We’d hire you Rebecca. We thought you were a class act on crutches. For those of you scratching your heads, YoChicago is referring to 23-year-old financial journalist and University of Chicago graduate Rebecca Jarvis who was narrowly beaten on Thursday in the race to become Donald Trump’s next Apprentice by the equally impressive and impossibly well-educated Randall Pinkett, a Rhodes scholar and businessman from New Jersey.
Despite slipping on ice skates and shattering her ankle early in the 13-week contest of business acumen, verbal sparring abilities, TV star power and sucking up, Jarvis gamely got on with the job. She hobbled her way through the show on crutches while still managing to display a certain toughness, loyalty and cool under pressure that clearly turned The Donald’s tidal-wave coiffed head.
Yes, there is much to make fun of on this show, but on the face of it, Pinkett and Jarvis offered up an interesting contest, both displaying the mettle and spunk that’s been lacking in previous contenders.
In a move Trump hasn’t made in previous series’ finales, he came close to hiring both finalists. After Trump anointed Pinkett his apprentice, he asked the winner his advice on whether he should also hire Jarvis. In a surprise move that belied Pinkett’s reputation as the show’s Mr. Nice Guy and was, we thought, a little ungracious, Pinkett vetoed the idea in front of a clearly stunned Jarvis and to the disappointment of scores of her buddies and fans watching the show live down at Elm Street Liquors.
If Jarvis, a go-getter who started her own non-profit at age 15, had been hired, she had pre-selected a job working on Trump’s luxury condo highrise project in Joisey. The development is already well-advanced with construction set to begin in January. Trump seems to like Chicagoans; his original apprentice of course was local boy Bill Rancic, the affable cigar entrepreneur who has been serving his time working at Trump’s Chicago highrise condo development and on the C-list celebrity circuit.
All the best to Jarvis. Perhaps Pinkett’s karma will come in the form of the somewhat masochistic assignment he selected for himself: developing a casino, an area of Trump’s empire that by most reports hasn’t exactly hit the jackpot.