"It's More than Decor/A
Slice of Heaven" - April 10
The Game Continues without
Bryce who refused to play. With Lenny the Russian at the
helm, can Gold Rush build up some momentum or will their
foundation be too shaky to overcome Synergy
This week the candidates will be renovating Boys and
Girls clubs with the goal of pleasing the youth that
use them. The best improvements will win.
Gold Rush will be meeting with the execs from Ace
Hardware and the Boys and Girls Club first and
Charmaine is kind enough to notify Lenny, the PM, that
they will be arriving in 5 minutes
Michael is acting as the Project Manager for Synergy,
and seeing how Gold Rushs meeting went its hard to
picture things going any worse. Michael actually asks
poignant questions of the execs. The problem is that he
asks too many questions. So many in fact that as the
execs try to leave he asks more questions forcing them
to sit down again. You could say he has diarrhea of the
mouth.
[Word of the day: Logorrhea = diarrhea of the mouth]
Another person with the same problem is Charmaine.
[Shocker]
Tarek cant stand her talking relating it to nails on a
chalkboard, but really the problem is that Charmaine
wants control. She is trying to tell Lenny that they
need to hire professional painters and that the job can
be done much faster but the Russian will have none of
it.
[Looks like Charmaine will actually have to do some hard
work for once and paint. Dont all cheer at once now.]
Synergy is shopping and getting fed up with Michaels
lack of decision making. He cant pick a color scheme
and he delays the shopping trip numerous hours forcing
Synergy to shop at breakneck speed to get all of the
required renovations materials. It looks as if there
might be a chink in synergys armor.
Now for the fun part. Andrea is asked by Bill Rancic in
front of Michael if Michael is doing a good job as PM.
for the first time, we see Andrea is at a loss for
words. She simply says that Michaels is doing fine and
turns away. Considering she was berating him a moment
ago and the rest of the team was laughing at him in the
car, Andrea showed amazing restraint.
[She unlike Bryce is playing the game, you may hate her,
but she isnt leaving any time soon.]
As the work wraps up, Gold Rush is having difficulty in
finishing on time. Tarek, Leslie and Charmaine are
working insanely hard, while Lenny and Lee are
attempting to bring back music supplies. It cant help
that they are lost. The tile laying is going smoothly
but with time running short and Gold Rush 2 men down,
who knows if they can come back.
Synergy is operating fine now that Andrea has taken
charge. She may come across as a dictator, but as she
tells Sean, all she is doing is trying to make sure
decisions get made.
Unfortunately there is no reason for suspense to be
maintained. While both teams created wonderful looks
that pleased the kids, Synergy followed the instructions
of the execs and that is a sure fire way to win every
time.
[And yes, the Synergy Winning streak is getting a little
old]
As a reward, Synergy will get to treat a young girl to a
Toys R Us Shopping Spree.
[Even as an adult, that is a prize most of us would
relish for ourselves]
At the risk of seeming redundant, lets see who from
Gold Rush gets fired this time. Lee is helping to
prepare Lenny for the boardroom, and frankly Lenny seems
to have no clue as to how to defend himself. His target:
Charmaine. Yes, while Charmaine may be annoying at
times, all she did this time around was work her tail
off laying down the tile. Can she really be blamed for
this?
[Again, apologies for dragging this out, but were here
to provide thorough coverage]
In the boardroom, Charmaine attacks Lenny. She points
out that Lenny neglected the importance of meeting with
the executives and Trump adds in the fact that Synergy
spent 45 minutes with the executives. Gold Rush spent
10.
[Point Charmaine. 1-0]
Bill Rancic points out that even within the 10 minutes
they spent that there was a lot of dead air. Lenny says
that he was not there to please the judges
[Penalty Lenny. 1 to -1]
Lenny says he didnt care about winning; he just wanted
to provide a great space for the kids. Lee defends this
putting it into better but more futile words.
[Double penalty. Lenny -2, Lee -1, Charmaine 1. Leslie
and Tarek still havent uttered a word]
Carolyn asks what happens if the instruments break. No
good response
Another penalty. [Lenny down to -3]
Trump forces Leslie to talk and admits that she would
fire Lenny as PM; Tarek also places the blame on Lenny.
[Score update: Oh, screw it]
Lenny brings back Charmaine and asks Lee to join him as
an advocate.
[That's right, try to take out the points leader on this
task when you are in last place. Oops]
Lets end whatever suspense is left. Lenny, Charmaine is
right on all points, Trump doesnt even need to follow
your suggestions and ask people to leave. Lenny, Youre
fired!
Outside the boardroom, Charmaine is told by Lenny that
she has 10,000 faces. The bitterness is nice to see,
seeing as almost everyone is graceful in their exit.
Competition is tough, but someone has to go. Maybe next
week the decision will be somewhat harder.
But wait, this is an apprentice double header. No delay
necessary.
Round 2 Lets Go!
Michael is quickly scolded by his team as they feel they
got lucky winning the last task.
[This is why Synergy keeps winning. Even when they win,
they arent satisfied if they did not perform their
best]
As for poor Gold Rush, any team that gets decimated on
The Apprentice can know that corporate reshuffling is
not far away.
Charmaine has other business to deal with first,
however. She is livid that Lee named her to be fired
instead of Lenny. Lee basically admitted that Charmaine
did do a better job but that to him loyalty is more
important. They agree to disagree.
[So lets get this right, Gold Rush is in admitted
shambles and Synergy is dealing with Michael, their sole
problem. That leads to
]
Trumps request. He asks Synergy if any of them think
that they can go to Gold Rush and make them a winner.
Its a fools wager, and guess who bites. The only
person who would want to leave Synergy, Michael.
[Now we pray that this task is not a foregone
conclusion, but who are we kidding?]
The teams will be promoting 7-11 this time and have to
increase sales of their new sandwich the Peatzza a
sandwich that uses pizza for bread. With the aid of
creating a promotion item for Andretti Green Racing (the
7-11 car), the team that increases sales by the greatest
percentage will win.
[And we wonder why we have an obesity problem. While you
think about that, Ill be taking a break to get a
Peatzza. Mmm, Peatzza.]
Andrea will be leading Synergy, and she lets us know
that if she had it her way
[No Burger King promotion intended, sorry Unan1mous.]
shed be project Manager every time. So now that we
know decisions will be made at synergy, lets check in
on the losers, I mean, Gold Rush.
Leslie is running the show and Lee is pushing the fact
that he is the exact customer that they will be selling
to, New York City college students. As a promotional
item, Gold Rush settles on a foam 6-pack cooler. Not a
bad choice.
Gold Rush then goes to scope out the store and Lee
immediately begins to cut deals like a mini Trump. He
gets the Peatzzas located at the front of the store and
he gets the manager to agree to remove all for the other
sandwiches.
[Things are actually looking up. We may have a
competition here.]
Finally, Gold Rush sits down to set a price point.
Leslie and the rest of the team are pushing for a 7.99
price point with a bonus of 2 for 8.99.
Lee, however, thinks its too high and wants to lower
the price point by at least a dollar.
[Business lesson: The bonus only aids you if we are
judging volume. The 8.99 actually will hurt your goal,
increased financially sales/profit]
Very simply, Gold Rush is in trouble.
Synergy is running smoothly with their sales. Tarek, Mr.
Mensa himself is trying to stop people out front by
asking trivia questions. While this may not be
succeeding very much, Synergys lower price point of
4.00 is getting them a lot more incidental sales.
Ironically, everyone on the team is doing a good job
selling aside from Andrea
[Well, maybe not so ironically, after all Andrea does
not come across as the best people person.]
As for Synergys promotion Andretti Green racing hats,
Carolyn Kepcher doesnt get it. She wonders how a hat
relates to a sandwich, and now Andrea may be taking heat
for forcing this decision upon her team.
[So, we now have an obvious target should Synergy lose,
and more so, we finally have a reason why Synergy might
lose. Might our collective faiths be renewed?]
Gold Rush is going to need something big to pull this
one out. Fortunately, Lee is thinking big. How big?
1,000 sandwiches big. He is trying to cut a deal to sell
the half ton of sandwiches to a local business owner and
with and offer of slashing the 7.99 price point to 3.00,
he gets countered with an offer of $2.00 per sandwich.
Lee quickly retreats to Leslie who authorizes him to
offer $2.50, and now we have to wait and see
The results:
Gold Rush sold very well with their high price point,
but the business deal fell through. Regardless, sales
were increased 608%.
As for Synergy, the hat was not a great promotion item
and their price point was significantly lower. Their
strategy however, yielded an increase of 997%. Will this
ever end? At least not this week. Synergy extends their
winning streak to 4 weeks in a row and will be flying on
a private jet to Washington D.C. to have breakfast with
Senator Chuck Schumer.
[Now while some may be sad because the loss falls on
Leslies birthday and the boardroom isnt a great
present, it may be more important that Synergy won. Sean
just received his green card 4 months ago and the looks
on his face proved he needed to be in D.C. A touching
moment.]
Now for another touching moment. Except this is going to
be on bad touch. Gold Rush enters the boardroom as their
weekly appointment requires. And this time, as usual it
is a 2-sided affair.
Leslie chooses her target and it is Lee. While he may
have had some successes, his time away from the sales
floor that did not result in the 1,000 sandwich sale,
cost the team. Lee on the other hand feels that Leslie
was not a good manager and that her approval of a
ridiculously high price point is truly what cost the
team this task.
Lee tells The Donald that the most finicky buyers are
college students and senior citizens. Trump does not
disagree and further expresses that the mistake made on
this task was mainly the price point
[At this point, its all over, but Trump takes some time
to educate the candidates.]
Trump points out that Leslie arguably brought in Lee for
personal reasons, and that even though he may be
disagreeing with the team as a strategic maneuver, he
was right so it is not an issue. While Trump feels that
Lee did not perform to the best of his potential on this
task, the decision once again is simple. Leslie, Youre
Fired!
The question now becomes, is it possible for anyone on
Gold Rush to dig out of this hole and become the next
Apprentice. Trump says that he liked Leslie, but with
her out of the picture there is no one left on Gold Rush
without a tainted image.
Next week we will see if Gold Rush can do the seemingly
impossible or if Synergy will win for a 5th consecutive
time. Prepare yourselves, more boardroom bloodbaths
await.
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