An article in today’s New York Times Magazine asks, “Why do Harvard graduates work in the mailroom?” You can read the article here.

Author Adam Davidson refers to the best-selling book, Freakonomics, which noted the peculiar behavior of drug dealers. They accepted low pay and dangerous conditions on the slim chance they would hit the jackpot and become wealthy kingpins. Davidson said it’s like entering the job lottery.

Davidson has a point. However, he lumps together all kinds of apprenticeships: working in the mail room while waiting to advance to an executive job, serving tables in a restaurant, working as a law firm associate and spending time as an assistant professor while hoping for tenure.

The truth is that the time invested in this apprenticeship will often have some value, even if the outcome is not what has been planned. Lawyers and accountants can get jobs elsewhere, even if they don’t make partner at a specific firm. College professors often move to other universities (and if they teach in business, law or engineering, they’re not poorly paid). Actors who hang in there often do get some experience or get into a related career; I’ve met successful business owners who learned from their auditioning experience (not to mention their acing lessons).

Plan B opportunities still abound, especially for those who don’t reach their original goals. They’re just not called jobs anymore. They’re small business owners, often in service businesses. I recently talked to a woman whose “Plan B” teaching job went away. She started her own dog walking company. Her parents were horrified but she’s making more money with less pressure and certainly lower wardrobe expenses.

What do you think? Comment below (if you don’t see a place to comment, click on the title of this post).

Most of us are “on” a lot of the time…but few of us will ever be “on” as much as a Celebrity Apprentice contestant. This season’s contestant, Annie Duke, knows how to handle being “on” by keeping her game face.

Annie has been identified as the best female poker player in the world. As she says, she learned at the tables to keep her game face, no matter what.

Recently Annie appeared on the  Ellen DeGeneres show. Ellen showed a brief clip from the show: Joan Rivers loses her cool, calling Annie Duke “white trash” and even comparing this fellow contestant to Hitler. You can watch a clip from the show and hear Annie discussing the challenge with Ellen when you go here.

I like Annie Duke’s statement, which I’m paraphrasing: When someone tries to take you down, you can keep your power by the way you choose to react.

Annie walks the talk. While Joan was screaming at her, Annie didn’t try to defend herself or attack Joan. She just said, “Poker players are the most awesome people in the world. They stepped up and donated $200,000 to charities on this show.”

Joan Rivers is 75 and the pressure of the show may have gotten to her. Contestants worked long hours under difficult conditions, performing tasks for which they were unqualified by background and training.

This episode may have shifted the odds of winning in Annie’s favor. I’ve noticed that people who quietly follow a strategy often get an extra boost that seems to come out of nowhere.

At first Annie didn’t stand out and I was hoping Joan would win the whole thing. Joan was a trooper in her own way. I loved the episode where she played a hotel concierge — all preserved on hulu.com. Now I don’t see how Trump can give the prize to someone who indulges in this sort of name-calling. Joan is history.

But now I’m rooting for Annie, who’s shown grace under pressure, not to mention a multitude of talents from fund-raising to cooking. Her biggest gift is strategy. For instance, on Celebrity Apprentice, the project manager faces the biggest risk of being fired if his or her team loses. But Annie understood that her strength was fund-raising. So she asked to be project manager on fund-raising tasks. Even if her team lost, she knew the biggest fund-raiser on the team wouldn’t be sent home.

Surprisingly useful insights and quality entertainment from a show that didn’t seem promising in the first couple of episodes.

So…what was Omarosa doing on this show in the first place? She’s not a celebrity. She’s not going to be anyone’s apprentice when the show is over. What does she have to gain from this exposure?

She may be a difficult personality but it’s still tough to watch. She wasn’t invited back because she was so brilliant in business (although she looks great and dresses beautifully). I think Trump brought her back to lend some controversy and suspense. The producers probably hoped she’d stir up some conflict, and indeed she did.

But what does she get out of it? She gets portrayed as a difficult person on national television. Will this exposure help her get access to more opportunities? I would be surprised.

Companies sometimes bring people in for ulterior reasons. Sometimes they want “John” to fail because they want to prove nobody can do the job. Or they have to go through the motions but they don’t want an eager beaver. Or they want somebody to take a fall.

The real celebrities have lives waiting for them. Let’s hope Omarosa does too.

By the time the Finale rolled around, did we really care? Did we ever get a clear decision about who wrote the best commercial for the final task?

On the positive side, I think Stefani deserved to be the winner. I was afraid Donald would cave in to demographic pressure. We’ve had winners who are male, female and African-American. It would be so tempting to balance with an Asian-American — and such an appealing, genuinely nice guy, too!

But Stefani remained a calm, quiet presence. She was the only woman on a team of four and she conducted herself with dignity. She got the work done without stepping on egos.

Is she a leader? Frankly, I’m not sure that matters. Her first year will be mostly about learning, not leading. At the end of the year, she’ll be well-positioned to take a position with a law firm, specializing in real estate and construction, earning as much as she will get from serving as The Apprentice.

I hope Trump finds room for Frankie somewhere else in the organization. He’s got so much heart (and he could get a little polish along the way.)

I’ve always enjoyed The Apprentice but this year, I get the feeling NBC says to The Donald, “You’re fired!”

Apprentice Los Angeles is down to the Final Four. The last task was fairly mundane – nothing like the previous finalists who had to run major public events. Here they just completed a fairly bland advertising task.

We can’t get excited about any of the candidates. Nicole hasn’t emerged as strong and certainly hasn’t been a leader. The Bronx guy won’t make it: too down to earth. It’s down to Stefani and James.

My money’s on James. Stefani has quietly emerged as a leader. She’s calm and she appears to have influenced James’s success. James has gotten calmer and more sensible. As a team, they’re effective. But we haven’t seen either of them alone, as we would if they’d been assigned to a big benefit.

Of course, after the last few seasons, what benefit would turn a major event over to an Apprentice wannabe?

Trump seems frustrated. He’s been rude and insulting to the candidates. The tent business seems to distract us from the weaknesses of the show.

Sadly, it’s time to give The Apprentice a decent burial.

Watching The Apprentice Los Angeles this week, I was reminded of a conversation about a seemingly unrelated subject: football.

“Larry” had played football in high school and college. When he watches a game, he says, “I would never boo a player. Sometimes one guy seems to make a mistake – but he was doing his job. Another player wasn’t following the game plan.”

And that’s what happened here.

Kristine – the competent-looking lawyer with the rimless glasses – teamed up with Nicole to create a promotion for some new condos in Las Vegas. Of course, Kristine’s game plan was a little shaky: she wanted to get out from under the shadow of Heidi, whose competence shown on most tasks.

But as Kristine worked on the brochure, Nicole decided to take a nap. Kristine decided to let Nicole sleep. After all, she reasoned, Nicole had been useless on this task so far.

So Kristine decided to write the whole brochure herself. She attempted to do the work of 2 people.

And she came close…except that she got one phone number wrong.

True, in marketing, that’s a very serious mistake. On my own articles, getting the contact information wrong means, “What’s the point?” If they can’t find me, why bother to advertise?

But if Nicole had been doing her share of the work, Kristine might have had time and energy to pay attention to those little details. If they had worked together, they might have proofed the brochure more accurately.

So who should get fired?

In real life, hopefully you wait to collect more data to establish a pattern. But someone else’s mistake can make you look bad, in football and in business. You weren’t supposed to be on the receiving end of a catch, but it comes to you anyway…and you miss. You weren’t supposed to handle this part of the job…but the other person disappears.

Almost always, these situations tend to be lose-lose, once you’re caught up in them. Best to prevent them from happening in the first place. Football players don’t always have a choice but professionals can make a concerted effort to hang out with winners, even if they risk being overshadowed.

A controversial call, either way.

On the surface, last night’s Apprentice was all about leadership.
But I believe it was all about luck.Both teams hated their project leaders.

Team Kinetic recognized that Aime (pronounced “Amy”) wasn’t fully present. She seemed unaware of her environment (Spanish speaking culture — hello!) and she delegated to the max. Still, her team came up with a clever concept, dressing up in bright costumes to attract visitors to their booth.

And as her team realized they needed to communicate in Spanish, they should have fought for an interpreter. Instead, they said nothing. They walked the mall, trying to drum up business but didn’t bother to call Aime to clue her in.

I don’t blame Aime for being angry, as she stormed off to her waiting limo. Consciously or not, her team set her up. In the real world, employees are supposed to make their bosses look good and avoid dumb mistakes.

Suriya didn’t fare much better. He got emotional. He wandered up to strangers, one at a time – a very inefficient process. His team made fun of him.

Suriya does show some insight. As he pointed out, “We all have jobs to go back to.” He does have some marketing savvy. And for some reason, teams begin winning when he joins them.

Despite the differences, the teams were only about $40 apart. They were evenly matched as far as creating a team vs. leader conflict.

I think the real lesson is something I repeat to myself often, “Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.”