Corporate Whore

People whore themselves out for all sorts of things every day. Just look at all the “indie” bands on The OC. But is it really necessary to whore yourself out over a candy bar? According to last night’s Apprentice, the answer is yes. Whore it early and whore it often! And that’s exactly what Ivana did as she literally stripped off her skirt in an effort to sell one measly candy bar. Wow. Last time I checked, Willy Wonka never had to drop trou to broaden his consumer base, and if he did, then I think we should reexamine what exactly he meant by golden ticket. Okay, I’ve brought this post into a disturbing area very very quickly; so I’ll just get back on track by doing my favorite Friday morning activity: bashing Apprentice-ites.The show quietly started off with nary a whiff of pathetic striptease in the air. Kevin, Kelly and Ivana lounged around the loft, singing Jen’s praises. And by “singing Jen’s praises,” I mean finding new and interesting ways to rip her to shreds. Everyone shut up though when the front door opened and the icy Jencicle bolted into the apartment with a decently frazzled Sandy behind her. For those who may have forgotten, this episode picked up after a particularly tense boardroom last week that left Jen and Sandy bickering all the way up their fake elevator ride. The two of them were therefore noticeably cold and seething as they rejoined their roommates in the loft. They were so damn angry that they were soon… smiling to each other on the couch? Huh? “I’m excited that it’s going to be the two of us,” chirped Sandy hopefully. Whaa?? Do they even REMEMBER the fight they just had five minutes ago? You know, the really really loud one that cause Donald Trump to bang his hand against the table? What’s going on? I hardly even had a chance to comment on the growing awkwardness between these two lovebirds. Great. Well I guess it’s F-in’ Shangri-La over at Trump Towers now. THANKS.

The next morning frumpy Rhona called up to administer the day’s Trump coordinates. Of course chronic phone hog Kelly answered. Does anyone even try to get to the phone before him? And what’s up with Rhona? Shouldn’t she apologize for calling so early? At the very least she should do that fake ritual most of us do: “Oh, were you sleeping? I’ll let you get back to sleep. You don’t mind? Are you sure? Because I will let you go back to sleep. Okay, well, the reason I was calling…”

Well, the gang all woke up, got dressed, and in the case of Sandy, applied about ten layers of makeup to hide a scary 45 year old face. They then headed to a building in the city where The Donald was having one of his nicely staged conversations with George, Carolyn, and the mysterious “Tom”. I must admit, they looked like they were having a marvelous time as they sat comfortably around a coffee table in the lobby of the building. In fact, when the group shuffled in (Ivana almost walked right by), Trump told them to move their chorus line formation into another room. Awww shit! We’re gonna hear some gossip now! When everyone had made their way into the small adjacent room, Donald turned to his posse and said “So Tom, keep up the good work.” He cleared the room for that? Don’t we get one juicy morsel about anything? The hair? Milania? Oh well.

Anyway, Trump sauntered over to the second room whose significance still eluded us. There he announced that the teams would be selling Mars’ latest candy bar, the M-Azing Bar, which sadly does not feature Phil Koegan. Trump then babbled about quality, noting that everything he does is high quality. For instance, his casinos are of such high quality that he doesn’t want people to visit them. And what greater a mark of quality is there than bankruptcy? As for the M-azing Bars, teams would be in charge of running an assembly line and the candy bars that do not pass muster would be thrown out, or as Trump bellowed, “THROWN OUT!!!” Behold the power of man over candy bar! Bow down to the awesomely mighty garbage can! May your M-azing bar be so lucky to survive! RAH!!!!!!

Well, teams headed out to the venerable Mars corporation and got to work in what appeared to be an empty factory. Meanwhile, Trump implored us to always know your enemy. The small vignette to demonstrate this was Donald driving in a limo and talking on his cell about some upcoming meeting. “Are we meeting at 1 pm?” he asked. Oh, he’s good! His enemy wanted to meet then too! The best part of all this was that while Trump spoke into his cell, a big ass carphone hung right next to his giant hair. What was the point of this? Maybe he wanted George to call on the cell and Carolyn to call on the car phone. Then he could go back and forth: “Now I’m talking to Carolyn. Now I’m talking to George. George, have anything to say to Carolyn? Carolyn, you should have heard what George just said about you. Guys, this is the best. You have to try it sometime.”

Meanwhile, back at the chocolate factory, Kevin suffered a huge blow as he discovered that the experience was nothing like what he expected. Contrary to what he had believed for nearly thirty years, the Mars corporation was NOT run like Willy Wonka’s outfit, and therefore there were no chocolate rivers or oompa loompas or spoiled girls inflating like giant blueberries. It’s too bad because all those things were there like a year ago before budget cutbacks. Sorry Kev.

Of course, this didn’t stop Kevin from running around like a rogue oompa loompa. The affable guy bustled around the assembly line, giving orders to all the workers about slowing down production. This understandably rankled project manager Ivana because he had not sought out her approval. So what did she do? Tell him to stop or request that he run things by her? No. She just made nasty expressions and crossed her arms. You might think that’s being ineffective, but it’s really a powerful tactic in corporations modelled around the “Let’s not get anything done” paragon.

On the other end of the factory, Team Hair Net – aka Jen and Sandy – were outputting bars at a snail’s pace. They were so concerned with inspecting their products that they completely missed two trays of candy bars falling from the conveyor belt into the garbage. It was oddly reminiscent of that classic I Love Lucy episode, except without all the chocolate down the cleavage and such. Of course, the ever watchful Carolyn spied on the girls and witnessed the entire debacle from a tiny window in the corner. So Desperate Housewives. As she watched the chocolate fall off the belt, she simply declared “Genius!” Hey, stop stealing our lines, blondie.

Eventually, it was time for the inspectors to come through and rule with a chocolate fist. Curiously, when they arrived at team Mosaic, Ivana seemed to be presiding over some loud clattering noise. Was she playing roulette or something? Anyway, the inspectors were particularly careful with the products. Sandy whined that every time they broke a bar, it was like a dagger in the heart. Similarly, Ivana commented that the M-azing bars were like little children to her. Good god. Why are these people so attached? You’d think they popped right out of their wombs.

With the production phase over, the next morning the teams set out to actually sell their bars (highest profit would win). Jen and Sandy dolled up in mini skirts and revealing red tops as part of a costume called the “M&M sisters.” Apparently, they were the long lost slutty M&Ms. By the way, since when does color coordination make you an M&M? How do we know they’re not skittles? Or Reeces Pieces?

Well, the M&M sisters headed down to Wall Street where they could peddle their feminine wares to horny businessmen in need of a morning erection. It was a novel idea, and I must admit, at first I thought the choice of Wall Street over Times Square was curious, but the ladies were shrewd enough to work their audiences well and sell the candy bars for $5 a piece. FIVE DOLLARS!!! I know these guys are horny, but seriously, for that money you can just get a girlie magazine.

Over at Team Passive Aggression, Ivana snarled her candy bars at prospective consumers, but even at the “bargain” price of $2 a bar, she could hardly get any customers. Kevin cut prices on his bars, another move which Ivana disapproved of and yet did absolutely nothing about, but even then, the sweaty group had no buyers. Eventually, some good samaritan came by to alert Ivana that the other team was nearby, dressed scantily, and charging insane amounts for their products. He then casually added “I didn’t think they were that attractive.” I mean, he bought thirty bars from them, but that’s neither here nor there.

So let’s put ourselves in Ivana’s shoes for a second. You have three people on your team, so you know you’ve probably output more candy bars than the two person team. You know they’re selling for $5 and you’re selling yours for $2. What would you do? If you answered “Go onto Jen and Sandy’s turf and start a price war,” you would be incorrect. If you answered “Go onto Jen and Sandy’s turf and say ‘If you buy one of mine for $20, I’ll drop my skirt,” then you are correct!

And that’s exactly what Ivana did. When she first said it, everyone laughed politely, with Jen and Sandy then noting “She is so obnoxious.” Unfortunately for Ivana, rather than stay there right in Jen and Sandy’s way, she just walked off, grumbling that the two girls looked like “cheap strippers.” Cut to Ivana two minutes later actually removing her skirt to sell a candy bar for $20. You see, Ivana was mad that Sandy and Jen were only looking like cheap strippers and not acting like them too. I’m not sure this is what the Mars Corporation was looking for when The Apprentice came by to market the product. To Ivana’s credit, her polka-dotted granny pants were very M&M-esque. Somehow, I don’t think Carolyn was very pleased by this wardrobe synergy.

With Ivana’s integrity firmly in the shitter, the teams descended upon the boardroom to learn the results of their labor. Turns out that both teams produced roughly the same amount of M-azing bars, but while Ivana’s team earned around $500, Sandy and Jen raked in over a grand from their breasty salesmanship. A few hugs and squeals later, Trump asked “Have you ever seen anything like this? They look like sisters!” Uh, have you never seen sisters before? They’re pretty common…

Well, did Trump have a prize for the girls! They were going to fly to Chicago and meet… Bill Rancic! Again! Yay! Sandy and Jen tried to hide their disappointment, but we could all see their crestfallen eyes that seemed to say “Can we meet Kwame instead?” But no, they were shipped off to the Windy City where Bill babbled about the perils and challenges of working for Trump – a distinction he’d had for about, oh, two months at the time of taping. Honestly, what does he actually do? His office was tiny.

Back in the loft, Kevin and Ivana prepped themselves for the boardrooom. “I got nothing bad to say about you,” said Kevin, in one of the more enjoyable self-dellusions of the season. We’ll just wait until we’re down in the boardroom, mmkay?

Speaking of the boardroom, life in front of the panel was a bit harsh this week. Even superstar Kelly (who was happily exempt this week) felt the wrath of the Trump clan as the increasingly fiesty George lit into him. Trump put Kevin on the hot seat a little about the whole pricing issue, but it was inevitable that the really big guns would come flying at Ivana.

When the topic of the notorious skirt dropping came to the forefront, Ivana immediately became shrill and defensive, contorting her face and scowling in her patented fashion. Carolyn, sharpening her knives with angry glee, threw her first punch when she reminded Ivana, “We haven’t said anything yet, so relax.” Not that Ivana’s defensiveness suggests that she knows she was a failure or anything…

With her back up against the wall, Ivana tried her hardest to be the tough gal business woman by saying “Look!” every two seconds. As in “Look! I needed to make a move” or “Look! I had to do something drastic” or “Look! I’m an IDIOT!” But if Ivana’s tactic was the lob, Carolyn came down with the slam as she snapped “I would stop addressing him [George] as ‘look.’” Cut to George tipping his head slightly with his usual “When she’s right, she’s right” expression.

Eventually, Donald shooed everyone out of the boardroom so he could have his powwow. Ivana stepped up, George said, much to the shock of everyone. Carolyn did NOT agree, citing Ivana’s lack of leadership and, you know, her willingness to take off her clothes for money. “This is someone who’s gonna run one of your companies,” she noted, at which point George nodded his head and said “Oh I forgot about that. I guess that’s because we don’t actually have Bill doing anything.”

Well, our not-so-happy buddies returned to the boardroom where The Donald decided to step up and screw with Ivana, asking her questions like “Who’s smarter? You or Kevin?” Of course Kevin was quick to point out his various degrees – Wharton in one year, University of Chicago Law, the College for Lifelong Perspiration. Ivana scoffed at this laundry list of accomplishments, simply writing it off with a quick roll of the eyes as just “education.” Yeah, seriously. Since when did “education” or “learning” or “schooling” amount to anything??

Eventually it was time to put Ivana out of her misery as Donald succinctly proclaimed: “I’m not hiring a stripper.” And then, in an unprecedented move, he eschewed his usual cobra strike in lieu of a slap on the table and a little finger gun. kaBOOOM! That’s right Ivana. You were just virtually shot by Cool Hand Trump. Not even Omarosa got that type of a sendoff. Personally, I would have liked The Donald to have pretended to have hit a homerun or maybe he could have stood up, dropped an imaginary ball and kicked it out of the office. In the end, Ivana angrily strutted out of the building as George sat with a look that seemed to say “I, uh, kind of liked the striptease.”

Of course, after every intense boardroom, we always get the jazzy cabride of shame, and in this case Ivana still couldn’t come to terms that she had whored herself out for a candy bar. “Carolyn was probably most harsh on me for the ‘gimmick,’” she said. Is that what we’re calling it now? Well, now I’m horny. Maybe this weekend I’ll go to a “Gimmick bar” and watch all that gimmicky dancing.

Oh, and in case I don’t have any other opportunities to say it, Ivana, you are a huge idiot.