The Apprentice LA - Episode 6

Well, this is a little awkward, isn’t it. I feel like all 200 of you just walked in on me naked. To be honest, I can’t really look you in the eye right now (luckily, I am a good enough typist to look away from the screen when I type).

Uh…

so…

It’s Thursday, huh? Thursday’s a nice day, huh? Yeah, I’m a fan of Thursday.

Oh god, this is unbearable.

How about I just start talking about the task, as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened.

So we’re standing around waiting for the results of the boardroom. Either Aaron, or Surya, or both, would be fired. The main thing on my mind was that I wanted to be project manager. I had told this to both Nicole and Surya earlier that day, and was mentally prepared to step up as the leader. I felt completely comfortable with everyone on the team. Nicole, Frank, and Surya all considered me on of their best friends on the team, and I got along very well with James and Stef as well. I had gone through 5 tasks and 15 days with this group, and I had a good handle on each of their strengths and weaknesses. On top of that, my plan before starting this had been to take on the role week 4 or 5. Of course, I hadn’t anticipated the new “winning PM remains PM” rule—on one hand, in previous seasons it looked bad to not have been PM by week 6 or 7 and with the new rule it was not nearly as glaring when someone actively shies away from the role. On the other hand, I still was anxious to take the lead—it felt like the natural move. And with this rule in place, a chance to assume the PM role might not come along again for awhile. So it was the ideal time. Even better, neither Steph nor James wanted the role at the time, and Nicole and Frank had already been there, so they were out of the question.

The only circumstance under which I would not be the PM task 6 would be if Surya came close to getting fired but survived, in which case the “Surya needs to prove himself to Trump” conventional wisdom would go into effect. And, standing there waiting for them to return, it looked like this is exactly what would happen. And that was unfortunate for the team for two main reasons—1) I got along with everyone and knew how this team functioned while Surya had a lot of tension with Frank, James, and Stef, and 2) I felt very secure at the moment regarding Trump’s opinion of me and that of my teammates, and therefore would not have led the team in a state of boardroom fear, while Surya knew that he was already on thin ice, and that if we lost he would be attacked thoroughly, and most likely fired. The second point is important, because fear of the boardroom has a paralyzing effect on a leader, and often leads to micromanaging.

And then, round the corner come Nicole and Surya. I hug Nicole, and she whispers to me, “Surya has to be project manager.” And looking him, I realized that she was right. He was freaking out.

After Surya’s “Don’t!! Lie!!” tirade (in which he was referring to Aaron declaring that Surya was in charge of marketing on the honey task, and during which Surya accidentally flung his ring across the yard, and we all looked for it for awhile until we finally found it), we all sat around the campfire and Surya discussed the situation and his thoughts on the upcoming task. As he had told me earlier he would, he told the group that I would be his second in command, and that throughout the task, he would have one cell phone and I would have the other (he said some other things too, which I can’t recall). And with that, we went to bed.

Bright and early the next day (day 1 of task, day 16 overall), we head to LAX to meet the Trumpster, who tells us about the task. Basically, we had $10,000 to give away in the form of plane tickets, which would be the bait with which to convince people to register for Priceline.com (to enter the sweepstakes, people would have register on one of our four computers).

So we headed to our assigned mall. On the van ride there, we had a discussion about what to give away with our $10,000. Our time in the mall would be limited from 10am to 1pm, and every idea revolved around the idea that we’d give away $10,000 at 1pm, giving us 3 hours to sign up as many people as possible to potentially win the money at 1pm. The problem was, from 10am-12:30pm, it would be hard to sign people up, because the dossier stated that the winner had to be present at the drawing in order to collect the prize, and people would not want to wait around until 1.

Once we got to the war room, I came up with the idea to break up the prize into parts and give it away in pieces. Everyone liked this, and we decided to split it into 9 parts and give away $1,100 every 20 minutes. It made perfect sense—instead of telling passers-by that they could win $10,000 if they waited around until 1, we could say that they could win $1,100 in a few minutes by signing up. Plus, instead of showing them a raffle cage with hundreds of entrants inside (which would happen if we only had one drawing), we could show them that there were only a handful of entrants (since only so many can build up every 20 minutes), so that they could see that they actually had a good chance of winning. Further, our biggest challenge would be to convince shoppers that this was not some bullshit scam, and what better way to intrigue people and gain credibility than with a screaming winner every 20 minutes—not to mention that the crowd that would gather for each drawing would attract attention.

If I must say so myself, this was a very good idea (though I was well aware that if we were to lose, I would be in trouble).

Now that we had our giveaway strategy, we needed to figure out the best way to market it—we had this great bait at our disposal, but how would we get people to bite?

So we started brainstorming—and this is when Surya got himself into trouble. He was trying to fit the brainstorming session into a very rigid structure (this was the scene where he kept telling Frank to come up with his “strategy” before getting specific).

This was our first real taste of Surya’s micromanaging leadership style. He is a very smart guy, and extremely methodical and organized. In his ideal situation, our team would function like a well-oiled business machine. He’d be the CEO, I’d be the COO, someone else would be the CFO, another person on brand management, and so on. There would be an agenda, there would be strict time lines, there would be a set of goals, and we would identify the crucial levers that would require our time and energy. We’d have a specifically-scheduled brainstorming session, which would be well-organized—first, everyone would think silently for 5 minutes. Then, one by one, each person would say one idea they came up with in those 5 minutes. Then, for 10 minutes, we would discuss the 6 ideas, using an object—you only speak when holding the object. Then, if none of the ideas seemed good enough, we’d all come up with another idea, during another 5-minute silent period.

Now—these, I’m sure, are classic procedures that well-run PR companies, political campaigns, and ad agencies use on a daily basis. But there are several reasons that this leadership style could not work here:

First and foremost, this style is just too easy to mock. Especially in a situation in which much of the team is looking for any reason to mock you. Only someone with the complete and utter respect of the team could have potentially pulled off a style like that, and Surya wasn't that person. In short, he was micromanaging a group of people who did not like being micromanaged by anyone, let alone a leader they didn’t get along with.

Second, regardless of who the leader was, this was not how Arrow functioned. Our brainstorming sessions were loud and energetic, and we would feed off each other’s energy. It may not have been the ideal productive scenario, but that’s how we were. Surya needed to adapt his style to A) the group he was leading, and B) the fact that three of them were looking for a reason to say he sucked as a leader. And he didn’t.

The fact is, I’m not sure Surya could have done anything that would have worked, given the circumstances. This is a show where people A) smell even the faintest trace of blood, and B) quickly band together when blood is in the water. And Surya was bleeding heavily.

So Surya tries to micromanage, the team gets irritated, and Frank draws Surya on a napkin. The editing deception here is that it looked like we were all laughing at Surya while he was in the room—but in fact, Surya was gone on an OTF at the time.

In reality, here was the team dynamic: Nicole and I both felt a bit bad for Surya and tried not to give him a hard time, James and Stefanie both disliked him, but neither was rude to his face, and Frank would openly pick on Surya. Frank was never quite mean to him, but he showed him absolutely no respect, and made fun of him a lot. Surya hated Frank, but tried to remain professional about it. Frank and Surya: not a match made in heaven.

Anyway, realizing that our biggest challenge would be to convince passers-by that this was not a scam, I decided to create t-shirts for all of us to wear—on the back would be the nine giveaway times (10:20, 10:40, 11:00, etc.) in a circle around a picture of an airplane. We’d have big magic markers, and when a prize was given away, we’d ask a tourist to cross out that giveaway time on our back. This would accomplish two things: it would help to make the situation extremely clear—(THERE ARE NINE $1,100 TRIPS BEING GIVEN AWAY. WE’VE ALREADY GIVEN AWAY 3, AS YOU CAN SEE UNDER THE RED X’S. THE NEXT ONE, AS YOU CAN SEE, IS AT 11:20, WHICH IS IN 8 MINUTES!!!!!!). And it would attract attention—try to tell me that if you were in a mall and saw a guy drawing on the back of another guy’s shirt, you wouldn’t at least look over for a second.

The team liked the idea, so I head over with Frank to our designated graphic designer to get the shirts made. We get there, and Frank goes on a long OTF (presumably to be asked all about the “him and Surya situation”) while I tell the designer what to do with the shirt. We also design the video ad thing while we’re there, which has a red “EVERY 20 MINUTES” flashing in the middle. We add a voiceover which would loop constantly at the dozen video ad spots throughout the mall, advertising what was happening with the giveaways. Frank did the voiceover, and then we listened to it back and remembered that Frank didn’t speak English, so I did it (you may have recognized my voice when they showed the video ad screen during the episode).

We finished, and called the team. They were working on setting up the computer station and learning the ropes of the computers (where people will register).

So, with no real rush to get back, Frank and I stopped at Baja Fresh, a Mexican fast food chain, for dinner. Tasks so far had been intense whirlwinds of running around frantically, and this was a rare moment of relaxation during a task. After getting clearance from production (meaning the cameras were allowed to go in the restaurant), we ordered food and sat down at a table. A camera man sat down at the table next to us and filmed on the two of us.

And since people in Baja Fresh aren’t typically accompanied by a camera crew, we noticed that everyone in the restaurant was staring at us. We had become very used to the cameras and hardly noticed them anymore, but a moment like this was a big reminder that we were filming a reality TV show. Sitting there, it didn’t feel like a task, it felt like I was eating Baja Fresh with a friend of mine—and yet, a camera crew was there filming our conversation. A jolt of surreal. For awhile, the camera guy relaxed and put the camera on his knee—but when Frank said, “So, what’s really happening with you and Nicole?”—the camera man catapulted the camera on his shoulder with lightning speed. This was no ordinary dinner with a friend.

We finished, and met up with the group back at the mall. Upon walking in, I noticed that Nicole looked ticked off. When I had the chance, I asked her what was up. She said Stef had been cutting her off a lot and had been annoying to work with all day. This was new. And amusing. Talking with James a bit later, he mentioned that he hated working with Surya. Tension was a-brew.

We checked out the computer station—it looked good—and headed back to the campsite. I don’t remember the details of this time, but I believe we all actually got some sleep. Definitely the most sleep during a task yet.

The next morning (day 2 of the task, day 17 overall), we woke up around 5am, hopped in the van, and went back to the mall.

Since we had 5 hours till the beginning of the task and no more than 3 people were needed at the mall to set up, Surya, Nicole, and I went out and put flyers on hundreds of cars in the area, advertising the day’s giveaways. This took about an hour (I remember walking down the sidewalk holding my flyers and the camera guy was 5 feet in front of me walking backwards, filming me, and the producer next to him, also walking backwards, asked, “So, tell me about the experience of flyering with Nicole.” I think I gave her the finger). After an hour of this, the producer got word about something on her earpiece and asked to see one of our flyers. She took it and made a couple calls, and then came back to us and said we couldn’t use these flyers because it didn’t have a date or say “one day only” (the problem is that people might come and raise a fuss at the mall in future days). Not only did we have to stop putting the flyers on cars, we had to take away the flyers we had already put out. So we spent another hour backtracking and removing the flyers. These are the hideous things that never make an episode.

From there the three of us headed to a nearby flea market and started telling people there about the giveaways—some seemed interested, although this was a fairly hopeless mission. I also bought—and subsequently enjoyed—some fresh strawberries.

Around 8am, we were back at the mall. We picked up our t-shirts and our big signs (which had the same “times circling an airplane” image as the shirts), and finished getting things ready. When 10am rolled around, we could start signing people up. As suspected, people in the mall walked right by the stand with little more than a quick glance—we were going to have to actively sell people.

I don’t remember whether Surya delegated these assignments, or if we just fell into them, but James, Nicole, and Stephanie ended up manning the computers, helped people register, and kept the flow moving at the station. Frank, Surya and I were walking around telling people about what was happening and trying to get people to head over to the station.

I started out rusty, and then started to fall into a groove and began selling very well (like the car wash)—the key was surpassing people’s “scam-radar”. At the beginning, I’d walk up to passers-by and start telling them about the giveaways, and in one second, they’d say, “no thanks” and ignore me. So the challenge was to convince people that this was real and that there was no catch, within that crucial one second before they said, “No thanks.” I’d say things like, “If I came up to myself I would tell myself to get the hell away—I know this seems so much like a scam, but please believe me that this is real—there is absolutely no catch. You can punch me in the face as hard as you can if there is a catch—we are giving away nine $1,100 trips in a span of three hours.” Then I’d turn around, and show them the back of my shirt, and say, “look, we’ve given away 5 already, and the next one is in 12 minutes, at 11:00 on the dot. You don’t need to put down any money, and you won’t get any emails—just put your name into those computers and wait until 11:00 to see if you’ve won.” Then I’d point to the raffle box and say, “this isn’t even a long shot, there are about 10 or 20 entrants in each drawing.”

By this point, I usually had intrigued people. I’d bring them over and get James', Nicole’s or Stef's attention, and say, “This person will take care of you—good luck!” and I’d go get someone else. I began targeting families because if I could sell them on it, each member would sign up. My success rate at the beginning was about 20% and after a half hour, I had figured it out and it was up to 80% or higher. Frank (as you saw), was selling well too.

At one point during all of this, I looked up and saw a girl I had dated in college, who I hadn’t seen since college. We made eye contact. I’m standing there with an oversized shirt with big red X’s on the back, selling some random scam-like sweepstakes at a big mall in LA, and there are people filming me.

Her: “Tim??!”
Me: “Uh…hey.”
Her: “Um…what are you…doing?”
Me: “Um…I, uh…I can’t talk to you right now…”
Her: “What the hell is going on? You’re not even going to give me a hug?”
Me: “Uh…I can’t really explain, I kind of have to go.”

And she walked off, undoubtedly about to call her friends and tell them that that guy Tim from college had gone off the deep end, and that he was wearing a huge t-shirt and asking people to write on it and selling something energetically in a mall.

So the task ends, and by 1pm I was drained—turning on every ounce of charisma and charm you have in you for 3 straight hours without stopping for one second is exhausting. I call this part of the task “gametime”—the actual sales period (or fashion show, or bus tour, etc.) itself. 90% of a 35-hour task is spent brainstorming/preparation, and it all comes down to how well you execute the last 10%. In this case, gametime was 3 hours. And if gametime is like a huge sports event and the cameras are like the crowd, the result is that your adrenaline is pumping throughout the 3 hours—yet another source of exhaustion afterwards.

We head back for resolution. Trump asks us how Surya was as a leader. This is awkward—if we say the PM wasn't good it’s just horrible teamsmanship (this is my recap so I can use whatever words I want), but if we say he’s good, we run into a problem down the road. Because if we lose the next task and then people say he wasn't a good leader, Trump will remember that we all said he was good on the last task, and we’ll look fickle. Plus, with the new, stupid “winning PM remains PM” rule, there is a constant fear that your PM goes on a run and becomes immune to a firing (like Heidi), which puts the rest of in a lot of danger, so people were always reluctant to pump up a PM too much. The fact is, we told Trump he was good—no one said “great”—but we said he was good. The editors didn’t show this because it doesn’t fit with their black and white, “Surya is a horrible PM and everybody hates him” storyline.

It’s pretty clear from Kinetic’s reaction to Trump’s questions about their leader (and from their reaction last week when they won) that Aimee was in big trouble if they lost.

Junior announces the results.

Kinetic: 326
Arrow: 359

Yipdeedooda!

I was a gross 1-4 up to that moment, and hearing those numbers felt good. Plus, I had extra stake in this one, because the team had gone with my strategy.

Trump tells us that for our reward (which he described the previous day as a “phenomenal reward”) we would be waking up bright and early for surf lessons, followed by a nice brunch.

As far as rewards go, this was nothing to write home about.

While other rewards happen that same night, this was a daytime reward and would happen the next morning, before the long interviews, so we had a night to hang out. So we went back and moved into the house. Frank barbecued and we all sat down to eat. I walked up to the table, which had 4 chairs and a bench, and sat down in a chair. “No, no, no,” said James, “you have to sit on the bench with Nicole.”

It was exactly like 5th grade. On one hand, this type of thing (and the team—especially James, Surya and Frank—did this kind of thing a lot) was incredibly childish and annoying. On the other hand, I appreciated that they could be criticizing us for what was happening—after all, in a game where everyone can smell blood, this was something to potentially criticize—and they weren’t. In fact, they all seemed to be more into the whole thing than she and I were.

We had a great, happy, relaxing, satisfying meal, and following dinner, considering that we had just won, and that we didn’t have a task the next day—you better believe we brought out the alcohol. James, Frank, Nicole and I all got pretty drunk and we all got in the pool.

And like James’ 5th grade comment at dinner, as soon as I started talking to Nicole in the pool, the other four basically sprinted into the house. It was annoying, but as I said in an interview, I wasn’t exactly crushed about it either (in the Yahoo uncut version of this scene—which I trust none of you has any interest in—I say in an interview, “this team does a lot of annoying things, but of all the annoying things they do, all going inside at once was one of the better ones.”).

And since you’ve all had more than your fair share of the events that took place at this time, I’ll try keep this short.

The cameras are always there, two feet away. Sitting in the hot tub there, the camera guy had left. I’m no fool—drunk or not, I figured they were filming from somewhere, but because they were far away, I assumed they couldn’t get any kind of close-up shot.

I assumed wrong.

I also assumed, since we were in the water and our mic’s were off, that they couldn’t hear anything I was saying.

And yet, as the subtitles rolled out on the screen Sunday, I learned hideously that I had once again assumed wrong.

All that said, I knew they were filming from somewhere—and I didn’t care. It’s odd, I know. But like I mentioned in last week’s recap, I was not thinking about consequences to the point that I was almost actively ignoring consequences. For someone who’s typically a thinker and an analyzer, this was a state I never would have expected to fall into, but whether it was the adrenaline, or the surreal-ness of it all, or the lack of sleep, or the utter intensity, I reacted by being much more relaxed and much less neurotic than I am on a typical day in my life. Why? Your guess is as good as mine.

In my interviews, I’d have no choice but to reflect on the situation and the potential consequences, since I was being asked about everything, and in those moments, I would tell the producers that every warning bell in my head was telling me that this was hardly the time or place for such antics, but at the time, my reaction to warning bells was basically to shrug and say, “eh.” It is this same mindset that allowed me to act bold during tasks and put my neck on the line without fear of the boardroom getting in the way. Depending on your thoughts on making out with your girlfriend in front of 10 million people, some might call this an ideal mindset in which to find yourself in such a stressful situation (others, I’m sure, would say that this is the last place you want to be disregarding consequences).

Anyway, it was what it was. You know when you’re starting out with someone new and you’re all excited about it? What a weird thing to happen while filming The Apprentice.

Moving on—the next morning (day 3 of the task, 18 overall), we woke up and headed to the beach for our surf lessons.

The episode presented the surf lessons and accompanying hospital visit as happening before the kiss, because it fit better romantically, but it actually happened after. We got in skin-tight wetsuits, and two absurdly active-looking, healthy-looking professional surfers instructed us on how to get up on the board and ride a wave. I was excited to try this—I had never done it before. The pros helped stabilize our board as we got up on it in the water, and I actually found myself able to stay up for 3-5 seconds a few times. I had a tiny jolt of that feeling in my stomach which said, “Oh my god I could get addicted to this.” After 10 minutes or so the producers motioned for me to come in and switch boards, and they gave me one with a camera mounted on the front of it. There was also a camera guy and a photographer in the water with waterproof equipment, and we were all wearing waterproof mic’s. It was a fun time.

They played a clip of Nicole screaming when she got hurt, but there was no scream. In fact, she said the pain crept up on her and got worse and worse so she finally got out of the water. None of us even noticed for awhile, and in my surfing glee, I was the last to notice that something was wrong. When I saw her getting bandaged up, I had immediate flashbacks to Rebecca from season 4 (who twisted her ankle on an ice-skating reward and was on crutches for the rest of the show). We all assumed that it was either a sprain or a break, but it was odd that she didn’t remember hurting it, and it didn’t look swollen. So she went off to the hospital, and I joined her (they made me look mad chivalrous, but there had to be someone with her since there had to be 2 people at least, and I was the obvious choice).

The doctor was confused as hell for awhile—acute pain with the slightest touch of the ankle, but it didn’t hurt when he bent or twisted the ankle. Then he realized—it was a jellyfish. He said it was a pretty severe jellyfish sting, and I knew how painful that must have been, but she’s from Chicago and knew nothing about a jellyfish sting. So she was suddenly embarrassed, thinking that she was a wuss for quitting with a jellyfish sting (as if it were a bee sting or something)—and hence her question, “would most people quit surfing for the day with a jellyfish sting?” Nicole is very tough when it comes to physical pain, so it was a sheer delight to see her panicked that she was being a wimp. He told her that it would get better every hour, and go away by itself within 24 hours. And she continued to ask him if people normally come to hospital for a jellyfish sting. I think at one point I told her that I get jellyfish stings “all the time” and that I “barely feel them.” Fun times.

So we head back to the mansion, I go on my long interview and answer 200 questions about what’s happening with Nicole, and that concludes task 6 for me.

Watching the episode, Aimee definitely seemed to have it coming. However, I wasn’t there, so I’m getting my info from the episode—an episode that was telling the story, “Aimee is a horrible PM and everyone hates her”—so I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. I must say, I did enjoy the look of death that Aimee gave to Derek and Jen as she stepped into the “dead man’s Lexus.”

And that’s where I’ll leave you. See you next week.