Missed The Apprentice

I can't believe I missed the Apprentice on Thursday. What the heck was I doing ... oh yeah, watching a movie with my son. Good choice, way more fun.

Here's what I missed. They went to the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. There were two women and four men left and they fired Katrina. That leaves Amy as the only woman. You could see that coming. She was the strongest woman competitor and every time they had to even up the teams and another team got their pick of the players, they always chose Amy, until last week.

I've been thinking a lot about the way the men will support one another at work (and in life for that matter), even if they don't like one another. Women seem to put personality ahead of that type of gender loyalty often enough. I know I'm generalizing, but this show puts these tendencies under the microscope. If a woman player doesn't like another woman, they don't seem to step back and judge her on her business acumen -- they just get rid of her for "personal" reasons. I think the sociological aspect of this show needs to be considered. Of course, it's phony and bogus in many ways, but it can be an interesting place to consider how we all work at work. I get the feeling men have a loyalty to their gender that's very basic -- and helps them survive in this world. It's a successful worldview if you're a man in a man's world. Is it a man's world? I don't know. I tend to think men are on the decline, really getting kicked around out there. They need to hang together.

Would it be easy for Donald Trump as a man to pick Amy, an obviously beautiful and smart woman, or any woman for that matter, as his apprentice? Will he have a loyalty to a man simply because he's a man? Or is it to avoid the obvious social complications of having a woman as his "right-hand man" and having people wonder if he's sleeping with her. Who -- in fact -- wonders these things? And how do they become obstacles to a woman's progress in business? Sometimes I think there's a "morality of convenience" that is in play. It's convenient to keep women out of the top positions and boardrooms and better for men to do this as it helps them keep other men in those jobs. There have probably been many big bosses sleeping with their male assistants for years, but we'll never hear the tales.

The people who wonder if a pretty female assistant is sleeping with her boss -- those "people" from what I've seen, are usually other men who want to sleep with her. So I'm not altogether convinced is has anything to do with propriety or morals. I think it has to do with jealousy and power. One man being jealous he isn't getting a piece of the action while another is. And men knowing on some fundamental level that they don't want to share power with women. In the guise of "moral and upright" behavior, they can deny women access to power. I sometimes wonder if these male/female dynamics at work are all twisted around that first oh-so-powerful relationship in a man's life -- his mom. I sometimes wonder if men are not terrified of women's power and they know better than women how powerful women can be.

So maybe we can have a little episode next week about Trump and his mother. That would explain volumes. A little intervention by Dr. Phil, for instance, to come in and talk to The Donald about dear old mom. Okay, I'm just kidding. Back to the real story -- who will be the Apprentice?

Can Trump really chose a woman, or is it rigged? Interestingly, the first 4 programs, when the teams were all women against all men, the women won 4 times in a row. The solution -- don't let the show continue to demonstrate how the women were killing the men week after week -- mix up the teams.

I guess we'll all just have to wait and see.