The Apprentice

Kinky Melinky

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Joined
Nov 8, 2000
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Bunch of jumped up, game playing, sneaky, sleazy, psuedo confident and overly zealous cnuts who spend their lives skulking in the murky waters of middle - senior management, doing feck all in work yet getting paid 3 times as much as the front line of workers who are more often than not on between 18k - 25k per year ?

I reckon some of that is true
 
I reckon you've understated it.

I didn't think it'd been a year since this was on, it must be time for my annual rant about the male contestants being unable to tie their ties with a knot less than 6 inches wide.
 
I often wonder if there is some sort of secret society that these complete twats subscribe to because on paper I cannot put my finger on what it is they do. They're great at using generic business language that seems to fly over the head of anyone with a soul and they also seem to be great at keeping their jobs whilst others around them fall like the front row of a baptist church.

I wonder do they all look after each other via corporate games because the only people I have ever seen suffer at the hand of employment are the honest
 
Well it'd be shit boring TV if they got decent capable blokes on it.
 
I cannot go into too much detail as I am posting from work. I suspect big brother watches. In truth, however it's not really about where I currently work because I really enjoy the job itself. My work place is no different to any other large corp. The higher up the funnel you travel the more narrow the space becomes. The more narrow the space the higher the wages.

It's that bunch of absolute wankers in the semi wide zone who are desperately trying to push into the narrow segment that seem to cause the general grief felt by the greater work force. They not only make completely absurd and illogical decisions that more often than not effect the widest, lowest paid section of the funnel, but manage to keep their jobs by not actually managing.

It's amazing
 
Psmith said:
Well it'd be shit boring TV if they got decent capable blokes on it.
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This is very true. There is obviously an element of scandal that has to be thrown in. Perhaps they pick capable people and mix them in with complete corporate tits but the type of people I see on The Apprentice I also seem to come across on a daily basis in work.

They all seem to be in middle to higher management. Just saying
 
Kinky Melinky said:
This is very true. There is obviously an element of scandal that has to be thrown in. Perhaps they pick capable people and mix them in with complete corporate tits but the type of people I see on The Apprentice I also seem to come across on a daily basis in work.

They all seem to be in middle to higher management. Just saying
Click to expand...

I would love that to be true because then I might have a chance of taking their jobs! Unfortunately the people I come into contact with who are in the higher echelons seem to be very competent, confident and intelligent.
 
Psmith said:
Well it'd be shit boring TV if they got decent capable blokes on it.
Click to expand...

I disagree, the programme was much stronger in earlier years - as are all reality programmes with a non-entertainment point - when the emphasis was firmly on business practice and the candidates were (slightly) more serious.

The BBC have a lot of blame for this by raising the prominence of the programme by promoting all the ridiculousness of it in advertising and moving it to BBC1.
 
evra said:
I would love that to be true because then I might have a chance of taking their jobs! Unfortunately the people I come into contact with who are in the higher echelons seem to be very competent, confident and intelligent.
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It's really only what I have experienced myself Evra. I'm sure there are intelligent and competent mid - senior management out there as there are honest lawyers ;)
 
One of many members of management I have met along the way sticks in my mind mainly because he ticks all the boxes. I worked in Advertising Sales for a Publishing company in central London.

A guy called Chris was my manager and was one of the 2 publishing managers in the company. The other publishing manager was what I would consider to be a very capable, logical and realistic sort of bloke. He was driven out of the company eventually and guess who still sits on his management perch ? Yup.....Chris the cock head.

God he was such an idiot.

He used to micro manage like nothing I've seen before. He made some of my previous roles look like a walk in the park. His big thing was "meaningful calls." This was defined by not only getting through to a company, but beating the gate keeper and having an indepth chat with the decision maker. The conversation had to be meaningful enough that a note worthy update could be applied. He expected 45 of these a day.

The first week I was bashing out the calls like a maniac. I'd be hitting well over 90 calls but this only resulted in 13 meaningful calls. This is the sheer stupidity of micro management. It's so robotic and uncreative that it clouds reason. How in the name of God are you supposed to make 45 meaningful calls a day if decision makers either refuse to talk to anybody (secretary taking messages) or may be out of the office.

I remember Chris started to really pile the pressure on me over this when I told him it was virtually impossible. I brought this up to the CEO but all I got in response was a sort of half arsed agreement followed by "....well Chris will pressure you and you need to remain vigilant in hitting your targets..."

So essentially he's pressurising me over something completely unattainable which is absolutely counter productive to a healthy and prosperous office environment. I suppose looking back my mistake was being honest. It's a joke how far you get by being dishonest in work. It shows you the framework that many corporate environments are built on. The amount of shit I got off that lad was insane.

Why would you pile so much pressure on someone to attain such a meaningless stat unless you truly believed it's merit. And if you truly believed the merit of managing to get in 45 meaningful calls a day then how the feck have you climbed into a management role ? How is it possible ? How does a member of staff who is expected to make 45 meaningful calls a day find the time to carry out administration. If I was bursting my bollox trying to get in 13 meaningful calls (which meant making over 90 calls) then how in God's name am I supposed to get in 45 whilst also taking care of all the other tasks which included sourcing my own leads.

The truth of the matter is that the CEO has left management in this morons highly incapable hands and as a result the company have been driven as close to the ground as possible without actually crashing. I saw members of staff take pay cuts but I have very strong reason to believe that nobody from middle management upward took a cut.

When I talk to friends and family in a similar light it's uncanny how those listening seem to echoe my story through their own experiences. It can only lead me to believe that I'm not the only one. Management are there to manage the ship and make sure that everyone on board is happy and inspired. Management are there to use their management skills rather than rely on a computer generated statistic. Management are there to inspire their team when staff members might be feeling low or unmotivated. Management are there to meet the needs of a frontline work force who are actually the ones making things happen. If the frontline work force are doing their jobs properly it should be the case where eliminating such staff would grind a company to it's knees and into a complete halt.

The manager inspires the frontline through management skills but if a manager retires and is replaced it doesn't necessarily throw a complete spanner in the works of production.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that too many managers miss the point of their role and completely mismanage staff. I'm not disagreeing with you Evra. I know there are great managers out there but there is also a whole lot of shit
 
FAO Accountants

We took a bit of a kicking last night! I originally started rooting for the guy and then I find out he's a self-loathing chartered accountant, if you're not interested in finance then why did you become an accountant mate? Just to make it worse Lord Sug over compensated and told him "not to be ashamed of who you are" like he was convincing his gay son he wasn't disappointed in him or something.
 
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