Week two of The Apprentice and this week the teams are ‘treating’ City lawyers to a networking lunch. It all went horribly wrong and the canapés produced looked more like a five-year-old’s cooking project. Here four employment lawyers discuss the legal issues in this week’s episode.
Where there is blame, there is a claim
By Juliette Franklin, associate at Russell Jones & Walker
Rocky was on the ropes and, in round two, he was knocked out of the interview from hell.
After suffering blatant age discrimination, the sandwich king could (peanut) butter Suralan up no longer.
I am increasingly concerned about Nick’s behaviour – surely this must now satisfy the Conntest under the Protection from Harassment Act! After last week’s threat of a “spanking”, he displayed almost menacing tendencies when he told Noorul that he “made it my business to watch you”! Coupled with his view that the “older ladies” were appreciative of the togas, Nick is on thin ice.
The lawyers fared better last night – hooray! The ease with which they negotiated the price of the canapés from £60 to £15 per head, and then eventually only paying half the agreed price was negotiation our partners would have been proud of – I hope that not too many clients were picking up tips!
There will be interesting weeks to come with Majid, who last night again displayed sexist tendencies, this time coupled with views about the disabled, and his comment about his toga making him look like he had escaped from a mental hospital.
And finally, the delightful James, who created some of the best television in a long time. His boardroom fight for survival was pure comedy genius – tip for the future, when facing summary dismissal, it is not a wise move to insult the boss by telling him that you don’t want to be looking at him!!!
Haute cuisine?
By Alan Nicholson, associate at McGrigors
If you cast your eyes down to your keyboard for a moment, you might find a crumb or two from that ropey sandwich you had at your desk yesterday. It wasn’t haute cuisine, but you were busy and it did the job. But if you handed over a fiver to a man in boxing gloves for peanut butter on Hovis, please excuse yourself from the office immediately. You are not well.
While Yasmina somehow made a 200 per cent margin on her Chicken Surprise wraps, Philip managed to make a US law firm gasp at a fee quote.
In the law firm’s office a toga-clad Maj carrying a fist full of Doritos was warned to keep his beard out of the salsa. This had echoes of one of the first religious discrimination cases, when Mohsin Mohmed tried unsuccessfully to sue West Coast Trains for comments made about the fist-length beard his religion required him to maintain. But there was no grievance from Maj, who seemed to take it on the chin.
Age discrimination concerned us last series, and employment lawyers perked up again when Sir Alan knocked out “too young” Rocky. He’ll learn, but last night Rocky was well and truly pickled at the Gherkin.
As always, this has a very unappealing set of candidates. Margaret Mountford (alpha female ex-partner of Herbies) must be gritting her teath having to deal with such people!
An entertaining episode but didn’t have quite the backstabbing and ego clashes that made the first so enjoyable.
The unappealing set of candidates is what makes it so enjoyable! They’re among the most hateful people imaginable and their senses of self belief are exceptionally overinflated. All of which makes for good television. Glad to see that Anita going, I think that bulldog had chewed a wasp long enough
Did we watch the same programme? Sir Alan said Rocky was too young as a nicer way of explaining away the fact that he could not make a profit out of selling sandwiches (something he was only too eager to explain he did for a living and very successfully). The commercial world makes for robust dialogue, straight-talking and “eat your vegetables” (although not the vegetables Yaz was peddling for consumption). If Rocky had been daft enough to follow advice to make a discrimination claim then the janitor would have been able to put together a rebuttal based on competence being the selection criteria. Sexism? YAWN! All very derivative of the 80s alternative comedian demonising 70s comedians for being inappropriate to mask the fact that they themselves are about as funny as the bill the Guerkin got for their buffet.
There was one lawyer who was extremely happy during last week’s episode, and that was me!
You may recall a customer outside Liverpool St Station buying a sandwich from Rocky. Well, that chap was me and I must say that the sandwich tasted great. I was happy, watching it back, to see that at least the boys used plastic gloves when preparing their food unlike the girls. Whilst one woman found a hair in her food, I would hate to think of what else would have been found if the girl’s food had been tested under a microscope – nasty!