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Apprentice week 5 - modern art

The Apprentice - Harrods

As usual, things pick up straight after last week's boardroom survivors return "home".  Tim would be surprised if Adele didn't get fired.  Amazingly, he actually tells her this rather than being two-faced.  That's not going to work, is it?

The next morning they are summoned to the nearest corner shop.  Sir Alan tells the contestants that the proprietor "has got, believe it or not, a very broad portfolio of skills in running his business".  We see a dirty sign saying "newspapers sold here".  The task is going to be about their total organizational skills in a retail environment.  Sir Alan apparently has a friend who runs a corner shop...Harrods.  Oh, stop, Sir Alan, you're so funny.

They have to run a unit in Harrods. Sir Alan tells them that they will have Harrods staff to help them, and they need to treat them with respect.

Tim volunteers to be project manager (again) and James allows himself to be persuaded to run Impact.  He seems to have the right approach, but Paul is not impressed.

Tim, meanwhile, says his team need a mission statement.  Whoops.  They don't need one of those, do they?

We see Adele having a tearful phone call with her husband.

Impact walk around the store picking up products, but they will need to check that they have at least 40% non-Harrods brand products. Paul seems to be having trouble with the maths. First Forte take their time going through the list of merchandise and then run around the store checking the items.  They are first to finish, and their list is accepted.

It turns out that 76% of Impact's products are Harrods own brand.  That's not even close to 40%, is it?  They have to make some quick adjustments.

On the second day, the teams have to set up displays in their areas.  Harrods staff have been instructed to give them some guidance about what might be wrong, but not to tell them what they should be doing.  Adele is not happy about this.  Saira is also not happy, even though she is "such a positive person". 

First Forte have recruited a face painter, a pianist and someone to demonstrate the toys.  Impact seem to have nothing.  They seek out the manager of the toy department, who observes that they have "all dodgy products".  That could be a disadvantage. 

They are getting desparate.  Paul dresses up in a bear costume.  It seems to work.  At 4pm, the provisional sales figures are surprising - Impact are leading by £400. 

Adele is getting stressed.  She is blaming Harrods staff.  That's probably not going to go down well with Sir Alan.

The teams suddenly have sales vouchers to give away.  They go crazy offering them to anyone who will buy anything, and Saira offers a £50 voucher to the first customer to buy a bag costing about £250.  She gets a sale, and that could be enough to win them the task.

Indeed it is.  The final results are Impact £3295, First Forte £3108.  Tim needs to pin the blame on someone - probably Ben (who admitted he found it tough), or more likely Adele (who had narrowly escaped last week, and seems to be struggling with being away from her family).

It's going to be Adele, and without Tim having to do anything.  She criticizes one of the Harrods employees, saying he had the wrong attitude and was rude and arrogant.  Nick doesn't agree - he thinks he was very professional and did what he was told to do.  Which is also what we the viewers saw.

Ben sees his chance and criticizes Adele for being emotional.  She blames the rest of the team, and then admits that she has 'personal and emotional problems' and says she wants to leave.  Sugar is having none of it, and insists on firing her for being disrespectful to people - though he can't quite bring himself to say "you're fired".

In the taxi home, Adele says that she was the easy target (which is true), because she was such a threat to the rest of the contestants because of her "very entrepreneurial background" (which isn't) and that she had a strong chance of winning the competition (no she didn't).  

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