You're Hired!

On Thursday night, the second season of the Apprentice came to an end. The final showdown was between Kelly and Jennifer. Kelly is a West Point grad and a former Army Ranger. After the military, Kelly earned his MBA and J.D. from UCLA. After that, Kelly has been president of several start-ups in California. In contrast, Jennifer has no real-life accomplishments to her credit but does have a undergraduate degree from Princeton and a J.D. from Havard. Since that time, she has worked for the world's largest law firm in their San Francisco office.

In the final task, the competitors were joined by formerly fired comrades. Kelly was joined by Elizabeth, Raj and John. Their task was to organize a charity polo match. Jenn was joined by Pamela, Chris and Stacy R. Their task was to run a charity basketball tournament. Each team experienced the usual ups and downs. In the end, both events were fairly successful.

The boardroom for this three-hour finale was quite extensive. It was held live at the Lincoln Center and was hosted by Regis Philbin. Cast member from the first Apprentice, audience members, members of Trump's empire and former bosses of the candidates all got to voice their opinion as to who the Donald should hire. The popular support went almost unamimously to Kelly.

And, in the end, the Donald agreed with popular opinion and told Kelly, "You're hired." Kelly chose to oversee Trump's gigantic building project on Manhattan's west side.



Editorial Comment: The Banshee totally agrees with the Donald's decision. By the end of last season's Apprentice, I was emotionally attached to both Bill and Kwame. This year, I was never really drawn to Kelly. I didn't particularly like him. That being said, I don't think I would have a hard time working for him.

Most importantly, Kelly has real life experience that he can bring to the job. The Donald needs someone who can actually run a business -- not just someone who learned about it in an Ivy League classroom. Jenn really hung her hat on the fact that she has law degree from Harvard. But, I am here to tell you that a law degree alone is not much of a qualification for running a business. And as a 29 year-old member of a gigantic law firm, my guess would be that Jenn has yet to even meet a single one of her corporate clients. Writing memos about the legal intracacies of a proposed merger is not exactly stellar preparation for leading real people in the business world.

Preview: Apprentice 3 will start in January. Instead of dividing the teams by the sexes, next season's show will pit candidates with book smarts against candidates with street smarts. An interesting premise. It's my feeling that there is no reason to choose between those two types of knowledge. After all, Kelly clearly possessed both.