Continuing My Thoughts on The Apprentice

OK, that last post ended rather abruptly, and that does not sit well with me. I thought I had a good flow going, but averaging 5 hours of sleep per night where your wake up call is an infant who is quite vocal about letting you know that a) his ravenous appetite cannot be satiated, despite your most noble efforts, and b) he does not appreciate lying in his own filth, your brain tends to lock up at inopportune times, particularly when trying to entertain your nine preferred readers during your precious lunch hour. To me, this is unacceptable and frankly a tad rude - my time is no more precious than yours, and to have you begin reading a News and Notes posting without a full and complete effort on my part insults all of us. I am ashamed.

But redemption is here in the form of a continued posting - oh joy of joys! When I last left the nine of you hanging (and my guess is you were not left hanging as I never informed you of my last weak posting) I was discussing Season Whatever-Number-This-Is of NBC's The Apprentice, featuring everyone's favorite self-serving egomaniac Donald Trump. Personally, I like Trump - I think it's hilarious that he's not afraid to come off like a total asshole for the sake of boosting his own sense of self-worth - there's a lot to be said for that. I watch The Apprentice for many of the same reasons I tune into other reality shows - so I can watch people whose personalities and tendencies I despise make complete asses out of themselves. As I touched on in the last rant, my main beef with the Apprentice participants was their shameless ass-kissing, as well as their desire to say the exact right thing at the exact right time, regardless of how contradictory or foolish it makes them look.

As so many other things do, watching the Apprentice causes me to hearken back to my college days. I specifically remember my first auditing class (yes, college life was a thrill a minute for yours truly). The course was taught by a "respected" professor who, in his mind's eye as well as that of his favorite students, was the gift hand-crafted by God Himself when He made the decision to bestow upon His human race a University professor whose purpose it would be to teach auditing. OK, I'm being a bit dramatic, but it's my blog, so tough shit. Anyway, shortly into the semester, I was rather unfairly in my humble opinion tagged an underachiever in this professor's class - I can't say for certain, but I'm almost positive one of the students in my assigned group singled me out as dead weight. I hope his student visa was revoked and he was sent back to Communist China to toil in a state-run wheat field, but that's beside the point. I was reassigned to another group with a Japanese girl who barely spoke English and a Russian girl who spoke just enough English to articulate that she thought my work was for shit.

I toiled through the entire semester with these two, and we headed down the home stretch to the final exam, which you were not required to take if you were happy with your grade. Well, I was not afforded this luxury as I was teetering on the border of B and C - I really thought I was doing well, but I guess the information that was given to Professor Shit-Don't-Stink contradicted this feeling I had. As we neared the exam, which of course was graded on a curve, I spoke to the professor at his office about what critical topics would be covered, and we got to talking about my group. I mentioned something about the Russian girl, to which my professor said, "Oh, she won't need to take the exam - she's got an 'A' by a long way" - kind of his way of saying "Up your ass, you underachieving bastard." Whatever - after this class was over I never had to see him or the Czaress ever again, which was good enough for me.

So I show up for the final exam, having just completed the act of studying my balls off. Keep in mind: Optional final exam if you liked your grade - this is crucial information! As I settle in my seat to sweat out by GPA and therefore my career options, who comes walking in the door, down the aisle and right up to the front row? If you guessed the Russian girl with the fat 'A' average, give yourself a pat on the back. Not only did she have to remind me to my face that I sucked, apparently she felt the need to indirectly stick it up my ass by throwing off the curve in the hopes of increasing her average from a 98.3 to a 99.1. Needless to say, I ended up with one of my multitude of C's (setting myself a bit further back than my Lost Semester already had), Princess Alexandria got her fucking A while screwing me in the process, and our professor got to send another group of prized pupils off to the Big Six accounting firms, which most likely came with it a nice kickback to the Accounting Department that coincidentally paid his crusty, tenured ass.

Why do I bring this story up? Because every single person on the Apprentice is that Russian girl - the person that wants to boost their own image, even (or should I say especially) if it comes at someone else's expense. To these people, business/money/success is a zero-sum game - if they're not getting it at someone else's peril, it ain't worth getting. OK, fine, you want to screw me over? Have at it. But just to throw another multiple into the annoyance quotient, the way they come off in the whole process almost undermines their whole "Succeed at all costs" mentality. Simply put, none of these individuals is below groveling, kowtowing, begging, or whimpering at the feet of the Mighty Donald in order to accomplish the goal of getting a vague management job. Hell if I got paid $250k a year, I'd be tempted to let them make my job title as vague as they wanted it - it might even be worth it if the job description read, "Work". But there's that pesky voice inside my head that keeps harping on integrity, self-respect and sense of purpose starts rambling on, and those thoughts of pie-in-the-sky glory quickly go by the wayside.

However, no such voices exist for Trump's tyros of tractable tradesmanship. They choose their words very carefully when addressing the Shah of NBC's Thursday night lineup, usually leading to an exchange similar to the following:

Trump: OK, Apprentice-hopeful, tell me why I shouldn't fire you.

Apprentice-hopeful: Mr. Trump, as you can see by my words and actions, Mr. Trump, I, Mr. Trump, am dedicated to serving you, Mr. Trump, and the glorious Trump name. I am well-educated, Mr. Trump, and Mr. Trump, if you would only be so kind as to spread the ass cheeks that you, Mr. Trump, currently have on your body, Mr. Trump, I would be a humble servant to you, Mr. Trump, and leave you with a gleam the likes of which have not been seen by any normal Wharton School graduate, Mr. Trump.

Trump: Wow, that's something. Say, Other Apprentice-hopeful, what do you have to say about the person you're competing against whom you just told in a previous scene was a good, strong person.

Other Apprentice-hopeful: Mr. Trump, this person, while bearing the intelligence of a common member of the human race, Mr. Trump, does not truly understand, Mr. Trump, what it would take, Mr. Trump, to succeed Mr. Trump in your Mr. Trump organization Mr. Trump. I Mr. Trump Mr. Trump, Mr. Trump, hire me Mr. Trump, validate my abilities Mr. Trump Mr. Trump Mr. Trump Mr. Trump.

Every single fucking conversation goes on and on and on like this. Don't you think that a man of Donald Trump's ilk would be somewhat impressed by someone who had the balls to be like, "Well Donny, if you hire me, I'll kick ass for you, if not, I'll kick your ass" or something along those lines? Wouldn't it drive you absolutely insane to have 12 people constantly kissing your ass when you clearly know they're kissing your ass not out of true respect but out of fear of elimination? Isn't one's ego adequately inflated without needing to be called "Mr. _____" every 13 seconds?? Apparently, the answer is no.

Not that some of these people aren't talented - they pull off some shit in a tight timeframe on a shoestring budget that borders on the exceptional. In the last episode, both final contestants did put on pretty damn good events considering the varying circumstances beyond their control. However, right as The Donald hired the token black contestant, he gave his new MIT-educated charge an opportunity to create a position for the runner up as well, to which the new hire replied, "Mr. Trump (didn't see that coming), I feel that Mr. Trump since the show is called 'The Apprentice' and not 'The Apprenti' (sic) I believe, Mr. Trump, that there should only be one hire Mr. Trump." Granted, the look on the face of the runner up that screamed "you cocksuckingmutherfucker" was truly priceless - however, this just serves as final validation of the true despicable nature of these overachieving pricks. I'm not saying you shouldn't put your best effort into getting some dream job and that you should slack off to hold the curve back - all I'm saying is let's keep just a smidge of perspective, lest we all become boot-licking self-serving pricks looking for our 15-plus minutes.

This public service message brought to you by The Apprentice - airing on NBC, Thursdays this Spring! It's must see!