Episode 2

Kings back in the black throne room. Shi Hao Fired!

Back in the suite, speculation began on who would be the first candidate out of the running in the fifteen week interview. Many hoped that Kum Hong would be the one out, but many felt that James was a likely target.

When James and Shi Hao walked into through the door, luggage in tow, there were cheers at the return of the two candidates. Happy as though they were, Conquest vowed to try beat the men again.

The candidates received a call at 6 a.m. from Mr. Tan’s secretary, telling them to meet him at Rochester Park at 8 a.m.

At 8 a.m., the candidates met Mr. Tan and his advisors at Rochester Park in Buona Vista. Mr. Tan explained that for this task, the teams would have to redecorate two old bungalow houses and thereafter attempt to rent them out with the highest rent. One house was located in Rochester Park and another in Portsdown further down the road from where they were. The teams would have to nominate their Project Managers again. By random drawing, Conquest had gotten the Rochester Park house and King the Portsdown one. Before leaving, Mr. Tan informed that Farahain and David would be observing again, as usual.

After the TTC had left, King Corp moved to inspect their house. It was in a quaint little area, near to a bus stop. The lush greenery around made it look like it was from a story book. They then turned to the business side and elected their Project Manager. Each of them wrote their names on a piece of paper and they then did a random drawing. Shi Hao was the name withdrawn, thus he became King’s Project Manager.

Meanwhile at Rochester Park, Kimberly was elected as Project Manager of Conquest. Following Syaza’s footsteps, she divided the team into two groups. Esther, Victoria, Sharmaine, Debbie and Yessita would work on re-decorating the house while Syaza, Carol and Shu Hui would be in charge of attracting potential tenants. She then took Syaza’s method a step further and put Esther and Syaza in charge of the two divisions to report to her on the progress.

Esther assembled her team and got them to evaluate the state of the house. Some repairs were due, such as the toilets and the flooring. She asked if a few of them, preferably two people, could contact a contractor to start the repairs. For the rest of the team, she asked them to think up ideas on how to re-decorate the house. Kimberly then offered a few suggestions.

Back at King’s house. Shi Hao was going around, making sure everything was in working order while the others lounged around. Nobody was doing anything and Shi Hao wasn’t delegating jobs. David walked in and around the house. He came out and told the camera, “They want to lose this one too, they’re just sitting on their bums!”.

After about half-an hour of waiting, the King Corp men got up and began to take things into their own hands. They talked of getting many gadgets into the house and making it every man’s dream home. Without telling Shi Hao, who was in another room, the guys left for the Ikea store to look for some nifty furnishings to put in the house.

Back in the suite, Shu Hui, Syaza and Carol brainstormed on different ways to get potential tenants to come take a look at the house. Carol suggested having a free shuttle from the nearby MRT station and advertising in the newspapers. Syaza then reconsidered, saying that the rent could be very high as houses in Singapore were a rarity, hence, their target market would be higher ended consumers. They had to rethink their plans.

At Ikea, the guys meandered through the store almost aimlessly, trying to find paint for the walls and fabric for the curtains. They often got side tracked by the different furniture displays. When the last emerged from the store, they had clocked in a total of three hours at Ikea, wasting valuable time.

Shi Hao had finally realized that his team was no longer in the house and he was immoblised. He had one of the two handphones that each team was given, but didn’t know the number of the other line which was with the rest of the team. Thus, he had no way of contacting his them.

As the contractor arrived at the Conquest home, Esther sent out her team to get the materials needed to redecorate the house. Kimberly, Yessita, Debbie and Sharmaine went down to the Ikea store for their redecoration needs. However, they were unaware of the King team being in the vicinity as well.

Esther and Victoria managed to get the contractor to help them paint the house’s interior and fix new curtain lines for a small extra cost before he started work on the toilets and flooring. They then sat down to relax for awhile while the contractor got his men to start work.

The runaway King team eventually returned to their house to find a nonchalant Shi Hao lying on the dirty floor. He got up and just accepted their plans for the house without considering any ramifications. The King team started to paint the walls a silver colour. Unfortunately, they forgot to protect the flooring and drops of paint soon dotted the stone flooring. The King Corp worked late into the night and only managed to paint three walls out of the intended nine.

The next day, Kimberly went down to the house at Rochester Park to inspect the repair works. The contractor’s workers had by now started painting the walls and were making quick work of it. As she returned to the suite and the rest of her team, Syaza filled them in on her plan for the promotion. They would hold an auction at the house itself, inviting investors. The auction items would range from various pieces of art work which the team could create themselves. The last auction item, would be to rent out the house. Of course, the investors must be potential tenants. But imagine it, a chance to buy art works to decorate your house and a final auction to see who gets to rent it.

An auction would be easy and quick to do as the prospective tenants would already be there to inspect the house and such. Kimberly thought it was a risky idea but wanted to go along with it. She managed to get the backing from her team on the idea. The Conquest team then went out to get the necessary items for the art work and the auction.

In a confessional, Victoria expressed delight at the idea of an auction. She said, “The auction is a fabulous idea! I’m sure it will draw the crowds and work out. Conquest will have the advantage in this task.”

The men resumed the decoration of their house the next morning. They continued to do so till the late afternoon. Yen Hao then separated himself from the group to work on a strategy to bring in possible tenants. He suggested advertising in the classified section of the newspaper.

The day of the auction came, and the Conquest women got ready to receive the potential tenants. Once everyone had been seated, they had quite a large crowd in the room. Syaza then proceeded to ask everyone to find a seat and the auction began. She then announced in a surprise, last minute decision, that the proceeds from the art auction would go to the Community Chest charity. The audience broke into applause at this announcement.

The auction got underway and the final item, the rental of the house was up for bids. There was a lot of bidding for the rent which would be on a monthly basis. The last bid was secured at $3,500 per month. Everyone was then treated to some light refreshments. Farahain mingled around with the crowd, but was impressed with the women’s performance. She passed a comment, “Risky, but they took a shot at it. Not sure if they will be rewarded for this, but they did a good job.”

Over at the King Corp house, the men waited for hours with no potential tenant coming by in the course of the time they were there. Yen Hao was utterly disappointed at the turn out and blamed Shi Hao for not leading well.

The teams then met the TTC back in the boardroom to reveal who was the winner. Farahain and David revealed that it was a walkover as no one went to the King Corp open house. The women of Conquest couldn’t contain their joy and erupted in shouts and hugged each other. As part of their reward, they would go for a day on a yatch, traveling the sea around the island. As for King Corp, they would return to the boardroom once again where someone would be fired.

The Conquest women enjoyed the day on the yatch, eating Pringles chips and standing in the wind. They also enjoyed the time with the TTC and his wife, Mdm. Ng Hoi Hoon. The highlight of the day was a picnic on the yatch itself.

Carol summed up her experience with, “It was the experience of a lifetime. I had never been on a luxury yatch before – I could get used to this!”

Back in the suite, the members of King Corp stewed over who would be brought back into the boardroom with Shi Hao. Shi Hao planned to bring Yen Hao in for poor marketing strategy and Jin Hui as a random selection.

The King Corp entered the boardroom to meet with Mr. Tan. He told Shi Hao that his leadership skills were certainly very lacking. Farahain said that Shi Hao didn’t even know his team had left or even how to contact them. David added his bit, saying that Shi Hao didn’t delegate the tasks at all, nobody did any marketing strategy even. Shi Hao then said he was doing a check before consulting his team on what should be done but they simply didn’t wait for him. The TTC told Shi Hao to stop making excuses.

As a final blow, he said, “To be frank Shi Hao, you aren’t a good leader. This is an easy decision, you’re fired!”