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SINGLES & Doubles...
by Jerusha

The Boardroom vs. The Bedroom

Is the boardroom the new war room in the battle between the sexes? On the wildly popular TV show “The Apprentice,” job applicants competed in a crazy business Olympics for the chance to run one of Donald Trump's companies at a $250,000 salary. Each week in a tense boardroom scene, Mr. Trump dismissed a contestant with the now-famous sendoff, “You're fired!”

In the show's surprising finale, male-female relationships proved to be the trump card, not fancy degrees or work experience. Often at work we feel more comfortable associating ourselves with others like us. This practice, which is referred to as “mirror-image hiring,” proved to be “Apprentice” finalist Kwame Jackson's Achilles heel.  

Jackson, the black Harvard MBA, allowed his heart to rule his head by mixing racial camaraderie with business practices. Kwame put the dastardly diva Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth in charge of overseeing the travel arrangements for pop superstar Jessica Simpson, who was to perform at a Trump charity benefit concert. Pulling off a successful event was the final “task” in the “Apprentice” competition. Ignoring Omarosa's past questionable work practices, Kwame likened the final round selection process to a game of pick-up basketball, and reasoned that if Omarosa were chosen last, her feelings would be hurt. You know what they say: all's fair in love and basketball.

But in the end, Kwame was a victim of what I like to call “The Omarosa Effect.” On the show, Omarosa was a one-woman showstopper of brazen sexuality with her thigh-high suits and “it's all about me” attitude. The former beauty queen sported thigh-high suits and alternated between syrupy sweet salutations and salty comebacks, depending on her ever-changing game plan. As the only black female, she claimed to be marginalized by her teammates in the white girl sorority environment. Like a spurned lover, she instigated negativity at every turn while managing to grab the media spotlight from even the main man himself, the bossman Trump.  

In the final task, Omarosa repaid Kwame's kindness in choosing her for his team by lying — twice — and purposely “losing” pop star Jessica Simpson in the process. Further proving that no good deed goes unpunished, Donald Trump admitted that Kwame's chance for success went south as soon as he picked Omarosa. Trump was further disgusted by Kwame's velvet glove approach to the beauty's betrayal. If television is to be believed, Trump runs his organization without regard to favor or flavors.

At first, Omarosa cooed over the cellphone to Kwame, “we're going to do everything to make you look good,” as they were being driven to their next assignment. As the show continued I watched the train-wreck-in-progress as she did everything in her power to sabotage the success of the project. Given the often strained relations between black men and women, an Omarosa persona only seems to feed the flames of self hatred and “crabs in the barrel” stereotyping. Black women are told often enough that they don't support black men. We don't need to see it being played out as a “reality” on television.  

Does Omarosa represent the reality of black-on-black workplace dynamics in a competitive economy, or is she just a scheming, larger-than-life anomaly on TV? I spoke with several people about this topic, and most felt that Omarosa would have sabotaged either team leader, Kwame or Bill Rancic, the guy who won the Trump job. It just seems to be in her nature to be nasty.  

One person who might not agree is corporate coach Lois P. Frankel, author of “Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office,” which lists 101 mistakes women make that sabotage their careers. She'd probably cheer Omarosa for refusing to play nice and her focus on winning the game, no matter the cost. Like Donald Trump, Frankel's book scolds women for being too modest and not tooting their own horns at the office. She advises women to leverage relationships the way men do. Face time means exactly that. So Frankel would probably applaud “Apprentice” contestant Amy Henry for her shrewdness in building success by affiliating herself with the right players up until the end.  

During one weekly grill session, Amy served up fellow competitor Nick Warnock on a platter, saying he lacked the leadership skills needed to run a Trump organization. She put a big chill on the on-again-off-again flirtation, which Matt Lauer of “The Today Show” dubbed the “showmance,” she shared with Nick. They dated for about a month after “The Apprentice” ended, but they both since moved on to other “opportunities.” Wanna bet it was no nonsense Amy who decided Nick couldn't cut it in the bedroom as well?

Plenty of men seemed to like Amy during her 14-week run on the show whether, they were clients or colleagues. She was often the one selected as project manager or assigned critical tasks by her teammates. Amy was all business during the day, but wasn't above a bit of schmoozing with the boys in the suite when the day's work was done. Throughout the series, dismissed female colleagues on late night TV talk shows dished that Amy would “screw” her male competitors on her way to snagging the top post as “The Apprentice.”  

Has this NBC show shown us a new breed of Alpha female? Are female wannabe CEOs the new warrior princesses? At the beginning of “The Apprentice” the all-female Protégé team's take-no-prisoners style left the male Versacorp gang in the dust. They answered the early morning wakeup calls from Trump's office, hit the gym for serious workouts and partied to late night excess. They flaunted their female attributes in the pursuit of quick customer gratification. They were working it!

Trump chastised the women for playing the sex card way too often, then sheepishly admitted in post-show interviews that he felt a little uncomfortable wearing the shoe on his sexist other foot. The men didn't blame the women for playing the sex card; they freely admitted that they would have used it if they had it.  

When the women were integrated into the losing male team, the balance of power shifted to the men and The Donald went through the females like bad real estate deals. The remaining women continued to pit brains against brawn, nurturing the male egos to create favorable alliances. Off the show, they proved once again that sex sells with the lingerie spread in FHM magazine of Trump femme fatales Amy Henry, Katrina Campins, Erika Vetrini and Kristi Frank.  

Oblivious to the charms of his live-in competitors, Chicagoan Bill Rancic was picked for the top post. He didn't play favorites and we didn't see him mix business and pleasure. He kept his romantic pursuits with another reality TV veteran Jen Schefft, former flame of “The Bachelor's” Andrew Firestone, out of the boardroom and off the screen.   Does it pay to be nice or naughty at work? You decide!