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.

Top Chef: Bye Bye Mike I

Mike Isabella was shown the door on Top Chef last week. It was a fair bounce: I would say to the remaining chefs and to anyone applying for a job that when you act like 'whatever,' that's how you get treated. He screwed up and his basic behaviour was, 'whatever.'

I am happy to see him go for another reason. I was so tired of the misogyny from him. Granted, as the season has gone on, his comments were more directed at Robin and her lack of skill. However I thought that he never consistently backs up his vast knowledge and skill. The leeks incident is but an example.

I've said it more than a little about Top Chef and Hell's Kitchen that I still can be amazed at the amount of female bashing that goes on with the male chefs of both shows. Hell's Kitchen can be more blatant, but Top Chef is usually touted as being the more sophicated show and that in 2009, a male chef would say something like "I'm not going to let a girl beat me," is disturbing.

It will be interesting to see how the remaining chefs deal feel about his departure.

Tonight is the first annual Top Chef All Stars Reunion Dinner. Because these are the contestants (think Marcel, Hung, Carla) and not the Masters (think Rick Bayliss, Hubert Keller), we are to expect sniping and some Meow Mix to be served with the cream.

Oh, did I mention it will be hosted by Fabio, last season's final four contestant who's still charming them with his fresh off the boat Italian accent complete with the required malapropisms.

Oh reality

I asked where my endless fascination with reality restaurant shows came. I guess I can add Dr. Phil to the list. I am currently watching the turmoil that is known as "The Dr. Phil family." I remembered them from when they debuted in 2003. Sadly, before Dr. Phil shined the light on this family, I grew up with kids whose families were like this and was not surprised by any of the revelations (though it seemed that the audience was). We as an audience seem to revel and be intensely involved in the problems of the middle class suburbanites that populate reality shows like Dr. Phil.

I'm always endlessly fascinated by the fact that when drug addiction affects families of color, it's the families' fault and they are a blight on society and we are paying for your crimes...whereas with this population, there are 'teachable moments' and if only they weren't exposed to tv and other bad influences and they can be saved and go to college and have a future...

Texas Ranch House

While catching up on writing, I listened in on some of the tapes I had. One tape I watched was the Texas Ranch House, one of many of what I call 'history reality series' that were popular in the mid-2000s. As I watched this unfold, I am always astonished at the delusions of the participants, especially the women. What did they think it was going to be?

Life in the past was TOUGH. People had a little fun, but life was always about work. I think for many of us in the 20th and 21st centuries, our only concept of history is what we see in tv and in movies-usually fictionalized. 'Bonanza,' the popular tv western series that aired from 1959-1973, was notable for not having women as regulars on the show. I am guessing because it would have had to show the actual work these women had to do, which was routine and necessary, but not as cool as the Cartwright boys taking down cattle thieves or traveling to San Francisco for fun. 'Big Valley,' which aired from 1965-1969 wasn't that that much better, though at times Victoria Barkley showed that she did not mind getting her hands dirty when she needed to.

I thought is was interesting when one of the assessors who judged the progress of the group at the Texas Ranch House, noted that the women spent more time at the more interesting crafts, but not at the routine, unglamorous and necessary chores. A running theme I keep find as I watch many of these shows is that people underestimate how much work that went into simple living and when it came to household management, that was the exclusive domain of women. I often found it funny that there were men in those periods writing on how fragile women were, though they failed to consider how much muscle it takes to haul water, to get up and cook and clean and watch over gardens and keep accounts and be on hand to help out when needed-in addition to making home comfortable and welcoming AND raising the children.

I was really disgusted with the way the men treated the women on this show. Not so much because of the gender roles, but because the men seemed to treated the women in a way that not even the hierarchical, chauvinistic men of that era would have treated the women. I also felt that while the cowboys were correct in that they were essential to the ranch, they still worked for the ranch owner and his family. They were still hired help. The behaviour of the colonel in the early minutes of the series, was actually not that far off from how they would have been bossed. And sure, these are 21st century people essentially bringing 21st century experience to the project. However, they sign on to at least try to authentically portray life in a certain period and they needed to accept certain truths. One of them was that it was hard work all the time and the questioning orders thing so common to 21st century life did not exist in that period. You knew your place on the totem pole and if you didn't like it, you could leave, but there wasn't always a job waiting around the bend. Also word of mouth was quite strong and if you developed a reputation as someone who couldn't follow orders and was a troublemaker, your prospects were slimmer still.

The owner of the ranch made some key mistakes in judgment. The two largest ones having to do with his handling of two major incidents that dealt with the hired hands.

The first was the firing of the colonel. Granted if you make certain rules and establish consequences once they are broken, you must be prepared to follow through if the situation arises. I felt that Mr. Cooke, in haste to establish his authority, clearly fired the wrong man as subsequent episodes in this series showed. He let go of a man, who will he was not everyon'e pal, got things done and dealt fairly with the hired hands. He also knew where he was in the hierarchy and acted accordingly. I was surprised that he got into a fist fight with Nacho as I thought he was smarter than that. However, the more I saw of Nacho, the more I could understand how even someone with discipline, could be driven to take a poke at him. Nacho went onto make everyone miserable, even serving rancid food and no food to the hired hands. He also maintained unsanitary conditions in his kitchen. There was one exchange between Mrs. Cooke and Nacho concerning the kitchen, where if I had been there, Mr. Cooke would have had to break up another fight. I know that while he was talking over me, I would have made clear-he works for us and if I need to know what the cookhouse is like or need to assess their food stores, the only words out of his mouth I would want to hear are, "This way, ma'am." If, it was not appropriate for me to as a 19th century married woman to confront Nacho in this way, you better believe Mr. Cooke better be done there and let him know that it was his way or the high way. While hired hands and cooks could be hard to come by, they were not impossible to get. Mr. Cooke waited too long to dispense with Nacho and as a result allowed him to cause considerable damage to the running of the ranch.

The second mistake was in not trading the cattle for his hired hand. As the assessors concurred, Mr. Cooke should have given the head of cattle (the Comanche chief was actually not negotiating hard at all) and had them go out and find new cattle, which though tough was not impossible. By not trading for the hired hand, Cooke sent the message loud and clear to the others whose respect for him was already shaky, that they did not matter. The issue concerning this hired hand's horse was ridiculous. Another example of Cooke fighting the wrong battle. As I understood it, the hired hand, who happened to be the hostage of the Comanche, had already paid for his horse outright, so it belonged to him. When Mr. Cooke traded horses for his release, he had to understand that this situation happened more often than not and to say to a person, "well I'm going to take your horse as payment for your life" was really stupid and thoughtless. Then he threatens to beat this guy up if he takes the horse. I wondered where this vinegar was when other situations that required that came up. He not only lost the battle, but the war since the rest of the hired hands left in solidarity.

I've noticed that except for the 'Jane Austen dating club' show, there have not been any more reality shows produced or at least that have aired on PBS. Maybe many people realize that the past is the past and while it's good to know it and learn from it, going back to it knowing what we know now is often times a mistake.

I was not surprised when the assessors determined that the ranch would have failed.