Microsoft employee Verna Felton swapped Donald Trump's trademark words "you're fired" for the far less dramatic "I'm tired."
Verna Felton
Only three weeks into "The Apprentice," Trump's hit reality TV show on NBC, Felton, 31, walked away. The move constituted the first time anyone has resigned from the competition, which pits 18 people against each other in a four-month battle to win a job with "The Donald."
But Felton's decision was not entirely surprising to devoted fans of the show. During the second week of the competition, the marketing professional quarreled repeatedly with teammates and even walked off the show after complaining that she was mentally and physically exhausted.
After a pep talk from Carolyn Kepcher, an executive vice president in Trump's real-estate development company who appears on the program each week, Felton returned to the show for another try before making her final decision one day later.
Trump said on the show that Felton "couldn't hack it and quit," and asked if any other players were thinking of leaving. None of the remaining 15 people still competing for the job chose to give up.
Microsoft has declined to comment on Felton's "apprenticeship" beyond confirming that she indeed works for the software giant. But other company employees had been posting blog items supporting their colleague. One blogger, who writes for a site dubbed Inside Microsoft, merely noted that there would be little left for them to write about the show, now that she removed herself from it.
On her own site, Felton offered no further explanation of the decision to leave the show, but she did post a picture of herself walking away from the competition.
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As far as I can tell her only real major flaw is that she works for Microsoft. I suppose I could live with that. :)