Shazia Wahab ('The Apprentice')

This week on The Apprentice, the candidates were told by Sir Alan that they had to run their own laundry company. The girls' team struggled from the start, with the aggressive leadership manner of project manager Jenny Celerier annoying several members of her team. Things got worse when they completely misjudged a pitch for hotel owner's washing and forgot to keep track of all their customer's clothes. Lead by Raef, the boys team soared to victory. Who got fired? Shazia Wahab, a self-styled "stubborn cow" who went on the show to prove she was "as good as everyone else". We caught up with Shazia to find out how she was feeling after her early exit.

Do you think you deserved to get fired by Sir Alan?
"Definitely not, absolutely not. I was fired for the wrong reasons. I shouldn't have been the one fired and Sir Alan made the wrong decision."

Why do you think the girls' team did so badly on this task?
"The main problem was that we had a really ineffective project manager. She lost all sense of reasoning and logic for three hours after nominating herself to be project manager. That is a long time when you consider that time's critical. Also, she didn't allocate people roles in terms of their strengths. She said what her strengths were, but she didn't see the strengths of the other team members. So when it came to the pricing of the contract, where we charged £5000 for a client that normally pays £200, why didn't we use Helene, the woman in the team who is a global pricing leader that works for a multi national company? Why not ask her?"

You said you felt "stitched up" by Jenny. What do you mean by that?
"I got shafted because Helene actually said, 'Why did Shazia leave the laundrette?', which then made Jenny think about taking me in the boardroom. I think I was a scapegoat. Helene very cleverly implanted the thought in Jenny's brain that I was the one responsible for us not delivering back the customers clothing. The actual reason I left to get the ironing boards was because I was told, 'It's your idea, you go back and find them', That's what I was told, so it was a case of damned if you do, or damned if you don't."

Jenny's come in for criticism for her attacks on Lucinda and specifically calling her a "fungus". Did you think she overstepped the line with her comments?
"That taxi ride was for 45 minutes from the laundrette back to the house. She attacked Lucinda - literally attacked her - for 45 minutes. Helene knew full well what capacity Lucinda was working towards because they worked as a pair. She knew what contribution Lucinda had made, yet she completely ignored the fact that she was being screamed at by Jenny."

What did you think of Lucinda's decision not to attend the team meeting on the second day?
"Let me set the record straight there. I don't like to talk about Lucinda because she's been subjected to quite a lot, but from the moment she got out of that taxi, she went straight to her room. She was not aware of our meeting at seven o'clock. As far as she was concerned she was going to wake up and help the team just like everyone else. The meeting hadn't been arranged in her presence."

How embarrassing was it taking the wrong clothes back to people's houses?
"It was public humiliation. You do not treat your customers like that. I have a business and I know what kind of service I give to my customers. I wouldn't have customers coming back to me if I treated them like that. You need to treat them like gold, because without them, you don't win anything."

You applied to get on the show in the third series. What made you come back for a second try?
"I'm no quitter and I applied last time around after asking my father. He told me, 'Go on, if you think you can win'. In the first two series I was always coming up with ideas and saying, 'I could do better than that'. So when I applied and got rejected early on in the audition process, I thought 'no, you got this wrong'. The next time I took a different approach and marketed myself in a different way and it was plain sailing from the moment that I handed in my application. It was written for me and it was fate."

The Apprentice continues Wednesdays at 9pm on BBC One.