Every now and then I watch Undercover Boss, and the show is getting ever more formulaic. If I could talk to the producers, I have a few questions:
Question 1: Why no “undercovering” with the salespeople?
Question 2: What about the other employees?
See, these episodes always end up following the same formula. Here’s the basic recipe:
- The “Undercover Boss” goes to work at remote locations of his/her company.
- The “UB” does the lowest jobs on the food chain; production, janitorial, etc.
- The “UB” invariably works with people who have sob stories. Single parents tend to top the list, but it seems that everyone has a story. This isn’t meant to put down the people working at those jobs. Some of them (Julie at UniFirst Oklahoma was very impressive to me) are very sharp and capable people, but none live what we might think of as a complete life without significant trauma.
- The “UB” resolves to make changes to make life easier for the people he worked with. Some of those changes are good, smart management (better communication of benefits to employees), some are a little more questionable (softening of attendance and tardy policies). The “UB’s” quest at this point is to not appear hard-hearted to a national TV audience.
- At the close of the show, the “UB” reveals himself to the employees he worked with, and then makes some sort of special individual gesture to reward them and help them overcome their particular economic issues.
- Everyone applauds, there’s some crying, and everyone feels better.
It’s a great TV show, but of course, the company still has to open for business on Monday morning, and I always wonder what the repercussions of the “UB’s” special rewards are. Let’s look back at my questions, and I’ll present my own answers.
Question 1: Why no “undercovering” with the salespeople?
I think there’s one big reason for this, and it has to do with the evocation of sympathy for the workers that is such a big part of the show. Salespeople, by their very nature, are probably perceived as less sympathetic than a production worker, and may be less prone to the type of individual issues that are the meat of the show. After all, salespeople dress nicely for work, who would believe that they have issues? It’s too bad, though; I think the show would be very illuminating if the “boss” were to shadow real live salespeople. I guess that will have to wait until I produce my own show, huh?
Question 2: What about the other employees?
This is probably the bigger issue to live with. The company profiled tonight – Unifirst – has over 10,000 employees. That leaves roughly 9,995 employees that may be just as deserving of special treatment, just as challenged economically, and just as hard working as the people given (tonight) college money, cash to see relatives, a trip to the Super Bowl, and a Hawaiian honeymoon, among other things. It’s not illogical that some of those people are going to go into work tomorrow morning thinking, “Hey, what about me?” I wouldn’t want to be one of the plant managers that would have to deal with that issue for the next few weeks.
As always, neat show, but one that ends up being more like a game show crossed with an episode of “Oprah” than anything else.
