Not sure if anyone out there caught the debut episode of Undercover Boss (UB) last night, following the Super Bowl game on CBS. I, as I have been prone to do, fell asleep during the football extravaganza, so missed UB, but thank goodness for TIVO.
The concept of this show is simple. Find some high ranking executive, and get him to go under cover within his own organization as a plebe, to see what life is really like. Then the executive circles back with his executive team to present findings. I’ve seen this concept before, but this was the first time for a big network.
I had mixed emotions watching this show. Its classic that they had this guy actually clean toilets – porto-potties in fact, even worse. I cringe at using them let alone the thought of cleaning one. They also had him climbing the side of a hill to collect garbage, run a recycling assembly line, assist a garbage delivery schedule, and other waste-y things, none of which he appeared to do well.
Yet every person he met made no attempt to slag the company! Maybe I’m living in a different world, but where was the “executives know s**t about what happens out here" spiel from the field. I wanted to see someone royally put their foot in their mouth. I wanted to see the union shop steward guy come out and wave the union flag. I wanted conflict. I wanted him to walk back to his glass office with his head between his knees realizing heads need to roll. None of this “we need to set up a sub-committee” stuff. ZZzzzzzz.
It’s a great concept, and more executives should try this tactic. That said, I guess I prefer more Jerry Springer conflict on some of these shows. The end result of this episode is the executive looks like a hero for helping people and fixing his company. Not sure this is true reality, let alone reality TV.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The show is a good concept, but I was looking for more trash-talk too. But maybe there was a lot of editing that we weren't aware of. I'll watch it next week.
ReplyDelete