Last night, yet another contestant was given the Lord Sugar finger, and, in an unfortunate turn of events was fired from popular BBC show The Apprentice.
Whether or not the show itself is an accurate portrayal of business scenarios is another topic for another day, however the show's entertainment value cannot be disputed. Even I, with my incredible lack of business knowledge (or 'acumen' as they like to call it on the show) find myself shouting at my Television screen and shaking my head in disbelief when a contestant makes a silly and often costly mistake.
This week, however, was a little different. With only eight contestants left, tensions were running high, ties were tied with utmost care, and everyone was fighting their hardest to stay on the show, and avoid being on the receiving end of Lord Sugar's favourite catch phrase.
Team Tenacity and Team Summit were sent on a shopping spree (or for some a wild Kosher chicken chase) in a hunt across London to buy nine illusive and completely unrelated items at rock bottom prices.
While Team Summit's feminine wiles bagged them a diamond for £50 (yes, fifty pounds!) Felipe's attempt to 'lawyer' his way to victory by purchasing a not-so anatomical skeleton left Team Tenacity without a leg to stand on and landed our favourite Columbian in the dog house.
Although many people were sad to see the lovable lawyer leave the show, with zero mercy shown by Lord Sugar, this writer believes that on this occasion Lord Sugar made the right decision.
Like they say, there's a time and a place for everything, even lawyerly loopholes, but unfortunately, last night's very specific task, was not it.
Felipe's attempt at being clever may at first have seemed genius, but on closer inspection and with deeper contemplation, now seems somewhat foolish and left Lord Sugar ('the judge, jury and executioner' of the boardroom) less than impressed.
Imagine….
You're an events promoter and your boss asks you to purchase 200 pumpkins for a client's Halloween's party at the best possible price you can get.
You return with 200 miniature candle plastic pumpkin shaped candle holder things, because 'it was cheaper and your boss didn't specify if he wanted real pumpkins'.
Best case scenario, the party is ruined, the client leaves your company and you become the office idiot. Worst case scenario, you're fired (like Felipe) and the 'dude who thought he was being clever but lost our company thousands of pounds with his idiotic plan' shadow follows you for the rest of your soon to be ephemeral career.
90% of the time, being clever and forward thinking will get you far life, but the other 10% of the time (and on most occasions when your boss asks you to buy something and you come back with some not so cunningly disguised knock off) being too clever is counter-productive and will only land you with less than favourable reference on your next job application.
