While most would agree that firing Jennifer C. was a no-brainer because she self-imploded, last week’s dismissal of Pamela Day was arguably a masterfully executed set up for a powerful player to take a fall.
Jennifer Crisafulli’s termination two weeks ago was a no-brainer. Her leadership style was atrocious. She viewed herself as the type of manager who brought people together but she came across as someone who divides her team apart. Several times she rudely barraged her teammates, like Ivana, Elizabeth, and Maria in front of others. She carelessly insulted people with politically incorrect terms such as “little munchkin” to describe Stacy Rotner and “those fat Jewish women” to describe the customers who complained about service and ambiance. She appeared inadequately prepared for the challenge, failing to clean up the restaurant until she realized the men made preparations for that, subjecting her team to late night cleaning depriving them of sufficient sleep. She also wasted valuable time when she realized upon arriving at the restaurant she would be uncomfortable there without her laptop. Her performance was so humiliating; her bosses at Douglas Elliman promptly fired her there as well, citing her failure to inform them of her poor performance before they heavily promoted her participation in their advertising campaign.
While Jennifer Crisafulli’s departure was mainly due to her own incompetence, Pamela Day’s termination required a well orchestrated series of events perpetuate her downfall. She was a well-credentialed participant with degrees from Harvard and Wharton. She had accumulated a strong wealth of corporate experience that prepared her for business tactics and etiquette. Indeed, Trump had high expectations for her. However, with great expectations comes great pressure to succeed and she may have overlooked the fact that her competitors would seek the opportunity to knock her down.
Pamela Day may have played the game too hard and turned everyone, including Donald Trump against her. She is a fierce competitor and admirable opponent, but unfortunately for her everyone recognized it and rallied against her at the first sign of failure. Pamela overpriced the cleaning sponges which lead to the closest differential margin yet in any challenge but nonetheless to her team’s defeat. This was the break treacherous opportunists needed to orchestrate her demise. Although it wasn’t seen in the edited NBC version, it was noticed in the yahoo.com coverage that Raj Bhakta betrayed his former Mosaic cohort by informing the women the men support her ousting. He declared she did not contribute to their team effort but gloated whenever Apex lost. He stated she pompously joked Trump should be her apprentice. He set her up ripe for mutiny.
Pamela was initially set up by Trump himself who decreed her involuntary transfer to Apex to lead the team to victory. Feeling the intense pressure to succeed, given she lost the challenge as Mosaic’s first Project Manager regarding the Mattel toy design to Bradford, she overstepped her authority with her condescending style of instruction. This was an arduous task given she did not work with the Apex women before and knew little of their skill sets. She most likely spent little time associating with them socially as well in the co-ed suite. Pamela was sent to Apex to turn them around and correct the dysfunctional problems that divided the team. Pamela was successful in unifying the team; unfortunately they were united in their objective to oust her.
The objective behind the mutiny was to hit home in the Board Room that the team lost because Pamela set the price too high, against the better judgment of the entire team. Stacy Rotner acted as the attorney for the team and liaison with QVC execs. She set the price at $19.99 as the standard competitive price for such an item. Everyone agreed, with Jennifer Massey (another attorney), Ivana Ma and Sandy Ferreira being the most outspoken against the high price Pamela set. But Pamela felt the price was too low and came to the arbitrary conclusion that the target demographic, older women would pay nearly $1 per sponge. She then decreed the ultimate self-destruction when everyone else unanimously disagrees, an executive order. Had she won, the accolades would have been all hers. Likewise, if she lost, the blame will be entirely upon her shoulders. Apex lost and so she had to face the board room with no support from her peers and an executive firing squad that had high expectations of her. It is fair to say, she was set up to fail.
Why didn’t Donald Trump exercise one of his stays of execution, opting to eliminate another person on the chopping block with an overall poor performance rating, granting Pamela another chance to prove herself? Especially given the tremendous transformation Pamela has achieved regarding Apex’s teamwork and the close differential margin of $10? He has done so in the past for his favorites so why isn’t she one of them? The most probable answer is that Donald Trump’s initial impression of her dimmed when he saw how smug she is about herself. Interestingly, this points again to Trump’s hypocrisy and misogyny, given Trump’s own penchant for conceit and self-importance. Essentially he is expressing that it is fine for a man to be over-confident but not for a woman.
I’d like to highlight another point of interest that I have cited in my first article editorial of the premiere, “The Apprentice: Marketing 101 – Assert Your Assets”, regarding the addition of attorneys on the second season. I noted that 4 attorneys and one law student were cast as opposed to none in the first season. I theorized that a legal background must be a qualification that interests Donald Trump in the final Apprentice winner. To support my hypothesis I will note whenever a legal issue or purpose is involved in the projects. The QVC challenge made use of Stacy Rotner’s legal expertise and she was asked to initially price the item. On Mosaic, Kelly Perdew, this season’s “Golden Boy” much like Bill Rancic, last year’s winner, was also an attorney who priced the pannini grill, and I’m certain off camera also utilized his legal expertise as the liaison to the network execs. After much perspiration, Kelly received the kudos for setting the winner price while Stacy Rotner deserves the credit for coolly stepping up to serve Pamela up on a platter. Little Stacy swung the rock that toppled the Goliath. She gets the award for best lines of the evening stating “if you don’t want the lawyer to be the attorney then get the wedding planner to be the attorney.” And also “Mr. Trump you don’t want another Enron on your hands…if you do then here’s Pamela.” Brilliantly done Stacy! I find it even more interesting now than ever to see what the legal eagles will contribute next.
