Obligatory Microsoft and The Apprentice Post

The Seattle PI’s Microsoft blog talks about Verna Felton (aka “The Microsoft Apprentice”) and further asks a bunch of questions on what this implies about Microsoft’s work environment:

“Must be nice working someplace where they apparently don’t have office politics.”

Right. I always use The Apprentice as a good gauge of the real world (ummm, no). The show is artificial for the sake of drama – I love watching it, but honestly, would you ever hire someone based on their performance on that show? Are any of those contrived “jobs” really good indicators of management potential?

There are only 3 potential outcomes for an Apprentice contestant:

1) Hired and you “get” to work in a meaningless fluff job for Trump doing real estate (woohoo!).
2) Fired for looking/being incompetent, but because of mitigating circumstances you manage to keep your dignity
3) Fired for actually being incompetent, in which case your real world career prospects take a hit
(4 now actually – quit as Verna did to avoid all the above, but I can’t blame her)

Basically people go on that show not because they view it as a serious indicator of management talent, but because they’re looking for a ticket to Hollywood and fame. Let’s all be honest about that and move on.

Back to MS and Verna – Her performance on that show has NOTHING to do with her likely performance in her job at MS (I don’t personally know her). She’s probably very competent at her real job, and just got fed up with the game on The Apprentice. So what? Good for her, if your heart’s not in it, why put up with the BS? Get back to the real world and watch the other people make fools of themselves in more dramatically edited ways.