Unreality TV: If the Boss Only Knew, He Would Do Something

[Omaha Steve]

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=565692

By ADAM COHEN

Published: March 20, 2010

In the premiere of the new CBS show "Undercover Boss," Lawrence O'Donnell III, the president of Waste Management - the large trash-collection company - disguised himself as a lowly worker. In these tough times, a voice-over declared, hard-working Americans blame wealthy, out-of-touch C.E.O.'s, "but some bosses are willing to take extreme action to make their businesses better."

From the ground up, Mr. O'Donnell noticed things that he had missed from the executive suite - problems and injustices that he immediately vowed to correct. By the hour's end, he had done just that.

"Undercover Boss," is bad television but a perfect show for our times with its heaping helpings of what politics is increasingly about: false populism.

The "king incognito," who dresses down and wanders among his subjects, is an old literary device. In "Henry V," on the eve of the battle of Agincourt, the king strolls among his soldiers in disguise to learn what they are thinking and bolster their spirits.

In the 21st-century version, the bosses leave their lavish homes and move into budget hotels, don workers' uniforms and hairnets and take on the most humbling assignments. As the cameras followed him, Mr. O'Donnell picked up litter from the ground (so badly he was fired) and cleaned outhouses (too slowly, but a supervisor decided that he had potential).

More fundamentally, the show draws on the old Russian peasant refrain: "If only the czar knew of our suffering, he would do something."

On "Undercover Boss," the bosses are genuinely shocked by what they see. Mr. O'Donnell is dumbfounded when a worker rushes out of the lunchroom, because if she is just a minute or two late from her 30-minute break she is docked. He cannot believe, as he learns, that one of his female garbage truck drivers - too pressed by the workload to make bathroom stops - has to pee in a can. "I feel like a male chauvinist," he says. "I never thought about it."

FULL 3 page story at link.

[izquierdista]

1. I'm sure if the Fuhrer knew....

Seventy years later, the obedient ones still haven't learned.

[TomClash]

2. That's how you get freakin' "productivity gains"

Nitwit. Less pay, more work, more profit, happy shareholders, wealthy CEO.

[Peregrine Took]

3. What a bunch of crap that show was!

If only the boss knew - everything would be swell!