The Apprentice: Summer Camp Edition

Author's Note: (A version of this column will never run in the paper, because my editor/mom says it will get me fired from the job that is referenced. Well, I waited until that job was over and then she said it would keep me from working for them again. I don't want to work there again. Plus it's not that big of a deal. Here it is...)

On Monday, November 30th I was flown to Philadelphia (via Cleveland to build character) for training on how to promote the new Windows smart phones at malls in the Northeast during the holiday shopping season. It wasn’t long into this experience, specifically during our first team exercise that I realized I was involved in the first installment of The Apprentice: Summer Camp Edition.
I should have caught on immediately when I noticed the “bug juice” on the table for dinner, but it wasn’t until I heard the dinner conversations that I realized everyone was reconnecting like the first day of summer camp. While none of the campers knew each other, they immediately fell into a familiar pitter patter about promotions and products that dripped off their tongues and was a foreign language to me.
The Apprentice dynamic emerged the next day we were assigned the task of creating thirty second commercials for the phones. During brainstorming everyone began to carve out their niche, whether it was obnoxious blowhard, take charge leader, reserved standout or silent drift wood. In lieu of Ivanka Trump assessing our progress we were monitored by a less famous, but equally untalented babe spouting similar canned clichés.
The result of the challenge was three recycled ideas, with yours truly ripping off John Hodgeman’s PC persona. Ultimately all three groups were declared winners. This was the Summer Camp part of the event, because we were fostering an environment that only exists in the lives of small children.
While familiarizing ourselves with the products we were assured they were cutting edge and top of their class. It could have imagined Donald Trump declaring that these were, “the classiest, greatest, most amazing classy phones. Pharaohs wanted them and god used them to drunk dial the pope.” Eventually it became clear that like a camp craft project we were just killing time, and it didn’t matter what our lanyards looked like or if we could use the phone.
It wasn’t all fun and games, as we received the first of a series of warnings detailing how perilous are pursuit was. Unfortunately the corporate VP who spoke to us was less like Trump’s right hand woman Carol, and more like a restrained version of Alec Baldwin’s character in Glengarry Glen Ross. She rallied our spirits while impressing upon us the severity of our task. It was hard to take seriously, though, since she didn’t drop the bomb about third prize. What does third prize get? You’re fired.
If only. If only that was the case I might have taken this all a little more serious. Unfortunately I got caught up in the summer camp aspect of the gathering and decided to be the apathetic contestant more commonly found on Celebrity Apprentice. I chose to play solitaire on the phone, talk politics and generally avoided thinking about windows as a silent protest against the fact our conference room had none. Luckily you can only get sent home from camp if you’re ill or homesick.
On our final day we began working towards our big end of camp skit. We would be role playing a customer interaction from start to finish.
It was during our rehearsals that I realized this training had actual consequences, which differentiated from the made up job a winner gets on The Apprentice, and I began to take it seriously. I threw myself into the process, with my efforts paying off in a big way when my partner and I were chosen to deliver the full presentation as a culmination to the training.
We nailed it. As the promoter of the phone I tied in all the tenets we had been taught and successfully got a fictional person interested in the phone.
Unfortunately the real challenge still lay ahead with the actual field work. I knew this was when things could become tumultuous, as we left the safe confines of summer camp and embarked on The Apprentice: Road Trip Edition.