After a very short nights sleep we awoke to the start of our first day here in London. We received our challenge the night before which gave us some careful planning time.
The challenge was fairly straight forward. There are 10 teams, 10 bundles and we all had to bid for each bundle. If you failed to beat anyone elses bid you were given the reserve price for the final bundle. This was the bare minimum that the organisers thought it could be done in. We researched each item in the hour deliberation time we had this morning and decided on what we thought we could easily get and what we thought would be impossible. Sadly we didn’t win any of the top 3 bundles we wanted. However we didn’t win any of the worst either.
Our list consisted of several items. 2 x Champagne, 100 paperclips, 300g box of chocolates, 4 winners medals, 30 different postcards, 250g Jammie Dodgers and 60 “magenta” napkins. A common colour in our challenges but easier for us to find then 4 magenta ties, something another team struggled with. The paperclips were our first find (for free) and then the day progressed with us collecting the napkins and chocolates for free. Our biggest struggle was the champagne and also the last item we got.
Towards the end of the challenges we found ourselves split 2,1,1 as we raced to collect the remaning items. As i arrived out of breathe and extremely tired to our final rendezvous point at 4:03 (already incurring a penalty of 3 points for the 3 minutes i was late), i was mortified to see that the rest of the team hadn’t made it back at all. As i waited patiently Ida and Phill came dashing around the corner followed sometime later by Rob. We were the last team back and incurred 17 points. I can only remember regretting having sent Rob on a final crusade minutes before we had to return. However without the items he returned we would have undoubtably been worse off. In many ways today he was a saviour.
All sure we had come last when hearing of other teams spoils, our hearts sank knowing that we still had 3 challenges remaining. After a quick change of attire we arrived for a lecture with the Boston Consulting Group and then followed dinner at the Old Dutch which provided a strange combinations of foods all wrapped on a pancake and served with milkshake. Then came the scores. Our hearts were in our mouths as we heard the first name read out…Budapest. Each announcement we egerly awaited, a smile growing bigger as we became further and further away from failure eventually finishing a close 3rd. We were later taken aside and told that we would have been second if it wasn’t for the time delay but thats something completely unavoidable and to be honest, we were glad just not being the first names read out.
All in all a good start to the day. A big thank you to everyone who helped with suggestions. And in true apprentice style…the challenge has begun!
Paul
Not a bad start - keep up the good work!