Week three for the baby Bransons, and it’s a flower-arranging task. Sugs mixes the teams up, to make it confusing, and appoints Hannah and Lizzie as Project Managers. James is thrilled by having girls on his team, as flower-arranging isn’t his thing. Because he’s a grr blokey bloke. A woman gives them a lesson on bunching flowers and economics. They’ll pitch to three clients, and then set up market stalls to flog at the public.

Hannah sends Lewis and Zara out to pitch, because she wasn’t watching Lewis’ stumbling last week. Lizzie (who does nothing else interesting for the rest of the episode – perhaps she died and they just filmed the scenes around her, like at the end of the West Wing) chooses Harry H and charisma vacuum James.

The first pitch is for a wedding anniversary in a hotel. Harry H and James get fed up with the rest of their team taking too long to produce a quote, and shit out a guess of £175. On the other team, Zara is told to quote them £165, but goes thundering in at £200, costing them the contract. Turns out that Harry and James’ team have done a rubbish job of arranging, popping a shitty little jar on the mantelpiece.

Second pitch is for theatre bouquets. Again, Harry and James make up a figure, guessing that £140 would work. It wouldn’t, Zara getting the deal for £100 (despite being told to go in at £80.) She thinks it’s a negotiation, and it’s not – the guys are just like, “is that your best offer?” and she says “yeah”. Lewis, smartly, just shuts up.

The final pitch is to a hair salon, who want some modern shit in the window. The bald guy working there is clearly angling for his own reality show, banging on to the teams about the vision behind the “brief” and bollocking Lewis, whose phone goes off mid-pitch. He even boots Harry H and James out when they start trying to sell the idea of “rainforest chic”. Tossers.

All of the above is intercut with aerial shots of Westfield and Spitalfields, where the teams have set up stalls and are selling bunches. Lizzie (with Harry H and James) opts for tripling the costs, while Hannah doubles hers. Harry M bought an ugly heliconia, and carted it around all day, before flogging it for £150 right at the death. Other than that, there are some lovely aerial shots of Westfield.

THE BOARDROOM

There’s the usual back and forth moaning, before economist James proclaims, “there’s not a lot of numbers in economics”. Harry H and James’ team pulled in a profit of £463, a massive £12 over Zara and Lewis’ side. That’s what they get for tripling their cost price. Their prize is a trip to Fortnum and Mason, where they get to sit for an hour with UK Uncut.

Lewis admits that he was rubbish, and says that Hannah should bring back him and Zara. Hannah disagrees, bringing back Harry M and Zara. A weird choice.

Zara screwed up by going in higher than she was told to – she made an extra £20 in the theatre, but cost them £165 in the hotel. Using maths, we can see that’s a net loss of £145. Sugs disagrees for some reason, and says that she’s safe. God, she says things like “one hit, one missed. That’s business, that’s life,” like a middle aged middle manager, not a sodding teenager.  It’s really depressing to see these kids so single-bloody-minded.

Harry isn’t a team player, and seems to be rubbing everyone up the wrong way, but because he sold that massive plant, he’s saved.

Despite “seeing that in reflection in hindsight”, her prices were too low, it’s too late for Minipops Nicholas Lyndhurst Hannah, and she’s fired.

Comments

1. Tim says:

   November 8, 2011 at 12:13 pm

   Hannah doomed herself the moment she decided not to bring back her friend Lewis. It was poor judgement, based on a personal rather than business decision.

   Zara did cost her team some profit but not as much as £145, as you haven’t netted off the cost of the flowers they would have supplied the hotel. To be honest, though, I think she did the right thing, as her pitching skills won two out of three contracts. So she didn’t win all three pitches? SHe was hardly going to be fired for that. The only reason Atomic got so close to Kinetic was Harry M’s triffid sale, which brought in £102 of profit. The reality is that if Hannah had got her pricing decision right, Atomic would have won by a distance. As it was, Lewis should have gone for being utterly useless.

   http://slouchingtowardsthatcham.com/2011/11/08/young-apprentice-atomics-problems-stem-from-faulty-pricing-in-flower-selling-task/
2. Sel says:

   November 8, 2011 at 1:59 pm

   Lewis is ace, admitting he’s a bit rubbish and being desperately in love with Hannah and not being able to articulate his thoughts properly.

   Bless.

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