We’re back in the boardroom with Sir Alan Sugar and his hench people —
Nick Hewer and Karren Brady. But it’s not quite business as usual. For a
start the candidates are a bunch of teenagers. And then, in his opening
pep talk, Lord Sugar says, “I actually love you lot.” Woah there, Alan,
steady on. He continues. “I love seeing if you’ve got that spark of
genius.”
Aah bless. Perhaps the makers of Young Apprentice have realised that a
bunch of 16-year olds might need a bit of nurturing before they are
hung out to dry on national television — as they will be, one by one,
over the coming weeks.
To be honest, after that brief flicker of humanity, it’s business as
usual. Meet the candidates. They are aiming high, they are taking no
prisoners, they are talking in clichés.
Let’s hear about the task. It’s ice cream. They have to make it, brand it and sell it at a profit.
Now see how some of the boys can’t operate the ice cream machine very
well. And notice how the girls are rubbish at maths and can’t get their
margins sorted. Watch the teams try to flog their ice creams at
Southend and Chessington. Marvel at how the producers make it look as
though the girls have lost even though they have, in fact, won.
The boys make a profit of £559.29 while the girls make £708.34.
This is all familiar ground. And the lesson is simple — get your
prices right. The boys asked too little for their ice creams. The girls,
meanwhile, demonstrated their upselling skills, adding expensive
toppings and charging their unsuspecting customers more. They even
charged 20p for a cone!
But what does this actually prove? The trouble with giving these
young people — and indeed anyone — two days to set up a profitable
business is that it does not allow any time for learning from your
mistakes. Experience is a wonderful teacher.
And while they clearly need to brush up on their business skills,
what the programme reveals more than anything is their appalling lack of
people skills as they talk over each other and shriek into their
smartphones from the back of cabs.
So the boys go down to the losers’ café for a cuppa in a polystyrene
cup. I swear they used to have actual crockery. Is this a sign of the
times? Or are the programme makers trying to make the losing team feel
even more depressed?
Team leader Harry picks two scapegoats to come back into the
boardroom with him. James is a big mouth from Northern Ireland
(reminiscent of Jim in the last series) and Mahamed has struggled to be
heard throughout the task. Poor Mahamed is so desperate to cover himself
in glory that he claims it was him that came up with the pirate theme
for their ice cream stall. James, whose idea it was, is having none of
it.
Lord Sugar is almost squirming as he fires Mahamed — I think he
actually feels bad. But then he turns to James and says with menace,
“Watch it, OK? Watch it. Because I am watching you.”
It’s a tough world out there kids and you might as well get used to it.
0 Comments: