The Apprentice is no more for 2010, but did it (and others) get inside your head?
1. When you get home at night you try to create an atmosphere of suspense for your girlfriend — have you come home or not? — by sending the dog in first and then pausing before you walk through the door.
2. For every two hours of your life, you have to spend another hour discussing it in front of a live audience with a presenter, a journalist and some people who, last year, did what you did in those two hours.
3. You take a little wheelie suitcase with you to work every day, just in case you get sacked — and pack it every Friday, in case you get evicted from your house.
4. You begin every sentence with, “I personally believe myself that…”
5. You won’t make anyone a cup of tea unless they say, categorically, for the record, that it was their idea to have a cup of tea and if the cup of tea happens to be below standard then they are responsible. However, if the tea happens to be amazing, you insist on taking the credit.
6. If you offer to make them that cup of tea and they say no, you shed all traces of dignity and beg them for the chance to make them a cup of tea, saying that, while your tea may not be perfect, you have the potential to be moulded into exactly the kind of tea-maker they want.
7. Whenever you describe a friend or colleague, you talk about what they’re like “behind the scenes”.
8. You find that the extent of your vocabulary’s adjectives is limited to “brilliant”, “fantastic” and “stunning”, with the occasional “absolutely” or “literally” if you’ve used the others too readily earlier in the day.
9. You spend all day slagging off your colleagues before giving them a hug as you leave in an empty gesture of “all’s fair”.
10. Your response to anyone asking you how to do something is “Just believe”.
11. When the pub closes and you’re asked to leave you thank the landlord “for the opportunity” and refuse to make eye contact with anyone else in the room.
