Donald Trump: The Apprentice Los Angeles: A Quitter I admire

Okay, so The Apprentice reality television show is pretty grim this year. It’s fun to watch scenes from Los Angeles flash by. No matter how many times I’ve visited, LA always seems exotic and special to me. For those who (wisely) avoid television, reality and otherwise: On this show 18 smart men and women come from all over the Western Hemisphere to compete for a job in billionaire Donald Trump’s organization. The job pays $250K USD a year, which would be a pay cut for some contestants. But they seek adventure, prestige and exposure. Each week teams compete in marketing tasks that have marginal relevance to the real work they did before and will do later. But last night an Apprentice did the unthinkable. She quit. Donald Trump was furious. She’d messed up his carefully orchestrated game plan. “She should have stayed to take her medicine,” Trump’s designated hench man grumbled. Why? I wondered? She knew she’d done a lousy job. So did everybody else. Why waste half an hour hashing out the reasons? And she made a good point: she hadn’t planned to sleep in a tent when she joined the show. She didn’t function well in Tent City. Why stick around and wait for more? “Would you quit if you had won?” asked The Donald. “Probably,” she said. I think she could have said, “Probably not. If I’d done a good job and we won, I would know I could function in this environment.” I admire her spirit. She didn’t waver or back down or cry. She even gave a cheery little wave as she headed down the driveway, pulling her suitcase on wheels...no doubt a staged performance, as there’s no place to roll in LA.