The RIGHT Apprentice!

So wacky pterodactyl impersonator Lee McQueen won The Apprentice. What a huge relief.
Common sense triumphed over the intensely clever stupidity so often displayed by people who are super bright but, somehow, don’t live in the real world.
Hard work and effort triumphed over a fistful of academic qualifications.
It makes the heart sing, because after Lee’s CV rumpus, I thought he was out for the count.
For those not addicted to one of the most gripping TV shows of the year, Lee told a fib on his CV. I say fib because lie seems too harsh. He said he’d spent two years at college when in fact he dropped out after four months.
It was a fib born out of embarrassment. Lee thought he wouldn’t stand a chance without a list of academic qualifications as long as his arm. So, he reinvented himself, ever so slightly, like countless others before him.
He could have done far worse, like claiming he was an Oxbridge grad.
I don’t condone what he did but I do understand why. So did Sir Alan.
What Lee failed to realise was that if anyone was not going to judge him on academic results alone, it was the multi-millionaire tycoon.
Like so many of Britain’s top entrepreneurs, he came from a humble background and left school at 16. The hard work started there – not five or more years later after partying on down at uni for three years,
Sir Alan saw beyond that CV slip-up and recognised that in Lee a bright, loyal grafter with passion, enthusiasm and good humour was waiting to be moulded.
Nevertheless the holier-than-thou brigade have been casting their eyes heavenwards at Lee’s CV faux pas.
But, it’s not as bad as stealing from your employers, surely? Shirking on the job? Having more academic qualification than you know what to do with but being utterly hopeless?
In fact, while I’m motoring on this theme, Derby City Council’s corruption allegations spring to mind.
Is lying on your CV as bad as using your employees’ materials and joinery shop to build stuff for private homes?
Telling a white lie on your CV can hardly rank alongside theft, misuse of company property or just being a complete waste of space in the workplace.
After more than 20 years in half a dozen different jobs, I’ve pretty much seen it all. Graduates who, like Lee, struggle to spell; shirkers who got away with doing as little as possible, a couple of alcoholics and a thief – not at the Evening Telegraph I hasten to add.
Talking of shirkers, my favourite was the woman who insisted on having her hair cut in works’ time – because it grew in works’ time.

For all of these reasons and because like Sir Alan Sugar, I am crusty, old and wise, I am chuffed to bits for Lee.
He displayed more energy and enthusiasm than the rest of the apprentices put together and was that rare thing – a good team player but also a great leader.
He’s also good fun, a vastly underrated strength in the workplace. Who wants to be surrounded by an army of high maintenance whiners?
Attitude and hard work count for everything in my humble opinion. And if you smile along the way, hallelujah!
Yes, you need to be bright but degrees don’t guarantee that, especially these days as youngsters are pushed into higher education whether it suits them or not, because so few jobs are available.
And why on earth don’t we value practical intelligence, a much rarer commodity than a degree?
It was Lee who led The Apprentice team who located the Jewish quarter in Marrakech to buy a kosher chicken during a bizarre task for Sir Alan – unlike a lad with a degree from Edinburgh who went to the halal butcher.

Lee, if you don’t like it at the Sugar empire, you’re hired.