{"id":7906,"date":"2012-03-28T23:22:55","date_gmt":"2012-03-28T22:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/?p=7906"},"modified":"2012-03-28T23:22:55","modified_gmt":"2012-03-28T22:22:55","slug":"the-apprentice-2012-results-maria-o%e2%80%99connor-became-the-second-candidate-fired-by-lord-sugar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/7906\/the-apprentice-2012-results-maria-o%e2%80%99connor-became-the-second-candidate-fired-by-lord-sugar\/","title":{"rendered":"The Apprentice 2012 Results: Maria O\u2019Connor became the second candidate fired by Lord sugar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Maria O\u2019Connor became the second candidate to be fired by Lord Sugar in this series of The Apprentice, after falling asleep during the task.<\/p>\n<p>Lord Sugar set the candidates the task of coming up with ideas for a new household gadget and to  design and pitch the gadget to two big retailers.<\/p>\n<p>As with last week\u2019s task, it was boys ( Team Phoenix) against girls (Team Sterling). In the hot seat as project managers for the task \u00a0was Jane for the girls and Azhar for the boys.<\/p>\n<p>After a day of frustrations on both teams,\u00a0it was back to the boardroom to face the boss.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" title=\"Maria O\u2019Connor\" src=\"\/images\/uk\/realitytvspy\/theapprentice\/2012\/maria-o-connor_full.jpg\" alt=\"Maria O\u2019Connor the apprentice\" width=\"260\" height=\"390\" \/>Lord Sugar gets straight to business and addresses Sterling. After they all back Jane as a good Project Manager, they explain the thinking behind their product and Lord Sugar observes that it seems more like a toy than a gadget. He also questions the quantities that were offered in the Amazon pitch:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s a product in history where a million pieces have been ordered initially by one single retailer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Over on team Phoenix, the boys are less supportive of their team leader, with Azhar being forced to defend himself: \u201cunfortunately if I didn\u2019t agree with individuals in the team they felt as though I wasn\u2019t supporting them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Adam sticks the boot in saying, \u201cI think there was a communication failure made by Azhar which created two groups rather than one group.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After Lord Sugar examines their product asking if it was so small because it was meant for \u201cvegetarian dwarfs,\u201d Adam explains that he didn\u2019t like the product and informs Lord Sugar of his rubber gloves idea. Tom tells Lord Sugar that the sub-team felt neglected after the first day and that from then on the group was split and Lord Sugar declares that this is a bad trait for a Project Manager.<\/p>\n<p>Soon after the early exchanges it was down to the figures. Team Sterling received an order of 7,500 from the online retailer and 0 from the high street retailer so total orders of 7,500 for their Splish Splash bath screen.<\/p>\n<p>Team Phoenix received an order of 3,000 from the online retailer and 10,000 from the high street retailer so total orders of 13,000 for their Eco Press bin.<\/p>\n<p>After Lord Sugar highlighted the fact that the girls have lost for the second time, they headed to the Loser\u2019s Cafe to try and dissect what went wrong.<\/p>\n<p>Back in the boardroom, Lord Sugar reminded the girls that he told them at the start of the task that the strength of the product would determine who won before telling them, \u201cthe product is not very good. You\u2019ve totally misread what I asked you to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the end project manager Jane selected Maria and Jenna to return to\u00a0the boardroom.<\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td>\nJane explained that she brought Jenna back due to the fact that Lord Sugar had made it clear he felt the figures were a key reason they lost the task, and that she\u2019d therefore had no choice. Jane also revealed that she brought Maria back due to her lack of contribution to the task and defends her own role declaring, \u201cnot one person in here could say that I did a bad job.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-0466605792016836\";\n\/* auditions 300x250, created 9\/6\/10 *\/\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"7469702309\";\ngoogle_ad_width = 300;\ngoogle_ad_height = 250;\n\/\/-->\n<\/script><br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\n<\/script>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p>Maria informed Lord Sugar that Jane should be fired despite being a good Project Manager because she had made the final decision to change the product, to which Jane snapped back, \u201cno it wasn\u2019t, it was a thought out discussion and you were asleep!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lord Sugar reprimanded Jane for the fact that despite her business experience, on this occasion, \u201cbasic business principles went right down the drain,\u201d before outlining his disappointment in all three girls, \u201call three of you have got your own businesses and all three of you have made fatal errors here and I\u2019m sitting here thinking which one of you has got the ability to run a business in which I\u2019m going to invest in. You should have all known better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lord Sugar then delivered his final verdict, telling the trio of girls: \u201cI am disappointed with all of you to be honest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJane \u2013 you say that you are a good businesswoman and started a business on your own, I put you in a little business and you let it go and you screwed it up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaria \u2013 I\u2019m not clear what in fact you did in this task, Maria \u2013 You\u2019re Fired.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As she is driven away in a black cab, Maria reflected: \u201cI was there to achieve a business investment, I didn\u2019t get it, I\u2019ll get it someone else or I\u2019ll make my own money and do it myself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-0466605792016836\";\n\/* blogsmalllink 468x15, created 6\/7\/10 *\/\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"6221751502\";\ngoogle_ad_width = 468;\ngoogle_ad_height = 15;\n\/\/-->\n<\/script><br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\n<\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maria O\u2019Connor became the second candidate to be fired by Lord Sugar in this series of The Apprentice, after falling asleep during the \n<a class=\"moretag\" href=\"http:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/7906\/the-apprentice-2012-results-maria-o%e2%80%99connor-became-the-second-candidate-fired-by-lord-sugar\/\"> [...]<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-apprentice"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7906"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7911,"href":"http:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7906\/revisions\/7911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}