What Reality Television Teaches Us About Work (Part II): Undercover Boss

I’ve written before about the intersection of reality TV and real life employment law.  So, I will admit, my interest was piqued by an ad for the new CBS Show, Undercover Boss.  The commercial showed a CEO cleaning toilets and being chastised for doing it wrong.  Aside from this somewhat humorous visual, I also thought the show might have a useful clip for one of my classes (Business Associations, Employment Law).  In her book Nickle and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich went undercover and told the story of what it was like to live on minimum wage.  So I was somewhat taken with the premise - why not let the boss go undercover and see what consciousness raising happens?  Each episode starts with the following voiceover:

The economy is going through tough times.  Many hardworking Americans blame wealthy CEOs, out of touch with what’s going on in their own companies.  But some bosses are willing to take extreme action to make their businesses better.  Each week, we follow the boss of a major corporation as they go undercover in their own company.

Wow, I thought, a reality show with educational potential!  However, after watching a couple of episodes, I must conclude that this potential was largely squandered.  Each episode is largely formulaic and filled with what some producer thinks the average viewer wants to see – contrived emotional moments that border on the maudlin.   

After the boss dons his everyman clothing, he has a series of meetings with employees who are providing him with training.  The boss usually performs poorly at these menial tasks, perhaps allowing the average viewer a little chuckle at their own supervisor’s expense (sure, the CEO can negotiate strategic partnerships, but he’s a failure at stacking boxes of product, haha).

It would also appear that many of these employee trainers have been selected purposefully, because each has their own little heartbreaking story to share with their disguised boss.  Some of these typical “everyday workers” have a typically ill spouse, while others are having the typical difficulty with raising a child on their own.  (We don’t hear much directly about the struggle to make end’s meet or the company’s failure to provide healthcare  – clearly that would be far too radical for this show).  Occasionally, we hear about an employee’s creative dream that the company is in the process of stifling.  Sometimes, just to mix it up, there is an employee with a bad attitude or who doesn’t put the company first.  (This invariably makes the boss very angry, in fact, in one episode, it almost made the boss blow his cover).

Toward the last fifteen minutes of the formula, I mean show, the truth about the boss is revealed to all those employees who had no idea who their “trainee” was.  The good and hardworking are amply rewarded, usually with some a token of appreciation to help the token ill child.  Those with the bad attitudes get cut down to size (not fired, mind you, but the possibly as scary process of “retraining”), and like the most satisfying of Jane Austen novels, everyone gets their appropriate comeuppance.  The last Prince and the Pauper flourish is everyone’s attendance at a company rally.  While no one sings “for he’s a jolly good fellow,” that is the overall tone conveyed.  Ultimately, it’s just one big commercial for whatever company is being featured that episode.  No one comes away any closer to understanding the CEO’s role, or, for that matter, anything else of importance about work in America.

Or maybe that’s not entirely true.  The show tries to make it seem like CEOs are “just like you and me,” except richer and more powerful.  Ironically, however, Undercover Boss seems to highlight further the differences (cultural as well as pay) between top executives and their workers.  If a CEO is so out of touch that he really needs to go undercover to understand what it’s like to work for the company, maybe he doesn’t understand his employees very well.  In fact, maybe he doesn’t understand many of his customers either.   

Comments

[Michael Risch]

It may be because I've only seen one episode, but I tend to disagree with this characterization. I think the show is a great social experiment. I think CEO's are often out of touch with what happens in the field, and giving them a taste of the day to day operations that make their company work is important. Sure, the employees are selected for their side stories, but the work stuff is important. Though unspoken, I have to think that CEO's walk away thinking that many employees are underpaid.

This reminds me of Michael Moore's TV show - where he challenged the CEOs of the big three auto companies to change the oil in a car. Only one CEO agreed to do it - Ford. Looking back now, that was a pretty telling result. I view undercover boss the same way.

[Howard Wasserman]

Talking about the show the other night, my wife and I came to the same basic split that Miriam and Michael did, with me on Miriam's side and my wife sharing Michael's view. And like Michael, I made the link to Moore's old show ("TV Nation," where he repeatedly wore a Northwestern baseball cap). But Miriam is right--everyone employee they pick has a sick spouse, special-needs child, dream, or other gripping piece of narrative. Plus, it gives the company and CEO the chance to play hero by "rescuing" the individual. There are is no attempt to capture the systemic "reality" of the ordinary worker within these companies, a reality the company is not going to work to change.

[Michael Risch]

I agree a bit with Howard that the reality isn't going to change. The gifts the CEO's give are nice, but how but just paying the employees more?

[Miriam A. Cherry]

I really liked the premise; it was just the execution and the formulaic nature of the show that was a bit off for me.