Happy 10th anniversary to Undercover Boss, the most reprehensible propaganda on TV
Image: Illustration: Karl Gustafson TV Features For Our Consideration
“I think there was a common thread among all of us,” says Sheldon Yellen, CEO of Belfor, “that we really are just everyday people, wanting to do everyday good.” This quote is from back in 2013, when Yellen, an incredibly wealthy man and reputed former mobster (Forbes estimated his net worth at $320 million back in 2017) was sitting at a table with other leaders of large American companies. The corporate heads were discussing how happy they were about their experiences on Undercover Boss, the CBS reality show that began in 2010 and has now been going strong for a decade, with the ninth season starting just last month. It’s understandable why Yellen and his fellow CEOs would be so thrilled with their time on the series: Undercover Boss is some of the most blatant propaganda on American television. It’s a shameless endorsement of capitalist inequality that may as well end each episode by reminding everyday Americans that they should shut up and be grateful their lives are controlled by such selfless exemplars of virtue. It’s class warfare in everything but name.
Unsurprisingly, it seems clear that this was the intent from the very start. True, it’s based on a British show that was birthed by the idea it’d be fun for a CEO to eavesdrop on what it’s really like to work for them, but the American version is notably different. Developed in the midst of the worst financial recession since the Great Depression, the opening seconds of the pilot were explicit about the show’s aims of resuscitating the reputation of the corporate leaders and Fortune 500 assholes who rode the backs of working people into the ditch of the 2008 collapse. “The economy is going through tough times,” begins the portentous voiceover that kicked off the series’ premiere installment. “Many hardworking Americans blame wealthy CEOs for being out of touch with what’s going on in their own companies.” (Already a misdirect—being “out of touch” was hardly the primary complaint.) Yet the intro continues, letting you know you’re about to see the story of a true patriot: “But some bosses are willing to take extreme action to make their companies better.” Yes, for these noble souls, even the backbreaking labor of donning a bad wig and hanging out with a reality-TV crew for the better part of a week wasn’t too much to ask. Even Eugene V. Debs would tip his hat in admiration.
The structure of each episode quickly became solidified. In the first minutes, we meet the head of a large and profitable business—usually the CEO or COO, though in some cases, a miserable CFO can also be dragged screaming into the camera’s glare—who walks us through the basics of their business, in a manner that handily doubles as a bald-faced advertisement for the company. (One episode lets COO of Nestlé Toll House Cafés Shawnon Bellah declare of Toll House’s bargain-bin baked goods, “That cookie, it brings families together,” without a hint of embarrassment. Meanwhile, the camera lingers on an adorable little moppet, licking the batter off a blender in a homey setting of Americana even Norman Rockwell would find a bit hokey, presumably 400 light years away from Toll House’s sterile factories.) From there, the business tycoon dons what is usually a shockingly clumsy disguise, and under the guise of being followed by cameras for a reality show in which they’re “competing” to win money, a job, or some other flimsy pretext, the CEO proceeds to attempt three or four of the business’ most menial, tedious, or otherwise lowest-rung employment opportunities.
During each eight-hour gig, the undercover bosses meet one or two fellow employees, usually sterling examples of humanity with sad and/or awe-inspiring backstories that leave you wondering how they can possibly smile so much under such conditions. These people are then brought back at the end, where the boss delightedly reveals their secret identity, then rewards them in some way for being loyal, hardworking, or simply pitiable enough to merit a public display of recompense, lest the boss look like an overt piece of shit, instead of merely a secret one. Often, one of the employees will have proposed some minor adjustment to the inhuman conditions under which they labor, or simply made an observation about how actual humans behave and why the business fails to account for it, and the boss will proudly announce a change in company policy, like they’re Mother Theresa unveiling a “care for sick people” plan. (Though sometimes, an especially bad employee—read: one who just does the job, and doesn’t care to espouse bullshit—will instead be called out and punished or fired for their lack of enthusiasm. Hooray?)
Airing in 2010 immediately following Super Bowl XLIV, the premiere installment of Undercover Boss was a massive success, with 38.6 million viewers remaining glued to their screens, leading to a first season that instantly became the most popular new show of the year. Episode one featured Larry O’Donnell, president and COO of trash-collection behemoth Waste Management, and wastes no time pulling at the heartstrings, showing O’Donnell spending time with his severely disabled adult daughter. He then cycles through five jobs: on the recycling assembling line, landfill pickup, administrative assistant, porta-john cleaner, and garbage collector. A theme that becomes a through line of the whole series quickly stands out: These bosses are usually not very good at these jobs. O’Donnell is even essentially fired from his landfill pickup gig, a sort of “haha, not so easy, is it?” source of simple satisfaction for audiences.
Initially, there were a few sops made to actual, structural change, the kind of thing that actually makes lives better for employees. O’Donnell ends a policy at the recycling facility of docking employees two minutes of pay for every minute they’re late clocking in. Upon realizing the female garbage collectors are forced to pee in a can during their shifts thanks to a brutal timetable, he creates a task force to remedy the situation. But overall, the series studiously avoids the kind of bureaucratic reorganizations or useful-but-boring work that would entail real improvements to working conditions. Instead, it turns its attention to that time-honored source of American valorization: individual boot-strappers who smile through the drudgery. O’Donnell finds the landfill pickup worker who manages to do his job despite weekly dialysis to be an inspiring presence (and to be fair, he is), so he rewards him with… more time off to work gigs as a motivational speaker. Ah, a second job, the American dream. The office worker who was doing the work of three or four unfilled positions gets a promotion to a salaried position, so that she doesn’t have to sell her home. Key & Peele made hay of this aspect of the show:
“I feel more of a connection with the folks at this company,” O’Donnell says in a speech to a large group of employees at the end of the episode, and the show works overtime to suggest that his workers are nearly prostrate with gratitude at having such a benevolent man for a boss. They all express, over and over, how honored they are, how full of joy and thankfulness that such an important figure would deign to listen to them, an ordinary schmoe. The implication is clear: This is a fantastic company with a hero for a leader, and everyone should feel good knowing that the right people are in charge. In other words, don’t be mad at CEOs and corporate bigwigs, they’re trying to help you people! So sit back, and let them run things. It’ll be for the best, we promise.
And so it goes, year after year, business after business, tycoon after tycoon. A random episode from season seven, the aforementioned one featuring Nestlé Toll House COO Shawnon Bellah, shows how the series has further refined the formula and zeroed in on capturing moments of individual reward for maximum human drama over the glaringly obvious problems of inequality and working-class exploitation. Despite the show running for years at this point, Undercover Boss still pretends the everyday employees it spotlights don’t have the slightest suspicion that this unnamed “reality competition show” is an obvious front for the popular CBS series. A struggling woman tells the disguised Bellah, “I’d love to sell the Nestlé brand”—you know, just typical shop talk between fast-food workers—and everyone treats it as a bold and unguarded confession. A legally blind general manager of a Toll House trainee facility goes into detail about the Lasik eye surgery he wants and the pastry school he longs to attend but can’t afford. A young woman working a drive-thru opens up about her dream of having her own Toll House Café franchise location. What a coincidence!
Large cash rewards have become the Undercover Boss go-to method of creating cathartic endings. Some of these hard-luck but noble-minded souls receive somewhere between ten and twenty-five thousand dollars to pursue their dreams, get Lasik eye surgery, and so on. Rather than, say, an across-the-board wage increase, or some other systemic improvement of her employees’ lives, Bellah (with the help of CBS) limits her beneficence to these isolated individuals. And the show repeatedly drives home the capitalist ideology it’s selling, in the most primal form: “It really puts things into perspective,” Bellah intones, “that if you try, you can do anything you want to do.” In other words, the system isn’t unfair. If you’re not achieving all your goals, you must be doing something wrong. Work harder. We’ve set up an ideal economic situation, so get out there and make the most of it. Definitely don’t question it.
And what makes Undercover Boss so sinister it how effective this propaganda is. Over the course of a half-dozen episodes chosen at random, I found myself with tears in my eyes. Every. Single. Time. I burst into tears when O’Donnell watched with pride as his employee was embraced by a lonely local neighbor. I choked back waterworks when Bellah enveloped the young woman with Nestlé franchising dreams, telling her she was giving her $170,000 toward her very own Toll House location. As the two bonded, crying and expressing mutual admiration, the potency of the moment is undeniable. Bellah sincerely believes what she and the show are peddling. It wouldn’t work if she didn’t. Sheldon Yellen said it best: These millionaires genuinely think they’re out here making human connections, improving the world via their selfless acts of generosity. God forbid they introduce a profit-sharing program, or more vacation time, or do anything to imply the race-to-the-bottom ideology of rapacious corporate capitalism needs an overhaul.
No, better to give Karen more money to market her Toll House location, or ten grand so Jeff can have that Hawaiian vacation he’s always wanted. At one point Bellah learns she relocated one of her best managers to a different city away from her boyfriend (turned fiancé). Rather than rewarding this model employee by letting her return to the town of her partner, she gifts her with enough money to fly and visit him once a month. Cue the tears of gratitude from these employees who are understandably thrilled beyond measure at these kindnesses, because the only thing they have to measure them against are the unfeeling circumstances that existed previously. It is a nice thing to do! It’s also blatant propaganda. The two are not mutually exclusive—can’t be, in fact. For the latter to be effective, the first has to be, as well.
So congratulations, Undercover Boss. You’ve spent a decade doing your part to help make sure the business leaders and elite millionaires that control our economic policies and political processes are celebrated as heroes in mainstream culture, rather than properly reviled as the willing class warriors they are, reaping huge sums by maintaining the proper division between haves and have-nots. The farce that is putting a smiley face on structural inequality now has all-too-human representatives—or as Shawnon Bellah puts it, “I’m tough on myself and them, but I have to come across as nicer.” Hey, there’s always next season.
380 Comments
Great write-up, that show sucks so much shit! If you want really great insights into what working class people put up with, as well as a look into what the Midwest is like in the era of Trump, I highly recommend the Street Fight Radio podcast. Just a couple of dumb-smart guys in Columbus, Ohio talking about what life is like for your cable guy and your gas station attendant and everything else. They have call-in shows and everything like real radio. It kicks ass.
I’d love to watch a foreign version of Undercover Boss.A French version of Undercover Boss (Aka Patron Infiltré) would involve the workers taking the boss hostage after revealing himself in the end and then brutally murdering him on live television if the workers’ demands aren’t met.
Make it happen.
I don’t know. Based on what we usually see with French labor protests, they’re more likely to take him hostage, hold him for like half a day, then release him to a small concession like an extra ply on the bathroom toilet paper before they all casually make plans to do it again in a couple weeks.
And an extra wine break. There MUST be an extra wine break.
You all realize you’re mocking French workers for being less exploited than we are, right?What’s next, mocking the entitled assholes who think they shouldn’t have to pee in a jar while at work?
French labor laws are sort of hilariously pro-worker, from what I’ve read.But man, if you ever want to read a rich capitalist rage against French worker protections, I recommend the book “Pancakes in Paris” which is about a dude who literally ran away from his debtors to start a diner in Paris.
Yeah, like the one law that allow me to slap my boss if he looks at me the wrong way. I love that one !
I know, that’s kind of what makes it funny. The American labor movement rolled over in the mid-’80s.
“You all realize you’re mocking French workers for being less exploited than we are, right?”
Comedy is weird, huh?
not before they drop 4356 tonnes of onions on local highways
“But Pierre, how can we murdaire heem when we are, ‘ow you say, ‘on strike’?”
Très impressionnant! It’s as if you’ve phonetically mastered the words of the late, great Peter Sellers.
Oui! Your idea est tres bonne! Let’s wait until we are back on the clock!
“Francois, toi idiot! We are not zee strike from zee murdering, we are on zee strike from zee working!”
Watch the recent episode. They got the CEO of Clean Harbors (I used to work there) on and his first job was a confined space entry to perform a rail tank cleaning. This was a job he probably did when the company was new and he was 25 years younger… but watching it unfold all I was thinking was that for sure they would be performing CPR on him in the tank.
You’d need special cameras to cut through all the cigarette smoke.
Alas, the beloved Gauloises Caporal is no more. The European Union could not abide the hellishly high tar and nicotine levels. We must now suffice with cheap Polish imitations that do not compare.
I used to smoke those, I decided if I was going to smoke I was going to get my monies worth, bonus nobody stole your smokes more than once
Those glorious French coffin nails made all those Camel, Pall Mall and Lucky Strike smokers seem like mama’s boys! Although, the only cigarettes that I think had any similarity was Camel Wides. I quit smoking 15 years ago, other than having an occasional cigar. I’m not even sure they still make Camel Wides.
Also no filters- sh!tends so to say- Gailoises or Gitanes my lungs ache at the memory of them
Harsh, yet rewarding, mistresses. Especially nice with really, really strong coffee or a nice brandy.Oh, the things I did back when I thought I was bulletproof…
The Careful Massacre of the Bourgeoisie.
There is a French version, already 7 seasons.
The Russian version would be interesting, especially if we can dub it with goofy American comics, ala Comrade Detective.
that was a great show when it was called the french revolution!
In the Japanese version, behaving like an American CEO gets you arrested!
(to make sure my position on this is clear, this would be my FAVORITE version)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/16/opinion/carlos-ghosn-japan.html
… but then there was the time in Japan the foreign born (UK) CEO got everyone else arrested instead. Or a lot of people at the top at least. Japan … suffice to say they have their issues too.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympus_scandal
“ey, Gerard, mon ami! You are new, but I trust you! I let you in on a secret! I am sleeping with the Boss’s wife,n’est-ce Pas?”
At the conclusion, the boss gives Gerard a raise, and an invitation to spend the weekend at the chateau for a menage-a-trois.
Or just walking off the job
Ok, not a funny reply, but it is on in France, on M6, “Patron Incognito”
There are 18 different Undercover Boss outside USA. Including France, which is named Patron Incognito.
Actually it exists. It’s called “Patron Incognito”. I’ve watched several episodes and it’s the same as the US version (never watched the US version though). The only difference is that in the end, people don’t get fired when they do mistakes, they have formations (and in the epilogue, you hear that they ended up leaving to pursue their dream aka got fired as soon as there were no cameras)
Bellah sincerely believes what she and the show are peddling. The American religion is money and its priests and bishops are the wealthy. There is no reason to be surprised by this.
Shark Tank is the same way. The relentless American-dream, anyone-can-make-it messaging gets more ridiculous with each season.
I’ve met a number of expats here in East Asia over the years who believe in The American Dream like it was the law of gravity. Yet they can’t seem to admit that they had to move away from America to get some semblance of it.
Great article! You kind of forget about Undercover Boss, because its reputation has kind of made it blend in to the background of the TV landscape. Which is unfortunate because it should really be called out on its bullshit. This is why you get disgusting CEO worship, like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, a whole cult willing to tell me that these people could fix all of the world’s problem if they only just had more money and power.
Thing is, if we forced them to use their money we could solve a lot of the world’s problems. Maybe some sort of tax?
Definitely. I think a wealth tax would be great to redistribute the wealth for better public services (healtb care, infrastructure, etc.) and to decrease the vast gap between the rich and poor. I mainly say my comment, because some people I know think CEOs are the only hardworking and innovative people in the world today. One person I knew said that Elon Musk could help people survive global warming by building floating cities. What kind of science fiction bullshit is that? Why put your trust in someone who, by all intents and purposes, is a con man, making products just to siphon money from gullible people’s wallets?
Interesting. Would this tax, perhaps, charge a larger percentage the more money one made? You know, progress through higher percentages?
Nobody worships Zuckerberg. I’ve seen countless people just retch when his name comes up. Musk though… yeah that’s different. There is a cult around him.
Zuckerberg is mostly hated now, but Facebook at its height had a lot of people proclaiming him as some great American innovator. Musk definitely has a following where people think he does nothing wrong.
I’ll take it the cult was pre Social Network?
I think The Social Network was one of the first things to pierce that image. I remember media picking up how much Zuckerberg did not like his portrayal. Great movie, though.
Agreed on all counts.
“Nobody worships Zuckerberg”That’s not true although it’s less frequent now.
When I heard Drew Brees was on a recent episode, my first reaction was “that show is still on?”
I was surprised, too! That was the first I had heard from it in a long time. I think that’s part of the problem, though, is that it’s more under the radar than the other shows that cultivate worshipping rich people.
Musk and Zuck are two different beasts. Musk has a cult of personality, Zuck almost everyone wants to get rid of but he engineered the board so he’s impossible to boot, and Facebook has done a great job of buying out (domestic) competition. So then we got stick with TikTok and it’s Chinese overlords controlling our youth
True. I don’t know what to do about fucking TikTok.
This show is trash but if you think this is the most reprehensible propaganda on American TV, you never watched Fox & Friends.
Fox and Friends are just for certain old conservatives, Undercover Boss is primetime network TV and much less obviously toxic propaganda.
Boss probably hits a wider demo, so there’s that.
That’s what “primetime network TV” was supposed to convey.
I was horrified to discover Doomsday Preppers on Netflix the other day. I kept waiting for someone to say “why are you doing this?” Or “We are setting you up with counseling”, but no, the producers actually take everyone to task for not being crazy ENOUGH.
There’s a small current of mental illness that runs throughout many episodes and I think that’s what saddens me the most.
The only thing I’ve gotten enjoyment out of related to Undercover Boss is this skit. Kylo Ren really is the perfect lens to show what so many real bosses are: vain, insecure, abusive. It’s patently ridiculous but also more realistic than anything on the real Undercover Boss.
Dude, Matt straight up sucks!
I see what is in your mind and it. Is. STUPID!
God yes. Can’t stand Undercover Boss, but this SNL sketch is my favorite thing Adam Driver has done, ever.
They made a followup sketch:
this was gold for this season
Ok boomer
Kylo Ren? Sheyeah, I wanna fly like Luke Skywalker!
THEN YOU DON’T HAVE TO LOOK AT IT ANYMORE
Ok boomer.
This sketch sucks ass
That skit is brilliant. Not just the concept, but the editing, acting and overall execution. It’s probably the best thing SNL has done in a decade.
I love Adam Driver for diving into this as deeply as he does.
Not knowing how to give a thumbs-up is a brilliant detail; it’s very on brand for Ren.
It’s the small stuff with Kylo Ren, too. I loved his little shrug before he started whipping all the Knights of Ren’s asses in Rise of Skywalker.
And goddamnit, I had a tear in my eye when he did the no-look blaster shot in the Sith temple, just like his old man. <3
Don’t forget the Follow Up episode:
I concur, this is literally the only good thing to come from Undercover Boss.
And Rise of Skywalker!
Did they keep the MOUSE droid or did they let it go?
I haven’t had my muffin yet, Matt!
The fact that Adam Driver can so subtly shift his genuine malice when he plays Kylo, to a slightly heightened comical malice without losing a beat is what makes me love him so much.
Or, alternatively— it’s a clue about what makes the original character of Kylo Ren so inherently ridiculous in the first place…
This never gets old.
People who can’t see this show for what it is are fundamentally broken.
Yes, but you’re describing most people.P.T. Barnum had a quote about the very brief intervals between the emergence of suckers.
I feel like that’s a poorly informed opinion to have. Like if someone hasn’t been exposed to dogs OR accurately taught what a dog is, is gonna have a hard time identifying one.
But even worse in America’s case(and kind of the west in general), the way our culture teaches capitalism/marketing/etc is equivalent, to someone teaching you what a dog is, by telling you it’s a cat. So a good portion of us were never raised to identify propaganda.
People aren’t broken, they are just ignorant. And shitting on them, is kind of counter productive to actually educating people.
Does anyone else take a shit on cheap bosses?“Here’s a $150 to some bullshit charity in your name”.
I think that illustration looks like it’s for an ‘80s Tom Hanks movie.
I thought Tom Hanks and Larry Miller.
It does have a Volunteers vibe to it
I started my own business once. It was hard. I’m glad to work for someone. I show up, do my thing, get my money. No marketing, no management, no employees, just a steady paycheck. The tension here is as old as time, but the wonderful thing about 2020 is you can pick your own arrangement. Never before in history has it been easier to make it on your own… if that’s what you want.
When do we roll out the guillotines?
You assemble the guillotines in place. You roll out the tumbrels!** Roll out the tumbrel,We got a tumbrel of fun!
Not until you tell me what the hell a tararrel is.
From… somewhere on the internet… ahem…. It’s a source of pride, “Zing, boom, tararrel” — a way of cheering for something you stand for and want to celebrate.
It’s a vaudeville/music hall song! You know, “Tararrel Boom Dee Ay!”.
Never. Force the rich to live the lives of their lowest paid workers, nice and legal (after impeaching and firing all judges installed by fascist or oligarch presidents) and redistribute their wealth equally to their workers.
Force the rich to then watch us thrive and grow outside their choking, stifling shadow. Trust me that would be much crueler and painful for them. The only thing the rich love more than hoarding unusable wealth, is watching poor people suffer.
Trust. Me.
A good version of the show would force the boss to live on the wages he gives his lowest employee for a year.
He would also need to forgo his premium health benefits, and raise a whole family on what he makes, while working as hard as his employees work.
Would watch.
You don’t need a whole year. Most of them would break down in couple of weeks.
Nah, they get paid low wages for life.When bosses pay low wages, they are telling you your value, and that your value is less that theirs. Most middle and upper managers are redundant, if not incompetent, or outright toxic to employees. They provide no value to us, material or otherwise. They deserve nothing.
But paying them the lowest wages for life tells everyone else that greed and avarice hold the lowest value of all.
I love reading ignorant posts from people who don’t have an understanding of even the most basic economics. Redistributing wealth equally to that many people does not go far. Each person may get an extra $1000 that they will then proceed to blow on crap that they don’t need and now there is 0 capital to actually start or run a business. There is not a single person on this earth that “hoards” wealth. Stop watching duck tales and learn how the real world works. Their wealth is in banks and loans or stock. This helps the economy by allowing regular people to borrow money from banks or keeping capital in their company to invest in machinery etc. to make it easier/more productive for people to work. Even if your duck tales fantasy were true and they hoarded all their money and kept it in a giant swimming pool, they’d still be helping you out by pulling millions/billions out of circulation and increasing the spending power of your dollar.
Oh, dear God…your response betrays your lack of imagination, as well as presumption of my knowledge and education. I don’t debate with bootlicks. Go spread propaganda for the rich (for free) somewhere else. I’m saving my cold disdain for a rainy day.FWIW, you’re patently wrong about the rich’s role in the economy.
And Godspeed! You Black Emporer would be disgusted with you and your appropriation of their name. They’re anarchist visionaries, not small-minded conservative slaves.
Based on the 30 seconds it took to google “How much total wealth exists in the United States” (answer: appx. $98 trillion), and the Census population clock of the number of total US Citizens (answer as of this moment: appx. 329,250,000), and knowledge of how to divide on a calculator . . . If wealth in the United States were divided equally, all debt would be eliminated, and every citizen would have a total positive value of approximately $300,000 ($297,646.16, rounding down, to be exact). So no, that person is just factually wrong, largely because they seem to be dramatically underestimating the amount of wealth this nation has produced. Which I, for one, attribute largely to their lack of patriotism, and unwillingness to acknowledge that this is the richest country in the history of the world.
It’s been noted comrade. It’s been noted.
And then you film it as a reality show; you can call it ‘Flip My Society’.
1917 all over again! Amiright Comrade?
No.
I wish.
Fuck guillotines, I want to know when it’s ok to cannibalize the rich. No sense in letting that sweet meat go to waste.
I wonder if the whole “the rich aren’t so different from us” message might be true in a way they didn’t intend, which is that we could be just as greedy and oblivious if given the opportunity.
That’s the whole Republican philosophy. You need to protect the rich greedy assholes or else you’ll never become a rich greedy asshole!
More precisely “…so you will enjoy those protections when you become rich, you greedy asshole”
https://local.theonion.com/man-assumed-being-heartless-egotistical-maniac-would-h-1841069399
The poor Republican philosophy is that rich people are the only people you can actually trust, because they’re very open and up front about only being into helping themselves. Liberals are just saying they want to help you, but really they’re working out some sort of side deal for themselves.While I don’t agree with the first conclusion, unfortunately I believe they may be onto something with the second idea.
I believe they may be onto something with the second idea.Absolutely correct. They are working out a side deal for themselves. And that side deal is that helping the poor and the sick is in EVERYBODY’S interest in that out of control income inequality and shitty public health and infrastructure affects us all. But if you mean that they’re only in it for some kind of personal side deal then you are wrong. Liberals aren’t the grifters; the current Republican party is. Accusations from the Republican party that “those liberals are just in it for their own greed” is just typical Republican projection because in their small monkey brains they can’t imagine anything else.
Oh, absolutely. I can’t tell you how many impoverished and disadvantaged people I encounter who still vote in favor of some of the greediest and most-capitalist agendas. But in America, there are no poor people. There are just temporarily disadvantaged millionaires. These people genuinely believe that with a stroke of luck and no plan whatsoever, they’ll ascend the wealth ladder and soon become one of those one-percenters. So they’re just protecting their future interests.
The Republican – well, more specifically, Trumpian – philosophy is that if I help one person, I have helped all “insert group this person belongs to.” Last night’s SOTU address and his way of strategically picking this disadvantaged person or this minority was his way of showing “I see and value all of you by helping one of you (despite working to keep all of you down).” It’s shockingly hypocritical but there’s no mirror big enough for him to see that in himself.
You nailed that. I’ve been saying all along that Trump’s mouth-breathers are sitting there thinking, “Boy, I’d be SUCH a big asshole if I had all that money!” He’s their hero because he’s a greedy dickhead with as little imagination as they have.
I think the fundemental problem with rich people is that once you have a certain amount of money and power, people stop telling you that you’re wrong. We need a modern equivalent of the guy who whispers in Cesear’s ear “Remember you are mortal”. I propose that everyone with a net worth over, say, 40 million gets followed around by a person with a rolled up newspaper. This person can hit them and say “bad rich person” whenever they do something wrong.
This is such a delightful mental image, Magnificent Octopus.
I propose that everyone with a net worth over, say, 40 million gets followed around by a person with a rolled up newspaper. This person can hit them and say “bad rich person” whenever they do something wrong.I accept your offer as long as it starts at 100k a year and I get to choose the rich person.
Agrred, but I have to warn you, the waiting list to hit Elon Musk with a newspaper is significant.
I’m sure the waiting list for Trump is even longer, but I’ll take Mitch McConnell as my contingency plan.
can we adjust for living costs? 100k isn’t a whole heckuva lot in the sorts of cities where they pay you 100k for relatively normal person jobs.
Oh I’m aware. I live in a SoCal beach community. I figured 100k for just slapping someone + living cost being covered (assuming you live with them) would be a solid starting point. Make too much though, and you become the rich person that needs to be slapped.
I call Zuckerberg. Also can I hit with a shovel?
That’s what the guillotine was for
No, the newspaper hitter would be dead from exhaustion in their first week on that job.
Just take the money away from the rich and increase salaries of their employees (or a similar amount of us poors), as well as a way better health plan for them. Redistribute. It’s an ugly word to the rich and their bootlicks.
Money is, by design and necessity, finite. I feel like regular people think it’s not. To that, when rich people take more than others, it’s taken away from those others. They’re not working harder or more.
I completely agree, the ultra rich are a distortion on the economy and politics, and if I had my way, heavy taxes would essentially cap wealth at a certain point.
But I will settle for CEOs being hit with newspapers. Currently, this feels like a more feasible proposal.
It sounds like a bizarre and specific kink that a manager would be into. I guess a CEO walking around with an erection could be punitive, after a fashion.
I like compulsory poverty as a punishment. Cry into your mac n cheese and Mountain Dew, you rich fuck. The fun part of your life is over. Death will not be permitted. You now live to suffer.
Money is, by design and necessity, finite. I feel like regular people think it’s not. To that, when rich people take more than others, it’s taken away from those others. They’re not working harder or more.Wealth is a zero-sum game. Money makes it seem as if it is not. “Regular” people make that mistake because they aren’t aware of the distinction between the two, because they’ve almost certainly only ever heard wealth talked about strictly in terms of money. I find, in my personal experience, that if we shift that conversation to time, security, autonomy—you can see the realization in people’s eyes as it hits.
Some are already into that…
Exactly. You know what you get when you DON’T have that?Betsy DeVos and Star Wars: Episode 1No seriously!Betsy is a prime example of ‘if I am rich, I am right’. She is an utterly inept person who literally grew up in money, was taught because she is rich, she is not longer wrong, and thinks because she thinks it, it is how it is. She has never had to worry about whose picking up the kids or what the kids are eating or how will they afford supplies…and it really, truly shows. Remember her hilarious q/a with getting the appointment….everyone remembers the bears and guns crap but no one remembers the damn woman didn’t know even the basic questions about standardized testing, what consisted of course load requirements, and how to even facilitate a curriculum correctly. She just sat there with a blank stare and stupid ass grin as if to say “I am rich….so I will foist this off on people and pretend to be in charge”….and Ta Da! We got exactly that….a batshit idiot who is currently 2 steps away from cratering the American School System and then blaming it on people not praying the bad away.The other is simple idea of bad going worse. Watch Episode 1 Behind the scenes and you will see the idea of someone believing they are always right being in a pile of bobble heads and asskissers going of course you are and how the end result happens.George has good ideas….in a lot of bad ones. But in Star Wars and Empire, he had pushback. He had people around him telling him “Fuck George, thats bad….do something else”….Kershner on Empire literally had to throw him off set because he kept trying to change things while Kersh was driving the direction. Then you got Jedi….and cracks were showing because the people were less vocal (Ewoks anyone?)Fast forward to Episode 1 and its gone from George the Director to George the God on High of the brilliant Star Wars Empire. And Christ…did it show.Watch the planning stages of George surrounded by the associates and planners and shit and you will find a crash course in kissing the bosses ass. George would say something and “OH THAT’S A WONDERFUL IDEA” with nods all around. George would sigh and people would go out of their way to try and find out whats wrong. George would take a shit and people would line up with TP in hand to wipe his ass…..ok not really but hell, maybe?The point was that no one tried to shoot down anything he said. No one said “Hey Lucas, ya think maybe this Jar Jar shit is a bit too on the nose?” or “Hey George, who wants to watch fucking Senate machinations? C-Span isn’t exactly riveting”….it was the George Lucas spectacular….and good lord did we get it.The point is that we are mired in the belief that money= right and that because someone made bank on capturing lightening in the bottle, he will manage to do it every time. And it is EXTREMELY rare that this is the case. But this fucking current government believes that wholeheartedly and now we have a bunch of fucking clownshoes who are rich (or pretend to be) running the show and torpedoing the very thing they are in charge of. And when the smoke settles, we will be worse off and those assholes now sitting on the sidelines telling the next loon to clean up their shit….and the dumbest people will still be going “You see, these people need to be in charge” forgetting they caused this fucking prairie fire like the big, stupid ass morons they are.
Literally everything you just described can be applied to any current GOP representative.
Ah, blow it out your ass!
Wash this!
My proposal: a law that anyone whose incomes totals more than $1,000,000 a year is not entitled to any protection from any government-run police force or firefighting agency. They’ll have to spend a lot to protect themselves, thus forcing them to keep money in circulation where commoners can get at it.
But the problem is that having people to tell them that they’re wrong won’t work because they stop listening to what anybody has to say.
That’s why there’s a rolled up newspaper. If nothing else, it would make televised interviews more entertaining.
I humbly accept the position.
There aren’t enough newspapers for Trump. He is totally incapable of even remotely entertaining the notion that he might be wrong about anything.
But has anyone actually tried hitting Trump with a newspaper? He is clearly illiterate and allergic to reading, so there might be some add-on bonus damage. He won’t learn anything from it, obviously, but it might really sting. I think it’s worth a shot at least.
I bet some folks would take that job for no pay!
It probably wouldn’t even be that hard to convince him to do it to himself. Just tell him Obama is the best there ever was at smacking himself in the face with a rolled-up newspaper.
I know it would make me feel better.
It would have to be the failing New York Times and/or USA Today!
Some people need to be hit with larger objects to get it.
Not only are they never told they’re wrong, but the very idea of luxury services for the rich (first class flights, gated community mansions, country clubs, private school) is that they no longer have to associate with poor people unless they’re working for them. (and when you’re REALLY rich, you can hire not-as-poor people to talk to the poor people who are working for you, so you never have to see or talk to them) After a few years of that, I imagine that they sort of forget that poor people exist, must less are able to extend any empathy for them or see them as people with real, actualized lives.
Ummm, that guy was whispering into centurions’ ears, lest they believed they were better than the gods. The guy that whispered that into Caesar’s ear would’ve likely been slain.
Yes. Please. This, please.
Your idea could singlehandedly revive the entire newspaper industry, because some rich people are going to wear out a hundred copies a day.
i’m pretty sure that didn’t stop those roman dudes’ from being assholes anyway.
I’d settle for Brutus.
net worth of 400,000seems more appropriate. i know a lot of rich jerks who are clearly not as rich as the ones you know, but still massively entitled a–holes
America doesn’t have poor people, just temporarily disadvantaged millionaires. – paraphrasing Steinbeck.
You’re absolutely correct. And it seems to largely be a uniquely American ideology. It must tie into the ideology of the American Dream (TM), only no one is acknowledging that these millionaires have pulled the ladder up after themselves and are ensuring only their own progeny have a chance of joining the club.
Pulling up the ladder is part of the “hard work” and “bootstrapping” that made them rich in the first place. Eliminating the competition is essential. I think they just don’t know when to stop. When money and power are the most important things in your life and have been since you were a teenager, what else are you going to do in your 50s and 60s? It’s existential.
“the rich aren’t so different from us”So they should be treated as such?No no no wait.
Yes. Sorry to say, but the human spirit seems quite easily corrupted by money and power. No one is immune, I’m afraid. The whole of recorded history backs me up.
the human spirit seems quite easily corrupted by money and power. No one
is immune, I’m afraid. The whole of recorded history backs me up.
Actually, many, many Humans are immune to the lure of money and power. Thing is, that basically bars you from inclusion within “recorded history”, which is essentially a record of power and money.
I mean, I won’t disagree with you, but it doesn’t necessarily disprove my point. The question is; were these untouchables uncorrupt-ed, or uncorrupt-able? The result makes them admirable, but I would maintain that power is currently a transferrable element or commodity, that inevitably concentrates to the few. *That* power can capably corrupt anyone. Some people avoid contact with power, some willfully withstand its’ presence, and thus exercise some tiny measure of discipline and moral fiber.
But, my main point is that power in that form should not exist. We can take care of ourselves and each other. We can do just fine without hierarchies, monarchies, plutocracies, autocracies, all of it. That’s another facet of humanity typically left out of recorded history. This horrible, fraught, unfair, and perilous life we have forced upon us? It isn’t the only way, and it’s not even close to our only operating mode in this life.
As for your first paragraph, no: power cannot corrupt everybody and anybody. Power can’t touch people who know who they are and what’s going on, people who are without fear. Our times are of disempowerment couched in the language of emancipation, however, so it’s hard to judge strangers based on their words or apparent motives.
As for your second paragraph, it is true, anarchies work fine even at the medium scale…. so long as my neighbours can expand westward into uninhabited grasslands, and not eastwards into my anarchic fields and gardens. On a planet which for the first time is full, with no new-continent pressure release valve, i don’t know what value remains in looking to history for our answers.
I’d love the reverse-concept show: Undercover Poor. A struggling working-class person is dressed up fancy to infiltrate rich-person domains: country clubs, GOP fundraisers, galas, etc. Then at the end, she reveals her identity and calls out people for being selfish pieces of shit who’ve never had a real worry in their lives.
TRADING PLACES THE REALITY SHOW!
I REALLY hope someone makes your show, it would be such a brilliant callout of the wealthy in this country.
Or we could just watch “Trading Places” again.
Most of these companies have to be structured to ensure that the top bosses have plausible deniability, or at least the privilege of being able to plug their ears and ignore, right? “You don’t have to see/acknowledge the cruel practices that keep you rich, if you don’t want to” kind of thing. It’s unconscionable.
I’m pretty sure the entire structure of american capitalism is based on granting deniability/immunity to owners and directors of capital.They’re beholden to shareholders, so they “have no choice” but to do inhumane things in the name of profit, and the legal structure of the entity makes it next to impossible to hold any human being liable for anything
We’re actually lucky not to be so rich.
As someone taking psychology I think I’ve come to the conclusion that given the right environment and pressure, anyone can become a monster/killer/asshole. Giving someone a lot of money is a pretty quick way to make most people greedy.
Some dead European once said that most men can bear adversity, but if you really want to test a man, give him power. And in our late stage capitalist empire, being rich correlates to power.
Or entitled power. Not a wrong assertion.
I disagree with that statement. You’re essentially letting people off the hook. “Well, of course he/she is an asshole. They can’t help it!” Bullshit. Money doesn’t change who you are; it reveals who you are with enough power at your disposal to do what you’ve always wanted. Not all wealthy people are assholes; some are decent people who use their money for good. You just don’t hear as much about them.
Oh no I’m not letting them off the hook at all. I never excuse someone’s behavior as something they can’t help it. I don’t look at Bernie Madoff and say he can’t help it. I’m saying that environment causes are a major influence on personality and that really anyone could be like this under the right circumstances. Money revealing what type of person you are is an argument I hear a lot. I can see it but sometimes people are corrupted by the power brought on by wealth.
Seems to me you’re saying “They can’t help it!” with your implication that people who are corrupted by money were bad all along.
I always took it to mean that they are fragile and easily damaged, like all of us, and that is important for them to remember.
That’s what Parasite is about pretty much.
I wanna see Undercover Boss focusing on untapped markets. Priscilla’s is a national chain of adult novelty stores. I wanna see the CFO of dildos working alongside his dildo sales reps and learning first hand how hard it is to make dildo money.
I agree with you on principle, but I suspect that selling dildos is relatively fun.
I had a friend who was a sex toy slinger and very into advocacy. It was NOT fun. Mostly people loitering and asking gross/inappropriate questions and VERY few people who actually wanted to learn about the products and actually buy them. The advocacy side of it, where they did workshops was great. But the brass tacks dildo slinging was not.
“When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.”
Oh abso-fucking-lutely, and that doesn’t forgive much of what rich assholes do, but people are deluding themselves if they don’t think that power wouldn’t get to them.
This is why I found the whole “the boss will proudly announce a change in company policy, like they’re Mother Theresa unveiling a “care for sick people” plan.” oddly on point as she was a horrible person that most people still don’t realize.
Maybe. But I think there’s a big difference in that most of these CEOs never worked entry-level positions to begin with. They came from privilege and have been insulated their whole lives. I’m sure a CEO that legitimately worked their way up from the bottom would be different.
Wow I need a smoke, now. That was…woah.
I saw this for what it was and never watched it (I also don’t generally watch reality shows, and the ones I have are usually pretty trashy). However, this is a show whose premise I cannot imagine working beyond the second season (assuming they started filming the second season before the first season aired). Of course, I was also shocked that all those predators would just show up to a underage teen’s house after the second To Catch A Predator series.
That lemonade looked really good!
I may have watched the equivalent of 1 episode because it was obvious the evil overlords wouldn’t give half a shit their employees are miserable.
It’s slightly more complicated. They don’t think of their workers as people with problems until they are absolutely forced to.
I honestly don’t think they actually give a shit and they are just playing the part to fulfill its purpose of creating good publicity for their company.
you NEVER watched it but you’re so intuitive you KNEW it was going to be propaganda. You sound like a very open minded person.
Umm, I can look at the advertising and reasonably infer the intent and nature of the show. If I had heard something different from people who watched, I would have been open to giving it a chance.I also don’t need to see a Michael Bay film to know it will be stupid as fuck.
It’s not like it was especially subtle about hiding it’s intentions. From the first seconds of the trailer you know exactly what it was about.
I knew it was gonna be propaganda and then I watched it and it was. Does that make me a more betterer person? C’mon, buddy.
The fuck? It was obvious from the first commercial for the show what it was going to be.
This is the US, every trashy reality TV emission they make reinforce the “American Dream” in some ways. Property brothers (okay that one’s canadian but seriously it embodies that spirit perfectly), Undercover boss, whichever you pick it’s always the same thing so yeah you don’t actually need to watch it.
You dont need an open mind to see this for what it is. Just opened eyes and maybe half of a brain.
It’s human nature to blindly assume your smarter then anyone. So of course they keep showing up because they assume I’m smart enough not to fall for the Chris Hansen switch.
Part of it is that Chris Hanson can only be at a small amount of houses. He was also using a cut-out group to do the actual ‘baiting’.
I’ve never understood how all the employees are supposed to buy that they’re being given some fiftysomething white guy as the new trainee while they’re filming them for some unnamed reality show. Yeah, right.
Not to mention that most of the company propaganda has the leadership team’s faces usually plastered all over it.
yeah, i can’t believe any employee falls for this any more. it would be great if there was an episode where all the employees knew exactly what was going on but played up to the undercover boss to get stuff.
I think that’s episode 3 onwards.
“underage teen” feels redundant.
While it may be unseemly for some of those guys, 18 and 19 are legal everywhere and 17 and 16 are still legal in some places.
I always really enjoyed it when the predators would say “Oh, yeah, I’ve seen that show…” HA. Enjoy prison, dumbass.
People still steal from the convenience store in my neighbourhood even though every single inch of wall is covered in printouts of security camera footage showing people stealing.
There are people who kill another person, get caught, go on trial, spend decades in jail and then kill again almost as soon as they get out.
Are you suspicious of every new employee at your job?
I’m not suspicious of every new person at my job – just the ones that are perpetually followed around by a camera crew.
If it’s a middle-aged white person with a camera crew? Yeah, I would be suspicious.
Also, your second paragraph is an indictment of our justice system and not the person.
They were just there to warn the underage teen that other bad guys could take advantage of them. The beer, roofies and condoms are merely evidence for show and tell.
I had no idea this was a network show. I knew it existed, but figured it was on A&E or TLC or something. There are a lot of reality and competition shows like that, where I assume they’re on some random cable network with a small budget, and then at some point I see that they’re actually a prime time show on one of the major networks and it just blows my mind every mind. The last time I was regularly watching TV as it aired was long before this sort of stuff would be on CBS.
Found the communist in the room…
Honey, it’s 2020. Red baiting doesn’t scare anyone anymore.
Upon realizing the female garbage collectors are forced to pee in a can
during their shifts thanks to a brutal timetable…Pah! Back in my day, we didn’t get a can!
We had to pee in a rolled-up newspaper!
That day was yesterday.
I’m peeing on my desk right now!
That’s MY desk, you fool!
I know whose desk it is!
Oh, that’s IT. [lays towel over desk; leaps across desk]
Sir, this is a Denny’s
Well now I’m gonna pee even harder!
You should probably stop and see a doctor immediately. That stopped being pee a while ago.
You’re peeing on the COMPANY’S desk
Back in my day Me Frick would make us work 15 hours and if someone died we get a 15 minute break.
Ha! 15 minute breaks! Back in my day we worked 24 hour days, and our break consisted of walking to the timeclock in the 23rd hour, punching out, standing there for 3 minutes, and then punching in again!And if you tell that to the young people today, they won’t believe you!
Man the Lowell system was just greaaaaaat.
And this guy’s solution was to form a task force to deal with it? He’s the damn CEO, he could change the timetables immediately if he wanted to!
You work at Amazon?
My ex-wife worked in a place that provided a FUD- a female urination device- a fancy funnel so she could use the provided urinal that didn’t have any sort of privacy shield around it
A REAL boss would have fired them for peeing into company property.
True story – at the Port of Norfolk, in Virginia, there are no bathrooms for the longshoremen on the piers. The longshoremen are expected to pee behind the containers – or at least the male longshoremen are.There was a case where two longshoremen were working together on the pier – a man and a woman. They both had to pee, so they went behind a container, and they both started peeing. A foreman saw them peeing, didn’t say anything to the urinating male longshoreman, but fired the urinating woman longshoreman on the spot (something that just doesn’t happen normally in that industry) She went to the union, the International Longshoremen’s Association – they didn’t do anything about it. She filed a lawsuit….and LOST, even though it was clear gender discrimination (two employees both urinating outside in a workplace with no toilets where employees are expected to urinate outside – but only the woman worker gets fired for urinating outside)It’s not clear what women longshoremen are expected to do when they need to pee on the docks – apparently they’re not supposed to pee outside like the men are, and there are still no toilets provided
I work as a security guard and at most sites, there isn’t a bathroom on site or a nearby place (like a gas station) with one to use. If there was one, you’d have to call dispatch and wait for a roving supervisor to come to the post and wait while you went to use the facilities. Problem is, the supervisor usually took a couple of hours to get to your post. I’m diabetic and I’m on diuretics, so when I have to go, I have to go right away. I spent 10 years pissing in parking lots and in bushes in the middle of the night.
Guess what kind of “person” thought this bullshit up.
“it’s based on a British show” Henry V was the original Undercover Boss.
“Before me are the final six contestants. Tonight, two of you will be winners. Two will go home empty-handed. And two, I’m just going to straight-up decapitate.”
“Don’t lose your heads, folks…we’re just gonna CUT to commercial. Be right back…”
best season of the bachelor.
The Henry the 8th season really made heads roll…
It was never the same after that!
I stopped watching after the Mary 1 of England episodes. It was a terrible season, you could tell the writers were burnt out on working on this show.
Yeah but the Elizabeth season was actually quite empowering.
Oh, definetly. I learned a lot about empowerment from that season.
ha!
I haven’t seen it. The premise sounded good. But every talk show and reality show on TV these days is fake, contrived, excessively burdened with marketing horseshit, and grossly saccharine. So no surprise this one is too.
It’s an absolutely disgusting TV show. The episode they did on Hooters was REALLY something else, as the CEO was absolutely stunned to see one of the restaurant managers engage in sexist behavior towards his employees. The whole “I would have never expected something like this at a Hooters of all places,” completely free of irony, for a guy whose company’s brand is “a bad strip club you can take your kids to.”This show is absolute garbage and I do not see the appeal for anyone who isn’t already a millionaire.
I remember the Hooters episode. A couple of things stand out: First, they actually showed the factory where they make the sauce for their wings. There’s a shot of a bunch of disgustingly viscous, day glow orange sauce being extruded out of a tube. I was shocked that they would actually allow them to show something like that, because it looked so unnatural and unappetizing.Secondly, the whole “sexist manager gets his comeuppance” skit (and I use that word intentionally) felt very staged to me. I suspected the guy just volunteered to be a patsy so Hooters could show everybody that they’re not a bunch of misogynists and that they really care about their female employees.
It’s reality TV, everything is scripted. I assume the corporate PR for each company basically goes over what they want to see in the episode and the producers write the script and deliver it to the poor peons working the counter at whatever franchise location is unlucky enough to be closest to where the CEO lives.
No question, this is exactly how it happens.
I wonder if they pat down they employees for hidden weapons as well. It would be unfortunate if they had one of USA:s regular mass shootings just the day the CEO is there to end up in the line of fire. On the other hand, the show would get a lot of extra viewers that week.
They did one at Bikini’s Bar and Grill where you can tell the show was expecting a Hooters thing where they’re shocked. Nope, the CEO fired a girl who just wanted to be allowed to wear a t-shirt and paid for someone’s boob job.
Yeah that’s the only one I’ve seen but it was horrible. I couldn’t believe what I was watching. That dude was such an asshole.
The Apprentice was also pretty reprehensible. If only because it allowed Donald Trump to cosplay as a successful businessman.
Better that than the cosplay that Admiral Bonespurs has gotten himself tangled into lately.
I feel terrible about this. I thought that show was fun. I remember Trump from late night shows. He had weird hair and had orange skin as a brand, and then they made fun of him, and everyone laughed. I thought he was in on the joke, just like Richard Simmons. Now I find out he wasn’t in on the joke (or he isn’t anymore due to brain damage, which is more sad), and Richard Simmons is being held against his will in a mansion. Worst. Timeline. Ever.
The Apprentice was probably the most damaging TV show. Everyone involved should be put in prison.
Regarding your hatred of capitalism, and your view that there is massive income inequality that is purposely being forced upon millions of people, if you cannot see fit to improve your economic conditions VASTLY right now, in this booming economy, then you are fucking doomed to a life of economic hardship. You will never progress upward financially, your economic conditions are stagnant, and basically you are your own worst problem. Whatever dead-end job you are presently in (if you are in one) will be status quo for you for the rest of your life. The present economy affords you countless opportunities to move up the economic ladder, and you’re too rooted in blind hatred for the system that makes it all possible.Capitalism isn’t the problem here; you are.
You’re a fucking moron.
That may be, but thanks to capitalism, my income has increased by 2.4X from 2010 to 2019. If you think that I could have done that in a socialist economy (that you want to implement), you’re the fucking moron.You’ll always be stuck in subpar-paying jobs until your shitty attitude is fixed. People like you report to people like me until I grow weary of dealing with you and decide to let you go.
People like you report to people like meFuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck you.
You as well; there’s ten of you for every position that’s under me, so the ones with shitty attitudes (i.e. you) are quickly eradicated and replaced by motivated people who are willing to be contributors.
Wow well now ain’t you a charmer.What exactly is it that you “contribute?”
He does the job you can’t do because your bad attitude prevents you from moving up the ladder.
You’re either a monumentally stupid sack of shit or you’re a hideously evil sack of shit. Either way, sack of shit. Enjoy your artificial sense of self-superiority until enough people realize they absolutely ought to hate you for literally being what is wrong with the world.
I’ll take a sack of shit who can give me a job over one who can’t any day of the week. You are paid to do a job for a rate that you agreed to. Your pay is commensurate with the value you bring to a company and the rarity of your skill set. If your pay is shit, its because your skills aren’t terribly valuable or hard to come by. Sorry. You should have tried harder in school. High School is offered free of charge to every American. Community college is extremely affordable and scholarships at major universities are abundant. Unless you have a severe disability, almost all failure can be blamed on laziness and poor decision making. The truth hurts but the OP is right, you only have yourself to blame.
You could be right about me being a sack of shit, but the people who report to me are happy, and they’re awesome. We kick ass together, and I don’t ask anything of them that I wouldn’t do as well. We are all paid well and the company is super flexible with time off, etc.What I don’t suffer are shitty attitudes, for one thing. If you’re the type of individual who blames everyone else for their woes (including capitalism, FFS), then you will be weeded out quickly from working for me.I changed jobs twice, and moved up both times, in order to increase my income by over twice what it was – it took nine years, so it wasn’t an overnight jump. Contrast that to the socialists here, who would have stayed at the first job, never moved to a better position, and demanded profit sharing or something similar instead of taking initiative for themselves. The only people I feel superior to are those like you, who absolutely cannot appreciate how good they have it in a capitalist economic system.
I like my job and still hate capitalism.
How can any discussion of Undercover Boss not mention the Hooters episode where the manager of the restaurant made waitresses suck baked beans off of a plate for the privilege of getting their hours cut? Yes, the manager was fired, but they still put it on TV so they could reap the benefits of those women’s humiliation.
Wow that show is still on?Personally I always thought it was an embarrassment to anyone that actually does their job. But I guess that is the formula….letting people laugh at folks doing their job.
All Reality TV is basically fake.You can know you have grown up as a person when it isn’t entertainment for you anymore.
I’m unfamiliar with the American version – the British one I only ever saw a couple of, but it did genuinely seem to be at least semi-designed to help improve things at wherever it was they worked.
Turns out Marx was basically right. Some of his proposed ideas don’t exactly work but the basic notion of workers’ cooperatives is solid. We need more people to start those kinds of companies (and remain vigilant for those who try to abuse the setup for their own power) and stop letting the rich leech off their labor.
Marx was basically right, yes of course. All the places that attempted socialism failed, usually with millions of deaths. But he was sure right.
Purely socialist governments are one of those ideas that don’t work. But workers owning the means of production instead of letting the wealthy steal their labor and aggregate power was spot-on.
What’s stopping workers from owning the means of production right now? Take out a loan, start a business and presto! You own the means of production.
In principle, nothing; everyone (at least in most places) is free to do exactly what you describe. The problem is that people get conditioned to believe that wage slavery is normal, and before you know it you’re commuting two hours a day and working nine hours a day and you don’t have the energy to do something like start your own business. Even if you do, you probably assume that you’d own the business and other people would be your employees, rather than learn what a cooperative is, much less how to run one, and you’re just another capitalist.
In my experience it’s hard to keep six people on the same page. Keeping six hundred or more on the same page seems like a nightmare
Oh yes, it is just that easy. Wow! Thanks!
You know that workers are paid right? So nobody is stealing their work. If they do not like their workplace they can look for another job. In the meantime, the bad rich people who steal their work are usually people who took all the risks and invested all their money and sometimes even earn less than their employees. And if it is so easy to do – why don’t you do it?
rich people … took all the risksoh… you sweet, dumb child
Because I missed an important early step: have parents with money
Yes Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and countless other billionaires come from a riche family. You should check their biography.
You know that workers are paid right? So nobody is stealing their work.That’s the exact thing I used to say before I understood the issue.Consider a sizable company with a thousand employees who each make, on average, $50,000 per year. Bob, the CEO, is paid $5,000,000 per year. Does he work 100 times as many hours as the other employees? Does he work 100 times as hard? Is what he does 100 times harder? (No, no, and no.) So why does he get so much more money?The answer is that he has convinced the rest of the employees that he should get a percentage of the revenue they generate. Bob’s work doesn’t generate $5,000,000 in revenue all by itself; without the labor of the other employees, the company wouldn’t do shit. But for some reason, the employees have been convinced that they should each be giving Bob 10% of their salary.If they do not like their workplace they can look for another job.Trading one wage slave position for another does not improve things substantially.the bad rich people who steal their work are usually people who took all the risks and invested all their money and sometimes even earn less than their employees“Usually” those rich people inherited their money, or are huge institutional investors.And if it is so easy to do – why don’t you do it?I never said it was easy to do.
“Usually” those rich people inherited their money, or are huge institutional investors.Or were born into the upper class and so attended elite schools because their parents paid their way into the schools or they were legacy or they could afford expensive tutors and/or outside expensive activities (that were supported by other paid for services such as coaches, other tutoring, or other extensive networks and support structures). The primary benefit of attending the elite schools was immediate entry into an elite network of fellow elite school attendees who made sure they had access to elite careers, financing and other support. After some time, they secured a CEO position. These people did not take risks or work themselves up from middle management after a state school education.
You know, they also let kids into elite schools for good grades. It’s called a scholarship. No rich parent money required. Just good old fashioned hard work.
Wait I thought we were talking generalities….?
Bob did not convince the rest of the employees but the owners of the company. Maybe he really is worth it and maybe not, but ultimately that’s *their* money and they can waste it as they want.
Yeah, no. The employees only go along with it because they’ve been convinced (that is, taught since birth) that such an arrangement is good for them. They give up building up wealth of their own for a fixed salary and the possibility that oligarchs might just throw them out on a whim.You clearly think that the system is fair and that the reason 5% of the population owns 70% of the wealth (and the bottom 50% owns about 1% of the wealth) is because that 5% work harder and somehow deserve it. In point of fact, the system has been rigged to make it easy for the rich to get richer while everyone else has to struggle. I’m assuming you personally are not one of the super-rich, but you might want to ask yourself why it’s so important to you to maintain the status quo when you are, in fact, harmed by it.
Bob convinced the owners of the company or is the owner himself. He may not work 100 times as hard but he’s taken well over 100 times the risk than an entry level employee company has taken. You probably think you deserve to make the same (if not more) flipping burgers than the franchise owner does for the time and capital risk. What happens if or when his location goes under? He loses everything and you waddle down the block and just start flipping burgers somewhere else. That’s why he makes more than you. Don’t like it? Get a skilled/real job, learn to live below your means (a skill most of these “I need 15 dollars an hour” people lack), save up the capital and start your own business. Don’t sit on your ass and wait for business as we know it to turn on it’s head and hand you something for getting out of bed in the morning because you think you deserve it.
wait until you find out about capitalist countries!
“All the places that attempted socialism”Define attempt. I mean, I’d love to shit all over the USSR and China and Cuba, but I’m going to need someone to explain to me what dictators and massive military budgets have anything to do collective action enacted on a country-wide scale.
“I’d love to shit all over the USSR and China and Cuba…”Don’t forget Venezuela. That’s the MAGA Chuds’ favorite straw man.
Why is it that deaths in socialist countries are always the fault of socialism (and not other factors like famine, disease, etc.) but deaths in capitalist countries are always the fault of other factors (like famine, disease, etc.( and not capitalism?
Because in socialist countries they are killed by the regime and in the name of the ideology. Nobody is killed by “capitalism”. And you never saw people fleeing a capitalist country.
I think you misspelled “capitalism”.
Pretty much all of Europe is Socialized these days. Would’t really call that a “failure”.
I don’t think he meant to imply Marx was right about the whole socialist state thing, but that companies owned by employees can totally work. You ever been to WinCo Store? Cheapest grocery prices you’ll ever see and majority employee-owned. Better pay than most chains AND benefits, plus the aforementioned ownership in stocks.
Ok, no problem with that, it’s called a family enterprise.
“A struggling woman tells the disguised Bellah, “I’d love to sell the Nestlé brand”—you know, just typical shop talk between fast-food workers—and everyone treats it as a bold and unguarded confession.”There’s a lot of retail, warehouse, and general “bottom of the rung” workers who are that clueless about their company’s upper management, especially at companies where meetings are handled by the store managers with no video call ins and whatnot. They want to go to work, get paid, and go home.
If Undercover Boss makes you cry, you cry too much.
I temped at a company that had just done an undercover boss episode. The general consensus was that the three people featured got a nice vacation with their families, but nothing else changed.
eat the rich
The Venezuelan version is “eat the zoo animals”.
A policy adopted by Charles Darwin and the Oxford Glutton Club.
The whole “wig and prosthetics” approach always cracked me up. Do they really think that the boots on the ground will even recognize them? That’s sort of part of the propagandized fallacy in play. “OF COURSE they’ll recognize the CEO! He’s their hero!”Sorry, Bubba Winston III, but these folks are too busy worrying about keeping the lights on to fawn over you and your “accomplishments.”
A great companion to this article would be Citations Needed’s episode on Mike Rowe.
Yet again, the left showing their true colors. You don’t like it so lets bitch about it.
It’s garbage television. Not sure why this article is longer than a paragraph. Here, I’ll type it again. It’s garbage television. Happy?
Ive only ever seen the Kylo Ren version, and doubt Ill be changing that.
Eh, they’ve done the upcoming revolution a favor – now we can recognize these rich scumbags – even in disguise.;) (or am I kidding?)
Wait a minute, you mean that once again a good British show concept was used as the foundation for what American producers turned into crap…noooo way. Undercover Boss is first and foremost designed to be dramatic television, so unfortunately it going to be scripted, have “actors”, plot twists and planned outcomes for the sake of entertainment (or something resembling entertainment). I stopped watching Undercover boss after the first season since it was obvious it wasn’t even vaguely genuine anymore. At what point do we as the viewer realize that having an entire film crew follow a “candidate for a position” around the workplace for a week isn’t fooling any of the employees for a second. I’ve even read once that the shows producers have realized that the shows popularity has made it impossible to actually pull of the gag anymore since everyone is familiar with the shows concept . Then the conversations the undercover boss asks to their fellow employees aren’t the kind of conversations employees have, muchless prospective employees, there more like interview questions; “So what programs here at *** do think need improvement and what steps should the management take?” isn’t exactly lunch room chit-chat by a fellow employee or prospective job candidate. There’s a reason I pulled the Cable TV plug in our house 3 years ago, American program is increasingly intolerable garbage that are the equivalent of McDonald’s $1.29 hamburgers, which they’ve sold Billions, and we know what junk food, muchless junk social messages do when pumped into our bodies. There’s a reason that watching shows like The Great British Backing Show are so refreshing to watch by Americans, in a word genuine. Honest entertainment with real flawed people, rather than another group of professional reality TV characters/personalities who answered an ad in a Hollywood trade paper and then fit the personality profile they were searching for to create a soup of intolerable attitudes sure to grind on the viewer. What does it saw about American entertainment standards when shows like Dr. Pimple Popper and now My Feet are Killing Me are successful? I can’t wait to see the spin offs that will have to take it to another shocking level…I have Hemorrhoids…sounds like the next TV show to step down the evolutionary TV ladder. Why is Undercover Boss still on the air after 10 years? How has McDonalds sold Billions and Billions of terrible cheap burgers…garbage still sells in a society with very low standards for itself.
What are your thoughts on Mike Rowe’s dirty jobs?
Its not propaganda.The network has zero motivation to make propaganda, the network is not a significant proportion of “all capitalism”.The network would make more money from something even more emotional that more people could connect to.The network doesn’t stand to gain anything from making propaganda. What? You think this program is single handedly preventing the collapse of capitalism? Someone is paying them to prevent the downfall of capitalism? No.Its not propaganda.Its worse.Its real. Calling it propaganda suggests that maybe the real bosses aren’t actually like this. That maybe most companies don’t act like this.But my working theory is that they just couldn’t find a boss who wasn’t so unbelievably oblivious that they didn’t naturally act like this.
Yeah, this show just never sat right with me. Mostly because I was in a position of retail hell at the time and I knew it was just another piece of sickeningly patronizing media fluff encouraging people to just keep working those dead end jobs where a large part of the business model is predicated on paying the majority of the workforce as little as possible.
My only problem with the whole class language thing is that it treats wealthy people as if they are different from the working class. If they are different, maybe they are entitled to hoard resources like they do? Of course, no, in fact, they are the same, just lucky by birth or other circumstance, and they don’t deserve to hoard resources like they do. They’re the same as us, which is why they don’t deserve to live such more resource-intensive lives than we do. Class is a social construct, not a fact of life. Treating it as though it’s a real thing risks maintaining the same power structures that lead to it being a fact of our lives, not a fact sui generis, and thereby mutating whoever is victorious in this class conflict into exactly the same kind of people as existed before—selfish and self-justifying, and oblivious to their own evil.
Most “rich people” don’t hoard resources. Take Jeff Bezos for example. Most of his wealth in the form of inventory, trucks and infrastructure, all of which is used to serve my needs for money that I voluntary give him. And if I want to fire him, I simply stop doing buying from him.
Yes, Intro to Economics was an enjoyable class. No need to question any further.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers
I fail to see how someone who provides desired goods and services, employs thousands of people, provides workers with healthcare and spurs innovation can ever be classified as “evil”. Answer me this, would the “exploited” workers be better off if the “evil” company founder never started their business in the first place? I love how every story of business success can be chalked up to “luck by birth”. As a business owner, I can tell you that any success was earned through 100% hard work. Try building something of your own and you will understand that. So much pseudo-intellectual bullshit here.
“It really puts things into perspective,” Bellah intones, “that if you try, you can do anything you want to do.” yeah, if someone comes along & gives you a crapful of money. if not, you’re screwed. what about all the other employees who need it but don’t get it?
That first moment an “undercover boss” gets to go back to their own office must feel the way it does when I walk into my house after an hour of shoveling snow off the driveway. “Thank God THAT’S over!”
The American Dream has become “sell your soul to a company and hope you attract the attention of a wealthy person”
Does this sentence, “…Yellen, an incredibly wealthy man and reputed former mobster (Forbes estimated his net worth at $320 million back in 2017)…” have a different feel if you were to move the Forbes note like this: “…Yellen, an incredibly wealthy man (Forbes estimated his net worth at $320 million back in 2017) and reputed former mobster…”Having the Forbes note after his mobster reputation seems to imply that his millions are of the ill-gotten variety. Or is it just me?
This is the best thing I’ve read on here since… Well, I don’t know how long. You have a newly committed fan.
you really oughta google “fox news”
“Airing in 2010 immediately following Super Bowl XLIV…”
Aka, the other reprehensible propaganda machine.
What a stupid take.
It’s a stupid show but it’s far from the most reprehensible.
It’s arguably the most disgusting show on television. The CEO’s are constantly “astonished” that the people who work for them barely make a living wage, then they show that they “care” by handing one of them a fucking check at the end. I can just hear the interview process for the episodes: “Does anybody at your place have cancer, or a spouse with cancer?” “As a matter of fact, yes.” “Great!”
I don’t begrudge CEO’s and their exorbitant compensation and golden parachutes one bit. They can have it, hell take it all. The very wealthy people that I know are all very very unhappy, it’s like they have this void in their lives that they can’t fill and everything is never enough. So give me my fishing pole, a twelve pack, and some fine home grown and to hell with the rest of it. If CEO’s want millions, or billions, they can have it and not only can they have it but I hope they get it and choke on it.
You should probably realize that their wealth doesn’t fall from the sky. They exploit other people.
I’m still mad about the Norwegian cruises episode where the CEO meets an Indian woman who is basically running a ginormous restaurant and recognizes him right away, having seen him speak a few years ago, and a blonde customer service person who is kind of nice, and the idiot decides to give the Indian woman a vacation and the blonde an inside track to management.
The inequality of prizes was one of the most annoying parts. “You get 30k of students loans paid off…and you get a spa day”. I guess to a millionaire it’s not much of a difference!
This is a great read, Alex! I had no idea this show was still on the air, am shocked that anyone watches it voluntarily. I guess if Reader’s Digest was a TV show, it would be this one.
Wow, I can’t believe this show is still on. I remember the first episode aired the week I started working a menial, low paying accounting job at Waste Management, so I watched it with mild interest. It’s hard to believe that was ten years ago.
If they made a show where the workers dragged a CEO out of his castle and into the streets, I’d watch it religiously.
>the willing class warriors they are
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
You people are so detached from relaity and your own economic privlege that you’re basically Richie Rich yelling at Uncle Scrooge about having more money than you while living a life people 150 years ago could live even if they were kings. If you weren’t so dangerous the stupidity of it all would be wonderful slapstick.
Its not just CBS. ABC airs that public rehabilitation series “Dancing with the Disgraced Republicans”.
Just wanted to say this is a bunch of bullshit. You read to much into it and your fabricating intent of the show. It was birthed from a British T.V. and it has no underlying malicious theme. You’re an idiot and your agenda is ridiculous.
Came here for the Key & Peele, glad to find it. “But some bosses are willing to take extreme action to make their companies better.” Unless it’s worker representation on the board and/or cutting them own salary to give everyone else a raise, it’s meaningless. Even those aren’t extreme, they’re the bare minimum moral thing to do.
Maybe this show started out differently, but I saw a few more recent episodes and I just started feeling this was more of the manipulated, staged reality show stuff that’s everywhere. Starting with the obviously-a-disguise things they make the CEO where, all the way down to the fact that they seem to have the great luck of finding an interesting, inspiring employee with a story and something that the CEO can help with. Man, they sure are lucky they find that every single time. Imagine how boring the show would be otherwise!
I’d say FOX News holds the award for the most reprehensible propaganda on TV (OAN is up there as well, but has less of an audience, thankfully.) And then the long-running COPS has done a lot of damage too. But great article in any case.
“..the boss will proudly announce a change in company policy, like they’re Mother Theresa unveiling a “care for sick people” plan”Given that Mother Theresa’s care for sick people plan was “let them suffer it’s good for their soul”, that’s actually an apt comparison.
To me, the popularity of a show like Undercover Boss is of a piece of the popularity of Fox News, and of Twinkies. They’re terrible for the people who consume them, but they also represent precisely what those people want. You can argue all day long about whether there’s some sort of “responsibility” on the part of those involved to provide a better product, but that argument belies a basic fact: If you attempted to remake into what your idea of a “better” or more “responsible” product would be, most of the people who consume them now would probably stop.
Ive always wanted to know how the other employees (the ones not featured) felt about the ones on tv getting big bonuses while they do the same jobs and have problems of their own
I’ve only seen one episode, several years ago, with the CEO of Yeankee Candle, and holy shit. The first employee he worked with was a young 20-something dude in a mall location who was kind of dark and snarky. He took the undercover dickhead under his wing and showed him the tricks of the trade in that store, and made bitchy but funny comments about the more difficult customers. The public mea culpa they made this poor kid do to keep his job was fucking bullshit. He had to basically confess that he had a fucked up home life to be so “emotionally disturbed” at work, and undercover boss sent him to anger management or some shit. Here’s a thought, maybe it’s standing on your feet for 40 plus hours a week being treated like shit by every suburban hausfrau who can wedge her fat ass behind the wheel of a Buick LeSabre, all for ridiculously low pay. Then he went to another store where the manager was just WAY. TOO. INTO. Yankee Candle. When she wasn’t obsessively dusting every square inch of her store, she was sniffing random scents and sharing them with undercover boss. His “reward” to her? A remodel of THE STORE. Yup, here you go, we’re sprucing up you slave labor cell for all of your hard work!!!
What’s your biggest problem – misogyny or hatred of people who aren’t skinny? Plenty of thin men are bad customers too.
Wow, you really had to stretch to clutch your pearls on that one. Grow the fuck up.
I remember one time I caught an episode of this shite while flipping channels, and the CEO was chatting to a random employee. Asked the employee where he hoped his career would take him and the guy deadass dropped the CEO’s name and said he’s gonna take his job. Like, that guy probably kinda sucks too but damn that was cold.
The main thing I hate about this show is that it is soooo fake. Like “Restaurant Stakeout” and other “hidden cam” faux-reality shows. I cannot believe any “employee” (I have my doubts often that “bad” employees are really employees, since you have to sign a waiver to be on air and what idiot would do that if they were doing something bad?) would not IMMEDIATELY know that was their boss. Why would cameras be following them around? Their phony explanation acts like people would be fooled.. no one with an IQ above a carrot would be.And no “employee” at a bottom rung of a company would be saying Orwellian things like “my dream is to make “x” company the best ever! gosh darn it!” like some pieces of flair guy. If you make under $15 bucks an hour, you don’t give two craps about the company other than “do a good enough job to get a raise and/or not fired”
I was actually present during a taping of Gordon Ramsey’s Restaurant Makeover show when I lived in downtown Santa Cruz during college. I thought it’d be totally staged, but it was surprisingly genuine from what I could gather, though him blowing up at employees was totally an act.
Thanks for this. Elaborating on the subject of manipulative, poorly disguised propaganda for income inequality and the 1%, can we now please talk about Shark Tank?
Every episode basically boiled down to: CEO is clueless about what is happening at their company, inadvertently shows the company doesn’t need them, and then takes action as approved by their PR and legal team.
I’m currently celebrating some very good work-related news right now, so maybe this is the beer talking but this is my favourite article on here right now. I was always astounded by the shocking “disguises” in the UK one too, and how the undercover boss always, always, works in a “So, what do you think to the boss/this job/company, huh?” that must, must scream obvious plant.
While I do get it, it still is a BIT presumptuous to call every CEO a greedy asshole. They get paid that much because it costs that much to keep them. THe market dictates pay, not the CEO themselves. Plus, inno about you, but id rather not have 80% of my pay at risk and i like seeing my family every day.
The thing about this that has never made sense as a premise: why is no one questioning a camera crew and a team of producers just following around some new hire at their location, or why have the employees for that day had to sign waivers so they can appear on said show, or why is any of this happening, and how do the staff not (particularly 9 seasons in) know they are on undercover boss?
Man, somebody woke up with a socialist stick up their heinie. The person engaging in class warfare is McLevy. It’s a crappy mainstream reality TV show. Stop overinterpreting everything based on your own bias. Not everything is political or “sinister.” I’m sorry, bit it’s just largely well-intentioned entertainment, and McLevy even admits he gets dusty watching it. It’s wholesome, cheesy pabulum, not a conspiracy to exploit or laugh down at poor people. Most people are fine with capitalism and plenty of rich people got where they are because they are exceptionally skilled and hard working. Yes, I understand the basic economics of American capitalism where it’s hard to rise out of your own class, but there ARE self-made millionaires, and not all bosses are evil, spoiled trustafarians. They’re human beings too. Not every manual laborer wants Robin Hood wealth distribution and thinks high taxation is the solution to everything.
Is anybody out there really buying what this show is selling?The premiere episode aired after the Super Bowl, and we left it on after the game at the watch party I attended. We chuckled along as we watched some poor saps pretend that they didn’t recognize their company’s leader after he stuck on a cheap Halloween costume mustache. The whole thing is a glorified advertisement, and it’s hard to believe that even the employees featured can’t see through it.
This actually remidns me of an episode of “Leverage”, where it’s pointed out that grand charity gifts don’t work…but, giving a lesser amount of money to a ‘single lucky person’ does. It’s the Fiddle Game Job, I believe? Haven’t seen it in forever…
I think it was the Hooter’s episode where there was the Manager who regularly demeaned the workers. Things like having a bean eating contest and the winner got to go home early. Oh sure, he got pulled in and reprimanded. But not fired. He was just transferred to another location. Would have been nice if he had been given his walking papers, and that episode acting as a general “Do Not Hire This Asshole”, but he wasn’t. And that was so very telling.
This is the absolute, correct take on this show, which is Horatio Alger porn. I am curious how many scenes are on the cutting room floor that go something like, “you know, what we really need is a union,” followed by firing of said employee.
It’s basically an hour-long commercial for your company too. Pretty much a win-win for every skeevy company involved. I bet more people know about that Nestle episode than know about how Nestle takes public water and sells it for profit.
WILL ARGUE THAT FOX’S “THE FIVE” IS ALSO REPREHENSIBLE PROPAGANDA.
This program is more proof that many Americans love being ruled by and shit on by rich people.
Hi Alex! Are you in Consolidated?
Undercover Boss is so formulaic that I am skeptical that any of the employees still believe the “we’re taping for a reality show you’ve never heard of” cover story. And even if the CEOs are too good to be true, what about the employees? There are no malcontents, no slackers, no grumbling about “favorites” who get all of the perks? If not, these companies aren’t like any place I’ve ever worked.
The only episode of Undercover Boss I enjoyed was the RetroFitness one, where the CEO flat-out fired his employee at the reveal
““those who decide what everyone will do will grow rich because the decisions are made in their interest. they are pleased with how well they rule the others. the others smile too, thinking their rulers know best”. – liner from Gang of Four’s Entertainment!RIP Andy Gill
It’s hard to take the main point of this article seriously when it’s on a site that is getting money to pay its writers from (at least on my computer and by my count), a banner ads from SWA, Affiliate Link sales through Amazon (Deal of the day), and Sponsored articles for major TV networks. Just saying.
Undercover Boss is best watched when you feel like crap and don’t feel like watching another episode of Law & Order.
See this is what I don’t get about Americans on here. There are hundreds of thousands of dangerous firearms available for sale to any random stranger with no background checks whatsoever and you complain. There are obscenely rich sociopaths rigging the system to further their aims and keep the masses in a state of naivety at best, poverty at worst and you complainHave you never heard the phrase ‘when life hands you lemons, make lemonade.”?
“Though sometimes, an especially bad employee—read: one who just does the job, and doesn’t care to espouse bullshit—will instead be called out and punished or fired for their lack of enthusiasm.”What ever happened to Ronnie from Boston Market. I’ve searched for past videos and it seems like they have been removed, and what few remain, the comments have been locked down. It’s as though someone is removing them intentionally. Ronnie did not deserve to get fired if it was part of his personality to express himself in a way that was not compliant with corporate policy. Perhaps he could have been retrained. Perhaps we was autistic. Maybe he was having a bad day or had circumstances in his life beyond comprehension. Maybe he was thrown off by all the cameras. Whatever the case, I have much more respect for him than anyone else in that video clip.
In old Tsarist Russia, when confronted by oppression, some of the more conservative peasants would say “If The Tsar Only Knew!”Of course….HE DID In 1917, Russians figured that out, drew the appropriate conclusions, and acted on them. We should do the same in our day with CEOsIf you’re underpaid and abused at work, the CEO knows It was his idea
Ten seasons??? I had no idea it was still on.I remember seeing one of the first shows and thinking, “Well that was interesting — but obviously they haven’t taken into account that everyone will be onto them by season two! It’ll never last.”I guess I forgot to take into account the stupidity of the average American…
Hear me out, I’m not a rocket scientist or anything, but a wise man once said, “I don’t know what they want from me, it’s like the more money we come across the more problems we see”. It’s possible to live happily and more modestly.
I was featured on the Anytime Fitness episode of Undercover Boss this season. The UB audience would be shocked and disgusted if they had any idea how fake this show actually is. I would love to tell my story, but so far, it doesn’t seem like people care about the show anymore. Which is good I guess. Enjoyed the article, if anyone has any interest in learning about how the producers of this show tried to destroy my family’s business, And the lies they told in our episode, I’d be happy to speak about it.
Mother Teresa’s plan for sick people was to increase their suffering, thereby increasing their reward in the afterlife. She wasn’t interested in improving their situations in this life.