#161 The Apprentice

I may be revealing a little bit more about myself in this blog than I originally intended. It seems my TV viewing habits are creeping in more and more. I have already written posts inspired by “Parenthood” and “Master Chef”; today I’ll add another TV inspired post. Today’s post is brought to you by “The Apprentice”. Ok, not really, if Donald Trump were actually sponsoring me I’m sure I’d have a much more lavish (or garish) web design. But I did watch the show last night and it made me think of Eric.




I like “The Apprentice” because Donald Trump calls it like it is. He doesn’t take any BS, he sees through people’s lame excuses and he makes people accountable. It’s easy to see why he’s successful. His show pits teams of hopeful future Trump employees against each other in different types of business challenges—marketing, running a business, sales, etc—and each week someone is fired until there is just one left. Eric belongs on this show.



I don’t know why it hit me more last night than any other time I’ve watched, but it did. The show I watched last night featured a battle between 2 male teammates, a very well educated, but inexperienced lawyer and an unemployed salesman who did very well until the economy tanked. The lawyer was very analytical and cold and without a sense of how things work in the real world. He blew off the business owner who was judging his task because he needed to get his plan completed. The salesman was brash and loud and over the top, but was willing to pitch in to get the task completed and had more common sense. He was very argumentative and easily alienated people who might have been his allies. I think Eric might have been a good combination of the two.



Eric was a very well educated lawyer. He also was a team player and always willing to pitch in and go above and beyond. He was incredibly good at impressing his co-workers and superiors and was able to make himself heard without being loud and obnoxious.



As a child Donald Trump was one of Eric’s idols. I always thought he would end up on Wall Street. Life takes us in different directions though and it turned out that’s not where Eric’s interests lay. I still think he would have made an awesome Apprentice though.