There were a couple of different ways to get onto Season 2 contestant pipeline of The Apprentice. 1. Send in a video, 2. Wait in line at the Today Show and maybe participate in a quick competition, 3. Wait in line at open casting.
My video was five minutes long and committed to VHS with me a in a suit and a pitch images playing on my big plasma. I decided to hit the Today show and rolled to Rock Plaza at 11p the night before and was fourth in line. I didn’t get picked for the on-air mini-competition, but did get a pass through to Round 2 at the next day’s open call.
MATT LAUER: Al Roker and Matt Lauer came and worked the line of aspiring Apprentices (Apprentici?) before the show started and the guy just ahead of me in Slot 3 started chatting with Matt. The guy was from Richmond where Matt spent some early phase of his career and he was building affordable student housing. Matt enjoyed the trip down memory lane and when the guy asked if Matt could get Donald Trump (who was there, but didn’t work the crowd) a DVD on the development, Matt said “No problem”. My guy reached into his bag and pulled out a DVD, and as he handed it to Matt he also slipped Matt a $50. Matt looked at the wrinkled face of Ulysses Grant, looked back at the guy, handed him back the $50 and the DVD and said “you’ve misread this moment”.
I arrived the next day at the cattle call and whisked past the army of screeners and was placed at a round table with six other aspirants. They asked three questions and we rounded the table with our answers. The final question was “suck ups in the workplace, what do you thnk?” The first five people answered essentially identically, some tossing in the word “sycophant” to seem smartly, but pretty much all deriding the “yes man” and suggesting that they thrived under the blanket of truthiness. If got to me and I said “I love a good suck up. Nothing makes me happier at work than the acknowledgment of my awesomeness. Your compliments of me are an accurate measure of your intelligence and ability to identify a great opportunity. I am great at work, and surrounded by people who recognize my talent, I am even greater.” I’m the only one who progressed — the rest of the table forgot we were trying to get on a TV show, not apply to b-school.
I progressed down to about the top 50 and the next day was an initial screen test. Excitement and tension were both rising rapidly and one of my co-applicants observed “ok, so here are the 50 people we are competing with”. I pointed out to him that I probably wasn’t competing against the 50, but rather against the other two white dudes in their 30s and that sales guy from Texas had blue eyes, a chiseled chin, dimples and an aww-shucks accent.
DONALD: I arrived the next morning for the screen test, about 5 minutes late but I could see other contestants making their way in at the same time. Just as I rolled up on the main entrance The Donald appeared and opened the door ahead of me. He recognized me from the day before and I made some small talk about running a few minutes late because I had to get in my March Madness picks before the deadline. “You know Dave”, said the Big Orange, “the single greatest place to watch those games is in the sports room at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. Every game is on, the seating is exquisite, the food and beer selection unrivaled.” I thought this might be my window to grab a little perk from my time on the set and replied “that sounds great, although I’m not sure how I’d get down to Atlantic City” because I was pretty sure he had some combination of helicopter, limo or luxury hydrofoil headed their every 15 minutes. “You know Dave, there are buses out of Port Authority every thirty minutes that also give you $25 in slot tokens. It’s a really great service.” I think in the background I heard a trumpet wail “wah wah wahhhh”.
Texas dimples got my white-guy spot and got booted in Week 1. I never saw Trump again.