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The Sport Relief Apprentice Fired For Bad Jokes?

By Jim Symcox on Mar 15, 2008 in Sir Alan Sugar, The Apprentice

Table of contents for UK Apprentice - 2008 - Sports Relief

The UK Apprentice Returns With Sir Alan Sugar For Sport Relief
The Apprentice (UK) 2008 – Does Sport Relief
The Apprentice – Sport Relief Does Charity Shops
The Sport Relief Apprentice Fired For Bad Jokes?

The Apprentice final boardroom show down was a fight between Hardeep on one side and Kelvin and Lembit on the other.

Hardeep had an unfortunate habit of over elaborating his contribution to the boys team which came across as simple BS. However, I do think that he actually appeared to contribute more than Kelvin or Lembit.

During the boardroom Kelvin was taken to task for not stepping up and managing the boys team and also for not using his contacts. As Sir Alan said he must know piles of influential people. Kelvin wriggled and said that as the editor of the Sun his contact list had shrunk a long way! He also said that he felt his management style wouldn’t work in the volunteer situation they were in. Then realising that it was going to be either himself, Hardeep or Lembit he laid in to Hardeep saying he was a disruptive influence on the team.

Lembit shrugged and gurned and said some empty words that really said nothing about his contribution. Did he, as Kelvin suggests, save the team from abject failure? We certainly never saw any of this supposed team saving. All we saw was an ineffectual attempt to sell tickets, an appalling and unprepared negotiation and a bit of selling.

Hardeep did himself no favours in the boardroom by continuing to bleat comments that were probably meant to be biting wit but just came across as weak schoolboy digs.

Political animals Lembit and Kelvin ganged up on Hardeep to present him as the chief culprit in their poor showing compared to the girls. Although they did raise a few hundred thousand for Sport Relief which was really the whole point.

In the end it was obvious Hardeep was going. When he was fired he acted with dignity and when he came back on to Sport Relief the point was made that someone had to be fired and that it was all for charity anyway. So fun was had by all.

Was The Firing Deserved?

I didn’t agree with the shop design, the name, the concept or the free food that Hardeep was the main instigator of, however I think he did contribute a lot to the task. I certainly never saw Lembit as involved, other than selling the tickets at a massive discount compared to the ticket prices that the girls were getting.

I would definitely have fired Lembit before Hardeep. And the reason? Although Hardeep did disrupt the project Lembit as team manager should have “managed” that and made sure that the right things got done. And that includes using all the contacts to maximise ticket sales and reining Hardeep’s desire to give the customer “value” by providing free stuff, including oysters, which as Sir Alan said you don’t need to do “free” when you’re buying stuff for charity – otherwise the girls would never have had people spending thousands on a single ticket.

LiveJournal tags: The Apprentice, Sir Alan Sugar, Sport Relief, Clare Balding, Hardeep Singh Kohli, Jacqueline Gold, Kelvin Mackenzie, Kirstie Allsopp, Lembit Opik, Lisa Snowdon, Louise Redknapp, Nick Hancock, Phil Tufnell