The Truth of Undercover Boss Revealed

hey everyone and welcome back to film focus Undercover Boss is all about putting CEOs in entry-level positions so they get a chance to see what their employees go through in a given day at work but there's a lot about the show that you don't know we're breaking down the untold truth of Undercover Boss and some of what we found may really surprise you even if you're already a die-hard fan hey number 13 bosses pick their aliases what you probably don't know about Undercover Boss is that the bosses while their placement is largely beyond their control they're given free range as far as their aliases are concerned that level of freedom probably wasn't a good call for the show's producers as it's led to some really ridiculous personas that the bosses in question think they can get away with we get that some of them are trying to have fun in the roles but that's not the point of the exercise here and we think that bosses who go overboard kind of miss the whole point of the show which is to keep them undercover without employees becoming suspicious or catching on to the scheme sometimes the show even sets up fake game shows with fake hosts hoping their employees don't ask too many questions we suspect that employees are happy to go along with the charade and we're sure plenty of them see through the disguises knowing that they should be on their best behavior then again not everyone smart enough to figure it all out before they open their mouths and get themselves in a lot of trouble number 12 scenarios are mostly but not always scripted the show's executives will generally place a boss in a specific situation that they deemed to be better for filming which is why they always seem to get awesome shots throughout each episode they also make the boss work in very specific job roles and this usually places them in situations that they're not entirely okay with they also make sure that the bosses follow at least a rough outline of a script telling them what to say and how to act ahead of time not all bosses go along with this however and there are plenty of situations when they're totally free to go off script one example was when an employee whose job involved dealing with customers for the majority of their shift told their boss that they hated their customers more than anything else in the world that put their boss completely off script just so they could fire them on the spot they blew their cover in a big way but that employee definitely got what they deserve and they shouldn't have been looking for service work if they hated people so much number eleven featured employees are hand-picked it also seems that the employees that make it onto the show are all carefully selected ahead of time either the producers want to build up their backstory and make the episode a tearjerker when they end up kicking butt and getting a big bonus or they want to catch bad employees doing what bad employees do they screw up big time thanks to a little coaxing from their boss the big shots never outright ask an employee to do something that will get them in trouble but they do act sympathetic sometimes and a little sympathy goes a long way when someone's ready to start complaining about their job they also do a lot to empower the employees they want to do well leading to a happier and more heartwarming ending to the show most of the time they feature better employees who are more charming in front of the camera number 10 the show does lead to big changes undercover boss can sometimes enact real change in an organization and letting the boss see what their employees have to put up with firsthand can be a real eye-opener most of the time this doesn't happen but every once in a while a boss goes all out a prime example is when checker CEO Rick Silva ended up on the show he was so impressed by some of his lower-level employees that he started handing them bonuses on the spot circumventing their superiors and really letting people know that he cared about them another time the show brought positive change in a company was when Philly pretzel factory CEO Dan dizzy Oh found out that one of his locations had flipped the script on him by marketing their own pepperoni pretzel roll he wasn't a huge fan of the fact they did this without checking with him first but instead of tearing those involved with the scheme a new one he started marketing the rolls himself he was told they were selling well and used his experience not only to uncover a new menu item but also look inward and realize that he needed to spend more time focusing on his employees and the great ideas they wanted to try out he now spends much more time getting in touch with every level of his company and it's led to a better working environment for everyone number nine some bosses hate their undercover experiences while some bosses have a great time getting to know their employees a little more intimately others can't stand what the show's producers make them do Choice Hotels international CEO Steve Joyce spoke out against the show after he played his part saying he felt exploited by the show he said they continued to bring up his mother's death to get an emotional rise out of and for the sake of ratings that's really not the way the show should do things and using people's personal issues to impress audiences is amazingly cruel at the very least he also said that they deliberately sabotage everything he did so that they could make him look stupid we think that last bit is probably a little bit of a strong statement and it should be said that most bosses enjoy their time on Undercover Boss number 8 there are lots of spin-offs Undercover Boss isn't the only version of the show and since its success it has had plenty of international spin-offs these are never as good as the original and had to be adapted for different cultures but they do offer a pretty entertaining experience and that's what really matters right most people also have no clue that the original version was actually filmed in the UK and the US version is technically a copycat although it has done better than its British counterpart attracting a lot more attention at the same time it has also been bounced around between networks who are more than happy to cash in on the fad with CBS TLC and the own network all having a go at hosting their own versions number 7 one boss offered to pay for an employee's breast implants not all bosses are created equal and some are downright pigs one episode featured a hooter style restaurant called bikinis with all over the white staff wearing you guessed it bikinis when most bosses find an employee that really kills it they end up offering all sorts of bonuses like extra cash and even college tuition but bikinis CEO Doug Guler went all out and crossed a bit of a line when he found an employee he really liked he offered her breast implants from the best plastic surgeon he could find if she continued doing well for another six months we can't believe he thought that was okay and can't imagine why he didn't realize he'd be torn apart from making such an offer on national TV number 6 Yellen and Beck when a Lowe's employee Aaron Beck saw the CEO of Bell for property restoration Sheldon Yellin on an episode of Undercover Boss he was really impressed with how he ran things and really looked up to him for the way he handled himself he was so impressed in fact that every time one of yellen's employees showed up to the Lowe's he worked at Aaron would tell him how much he liked their boss and to give him his best regards when Yellen heard about Aaron he began writing to him and the two became fast friends in no time at all yelling even made a point of going back on the show to surprise Aaron at work as his character from Undercover Boss raising him on TV and giving back one of the happiest surprises of his life he then worked alongside back through his entire shift and the two are really quite an awesome pair to say the least so it seems that Undercover Boss can really change people's lives for the better even if the employee in question works at a totally different company number five undercover boss's inspiration the show's producer Stephen Lambert had his big epiphany with regard to the premise of Undercover Boss when he watched the whole British Airways terminal 5 disaster opening the head of ba was asked if he had ever suffered the way his customers had when flying with the airline and he responded that he was too well-known and always got preferential treatment no matter what Lambert knew right then and there that people would love a show that featured CEOs hanging out incognito to see how it felt to be one of the little people and put themselves in the shoes of their employees he pitched the idea to channel 4 and the rest is history number four superbowl hookup Undercover Boss wasn't always designed to be a smashing hit in the US and the show only got its big break when it premiered right after the Superbowl wrapped up this ended up kicking things into high gear right off the bat and it didn't take long after that for the show to be crowned the most popular show of the season people swarmed in after that but it is interesting to think about how they only achieve those numbers because people's TV sets were already tuned to the station and they simply forgot to change the channel it's a great break to have when you're just starting out and it set the stage for what the show could expect going forward number three Navy copycats even the US Navy tried to copy the premise of Undercover Boss and arrange for their own show that saw high ranked officials take low-level positions with hidden cameras watching their every move unfortunately many of the soldiers who they ended up being meshed up with already knew who their superior officers were and word got around fast that something fishy was going on they also managed to pick an older officer to play the part of an III which is a rank that is usually reserved for younger cats working their way up the ranks the junior officers and soldiers did play along however and the Navy got some great recruitment footage to help them look hip and cool the youngsters interested in joining the Armed Forces number two trouble in Pittsburgh when the mayor of Pitts joined in on the Undercover Boss excitement he quickly realized that his city needed a little extra help and that his workers were seriously underpaid he had gone on record before filming began to say that he wouldn't spend any public money on anything to do with the show but he caved and pledged one hundred and fifty five thousand dollars to the city's workers to help them out with 50 grand of that coming from an organization that was largely funded with taxpayer money that didn't go down so well so we cancelled the deal only to get in more hot water which prompted him to finally let the money go towards helping those who deserved it it was their money to begin with after all and no politician can be faulted for using taxpayer money to help out taxpayers themselves even if it was a bit of an overstep number one CEOs legal trouble one of the CEOs featured on Undercover Boss ended up getting in a lot of trouble and was the subject of a class-action lawsuit by his former students who saw the show they claimed that he was in violation of our ICO statutes and the whole thing came about because he ended up being in the spotlight when he should have been laying low they say his courses on how to flip houses were all bull but the CEO in question Armando Montelongo fired back by saying that they were all just being lazy that's big talk from a CEO who made his money by scamming people and we think he definitely overstepped his bounds in a big way

Channel: Film Focus

Views: 3,694

Rating: 4.4133334 out of 5

Keywords: entertainment, education, top 10, list, most insane, most amazing, undercover boss, undercover boss tv show, the truth of undercover boss revealed

Id: 99zVZ7ZPwIo

Length: 10min 8sec (608 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 25 2019