We Need More, Better Undercover Bosses

I think I like this show.

I think.




It's kind of repetitive, and I tend to skip the part at the end where the CEO/prez/whomever gets all his employees together to laugh at his attempts at being one of the peons.

I also find the part toward the end where he (come on, it's usually a he) rewards the four or five people he worked with by giving them a vacation, money, a raise/opportunity or donates something in their name a little bit disingenuous.    One person lucked out by working with you, they probably had a sad story of some sort, and so you give them some help.  Ignoring the 5200 other workers who make minimum wage and operate in shitty conditions at your company.

I like seeing the CEO get a taste of what those at the bottom do.  I really do.  You have a lot of these guys who come from privileged backgrounds, inheriting the business from their father, who have probably never had to work hard in their entire lives.  To see them cleaning, flipping burgers, washing dishes, working in factories and so on is kind of satisfying because you not only see them get knocked down a peg but you also see them realize how fucking hard the job is.

And usually someone lets them know how poorly paid they are.  But I don't ever see a commitment to raise the minimum wage.  Just help that particular person.

Another disingenuous point is when the CEO goes in to perform this job, the person (often a woman) who performs the menial work on the front lines remarks on how bad the CEO is at cleaning or flipping burgers or whatever.  Which is fine ... but who expects someone to do well on the first day?  Yeah, he's not as fast as you are.  You've also been doing this for fifteen years and your life depended on it.  You have to assume that this guy undercover who's "part of a documentary on trying out entry level jobs" isn't going to necessarily be adept at whatever you're making him do.


So I appreciate that the CEOs get in touch with their workforce and experience daily life for one of the underpaid minions.  But if you want to make the show better and make people love you and love working there more, you have to give them incentives.  If you want to retain a workforce of competent people, you need to train them, you need to pay them fairly for the work they do, you need to compensate them with benefits such as health insurance and sick/vacation leave, and you need to support them.

I guarantee you, if you're offering $13/hour to flip burgers you will have the happiest, best burger flippers in the world.  You give them sick leave and they won't come to work and spread their illness.  You give them vacation and they'll be happy and refreshed and ready to flip more burgers.  You give them fair hours that don't require them to go grab another job to survive and they'll be able to dedicate more of their energy to you and what you want them to do.

Or you can just ... not do all that.  And go undercover and flip those burgers, then pat yourself on the back for doing the hard, sweaty work.  Give that shift supervisor or coworker a nice (one-time) vacation to anywhere and pretend you've actually done something.