I enjoy cold cases best and being someone who grew up long after Watergate, the Kennedy and King assassinations, conspiracies to me are as mundane as barenaked ladies.

Blogathon anyone?

Apparently, there is a blogathon going on where individual bloggers post every half an hour for a 24 hour period. Most of the bloggers are being sponsored and the proceeds are going towards the charity of their choice. A person that I met a long time ago made me aware of this when she emailed me on facebook to ask for her friends to donate on her behalf to the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center as she participated in this. I've been so busy with 2010 and other things (such as fighting with Mary Percy over her stupidity in going back to Arthur Wellington) that this did not sink in until today-the day of the event.

Well, I have enjoyed reading her posts as she writes about writing and other cool things. Her website is: adriennebrennan.blogspot.com and if you can-no amount is too small-please support the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. You can make donations through Network For the Good.
More information about Blogathon can be found at blogathon.org. I'll definitely take part in 2011.

Back again!

Wow. It has been some time since that last post. Lots of things have taken place.

Tweeting on Twitter has definitely been a past time. It's not that I haven't enjoyed blogging. Twitter is a little more immediate for me since I can actually have conversations rather than wait for someone to maybe read the post and maybe comment. I also don't get spam comments that I have to clear out.

What blogging does allow me to do is to explore an idea more fully than I can in 140 characters.

Social media is a curious animal. There are many who see people using it for anything other than business or making money as not worthy of notice or as flotsam. Especially if they are women and they are not in the coveted mommy blogger cabal. I am not a mommy-at least not yet. I don't know that I would blog about my child(ren) or engage in the communal sharing that I see happening in the blogosphere around that. It's not terrible, but much like as in real life, some women (and some men) think there;s something wrong with you if you don't share yourself or care about certain things.

Well, that's my feeling about that. Still looking for the blogger conference or unconference where people who aren't parent bloggers, overly in love with the code of the platforms and tools, are of a certain ethnicity, but that's not all they blog about and are not obsessed by all things vampire can attend and not feel as if they're the kids that were outside the clique in high school.

Do I have an opinion on Shirley Sherrod, the BP Oil catastrophe, education, Harry Potter, Apple's iphone flip off, the Celtics loss to the Lakers, Lindsay Lohan, Precious, the Twilight saga, The View or the upcoming end of As The World Turns?

Probably. And I'll get to those.

Right now, I'm watching the Pretenders in concert on my local PBS. Unfortunately it's tis the month o beggin' so what is usually a shorter show will be dragged out. Maybe I can blog during these breaks.

By the way, I'm not taking part in it, but there is a blogathon to support various charities. Please visit blogathon.org for more details.

My Thanksgiving Blessings 2009

Another Thanksgiving is here and gone.  Another time to be grateful for the privilege of eating a lot of food, of watching television, yelling at people who are paid more than a regular person should and dishing out meals to the "unfortunate" and reveling in the feeling that were it not for we, who are not them, then they would suffer.

I am blessed that I recognize the hypocrisies that exist in a number of the legal holidays we have and will of course be grateful for what I have.

Mammogram-Self Exam Gate

A new finding regarding mammograms and self exams in the battle against breat cancer has come out and many women are not happy about it.

My biggest disagreement I have with the findings is the recommendation that the self exams are useless, even if I grant that mammograms are not safe due to radiation and are expensive (though I think that Viagra sales out distance this). I echo the cry of those who offer proof of the effectiveness of self exams those who are currently alive because they caught breast cancer early because they did a self exam. This list includes the famous: Peggy Fleming, Shirley Temple, etc.

I am also annoyed at the fact that women's health care is usually reduced to birth control (it's only been recently that insurance will cover it), plastic surgery (hard to prove 'medically necessary' vs. 'cosmetic' especially when it comes to breast reduction) and maternity (drop and street them) - not that those aren't important as well. We are still a society that believes that women's health issues are usually "all in their head" and then wonder why they are reluctant to seek help. Never mind the fact that the above mentioned areas of women's health are usually subject to more inapproriate moral judgment than anything that men would suffer from, save HIV/AIDS.

I am increasingly annoyed at this idea that people who show up at the ER are a drain on our system, but on the other hand, they are discouraged from doing anything that is preventative or seeking preventative care because of financial cost and again if they are women, 'it's all in their head."

Here is the article.

Breast Cancer Screening Should Begin at Age 50, Panel Finds:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/health/july-dec09/breastcancer_11-16.html?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=fanpage&utm_campaign=pbs


Excerpt:

"A government medical task force recommended major changes in breast cancer screening guidelines Monday, suggesting that most women should not begin getting routine mammograms until age 50, and then only once every two years.

In 2002, the same panel -- the United States Preventive Services Task Force -- had, with different members, recommended that women receive mammograms every one to two years beginning at age 40.

The panel on Monday also recommended that most women stop getting regular mammograms after age 74, and that doctors should no longer teach women to do breast self-examinations.
Members of the panel, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said that screening for breast cancer too early and too often can lead to false alarms, unnecessary biopsies and unnecessary anxiety for women.

The study is the latest chapter in an ongoing controversy over early screening for breast cancer and other cancers, such as prostate cancer. Such screening saves lives, but in addition to sometimes showing false positives, can also reveal cancers that would have grown so slowly they might not ever need to have been treated. "

Lessons in Writing from...Marion Zimmer Bradley-Part the First

I never had a formal writing course. That is, I took creative writing in college, but to fulfill a requirement, not as a focus.Many of my lessons in writing came from paying attention to the general introductions and the mini-introductions to the short stories of the Sword and Sorceress anthologies edited by the late, great Marion Zimmer Bradley (MZB).She was a prolific author who wrote in many genres at some point in her life. She lived very comfortably in fantasy. In addition to her Darkover novels (which also showed her sci-fi chops at times), she was well known for her retelling of the Arthurian Mythos from the female perspective in a book known as the 'Mists of Avalon.'I read the Sword and Sorceress (S&S) anthologies beginning in high school.

To this day, I must admit that my first reading of the anthologies were always of those introductions and then I would go back and read a story or two here and there. The mini-introductions reminded me of the irascible grandmother or grandfather, who knew their craft and didn't understand how these kids could get as far as they did without doing things proper.

Tips I picked up from these pages included:

• Being able sum up a story and/or a novel in one sentence
• Following the guidelines so that you are giving the editor what they are looking for
• Working at it until you get it write
• Watching that grammar

MZB died in September 1999. I found out first by looking at the S&S XVII and noticing that the copyright was in the name of the Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust. Then I found one of those retail bookstore newsletters that you usually ignore and I saw her picture and then that dreaded term-the 'late' Marion Zimmer Bradley.

There is a website for the Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust:

http://mzbworks.home.att.net/

If you don't happen to have the money or the time to collect the S&S anthologies, there is a section at the Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust website that just happens to be called 'Articles on Writing,' which just happens to have an article entitled 'Advice for New Writers.' Each article is relevant and full of sound advice told in that MZB style. Definitely worth reading and worth coming back to for a refresher from time to time.

So thanks MZB, for inadvertantly teaching me useful things while I read about strong swordswomen and sorceresses.