Kelly Smith Beaty, Fayetteville’s contestant on the new season of “The Apprentice,” is still on the show. She hasn’t been fired by Donald Trump. She hasn’t done much of anything. At least in what’s been revealed to us by the producers and editors of “The Apprentice.” I assume it’s her strategy to not make waves, and it’s a good one, but it makes it kind of hard to write about.
In last night’s episode, the two teams operated a day care/hotel for dogs. Kelly was paired up with Mahsa, the fiery former assistant DA, in the room where all the dogs ran around and played. Neither Kelly nor Mahsa seemed like dog people, but only Mahsa was on tape forever complaining about having to be in that room and not being in reception where she belonged. Boo-hoo.
Overall, the theme that kind of jumped out at me with both the men’s team, Octane, and the women’s team, Fortitude, was insubordination. It was in the viewer’s face with David muttering a profanity towards his project manager during a meeting with a client and repeated over and over again as Mahsa relayed to her teammates (and the viewer) that she worked in her mother’s salon as a receptionist for 15 years and should have been the one at the front desk.
Here’s the thing, Mahsa, (assuming she reads this blog about “The Apprentice”), that wasn’t the job you were chosen for. You can lobby for the job once (I’d be perfect for that because I worked as a receptionist for 15 years) but after that you’re not helping your cause. Mahsa is going to come to a messy end on this show because right now it is all about personality conflicts and the people that end up in front of Trump when he is about to make his decision are the project managers for the losing team and the team members that the project manager feels didn’t help out. Mahsa eventually sucked it up and played with the dogs (she called them vicious animals) but David was the one who narrowly escaped a firing. I can’t imagine he is going to last much longer either.
David fought project manager James every step of the way. If it was an isolated incident, you could chalk it up to a bad day or just a conflict between two personalities. David seems to find this type of conflict every week. Maybe it’s a strategy of his. He’ll find his way in front of Trump each time the Octane loses, but he’ll throw the project manager under the bus with the rest of his team and move on. It’s a bad strategy because insubordination and no respect for authority appears to be a character trait. David is an unemployed salesman. I wouldn’t buy anything from someone who rolled his eyes and strutted around with such contempt for his situation.
James was fired. It was hinted that he was an elitist. He went to Duke University and Georgetown Law and maybe everyone else felt that he always wanted them to know that. I kind of got the impression that he was misunderstood early in the game, it bothered him and everyone seized upon it as a weakness.
Next week, the teams make advertising viral videos and it appears to follow the same characters that have been popping up already – Tyana vs. Mahsa and David moaning about he doesn’t take disrespect well. The guy feels like everyone disrespects him which truly does rob him of any respect anyone might have for him.
Good work, Kelly. You’re playing your cards right – even if looks more like Crazy 8s than poker.
Thing I learned about business from this episode – I thought about how I would handle insubordination if I was in a management position and I felt I would skew more towards James’ style (he removed David from the team after he tried to make nails with paper clips). When faced with someone who doesn’t seem to want to be there or adhere to the plan and is confrontational with me in front of the other people on the team, I would have to let them go. There are proper avenues to make suggestions and lobby criticisms and one bad apple can ruin the bunch.
