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Hardworking Americans losing their jobs or not sharing in the new business model of nationalizing risks and privatizing profits, blame wealthy, out-of-touch CEOs, who don’t seem to know what’s going on in their own companies.
What exactly do they do to earn their handsome compensation?
“Undercover Boss,” created by Stephen Lambert, affirms the American dream even while highlighting the disconnect between the invisible front lines and the ivory towers out of which flow corporate directives.
This new show airing Sundays on CBS offers ample evidence why the country’s giant workplaces are so screwed up.
Yet it also displays a human side of anonymous CEOs of household name companies who have families and feelings and aren’t the bad guys we suspect.
It’s complicated, but should it take a reality show about reality to make them curious about the fallout from policies they impose?
Each week the boss of a major corporation goes undercover – Waste Management (Feb. 7), Hoooters (Feb. 14, 7 Eleven (Feb. 21).
Larry O’Donnell heads North America’s largest trash and recycling company, Waste Management, but he obviously didn’t work his way up through the ranks, since he’s about as effective as Paris Hilton at entry-level jobs. This $13 billion business has 45,000 employees serving 20 million customers.
O’Donnell for a week trades in his executive office and expense account for a hard hat and sack lunch posing on the front line as Randy Lawrence, a construction worker being followed by a film crew for a show about trying out entry-level jobs.
Walter “is the only person who has ever fired me in my whole career,” O’Donnell laments of failing to fill a trash bag with blowing paper every 10 minutes. He meets exploited unsung heroes who make his company go and has emotional experiences riding on the back of a garbage truck.
O’Donnell routinely sends out targets and cost-cutting goals. For TV, he’s willing to see “if they’re realistic on the ground. I may be able to revolutionize some of our processes, which could make us more efficient and mean saving jobs.”
O’Donnell first tries a recycling facility in Syracuse, N.Y., where Sandy outfits him with sleeves which protect against needles in the waste stream sailing past. He can’t keep up with sorting out cardboard and recyclables. He learns that Kevin docks Sandy and her co-workers two minutes for every minute they clock in late after a 30-minute lunch.
“I’m going to sleep well tonight,” he said. “I had no idea this job was going to be so physically demanding and mentally exhausting. My back is hurting lke you wouldn’t believe.”
He’s not sure he’ll feel up to his second location the following day at Walter’s landfill in Pompano Beach, Fla., after four fitful hours of sleep.
O’Donnell unnerves Walter asking a bunch of questions.
“It’s not rocket science to come out here and pick paper up.”
Larry learns Walter has been on kidney dialysis for 19 years.
“My spirit tells my body what’s going to happen. If I let the body tell me, I’m not going to do very much. When I see a perfectly healthy person dragging around, and I can go out there and work circles around them, that pisses me off,” says Walter before firing his boss. If he can fill two bags in 10 minutes, he expects employee to do three. “You just don’t have it.”
When Walter learns the truth, “You clean up good.”
O’Donnell next reports to the Fairport landfill in upstate New York, where he encounters Jaclyn, the sneakered “hub of the wheel” who is “always running” to keep up with a variety of job titles. Office manager. Administrative assistant to Jeff. Scale operator. Scale supervisor. Payroll. Accounts payable. Accounts receivable. Mailroom.
“I never do one thing at a time,” she warns him, yet “I make the same amount of money” for the “quadruple roles” that have been piled on her. “I’m alive. That’s the most important thing,” said Jaclyn who had a hysterectomy by 21 and has battled five forms of cancer. “I’m not that average 29-year-old girl. Someday I’m going to run this place.”
“I don’t doubt it. I don’t know how she keeps up with it all,” he says. “The phone’s ringing while she’s trying to enter stuff into the computer. That is taking multi-tasking to a whole new level.”
She invites Larry over for dinner to meet her extended family, including her father and sister, under her roof. They moved in five years ago, but the house got reassessed, taxes “went through the moon” and her “dream home” is up for sale.
“I don’t work as hard as a I work to give it up.”
Larry breaks cover to contact Jeff about this overworked, underpaid employee “doing the jobs of a bunch of people. I’d like to try to help her. I’d like to watch her career and see her move along in the organization.”
Larry lands at the carnival in Houston, Texas, where Gilbert assigns him to clean toilets with Fred, a 10-year veteran.
“We’re like hunters. We see our prey. We creep up on it. It’s an adventure. Good soldiers endure. Even if you get a little splatter on you, you’re wounded, but you keep going.”
“He takes a nasty job and turns it into something fun. This is a tough job,” O’Donnell says. “There’s a lot more to it than I thought” with productivity pressure to finish 15 stalls an hour.
Fred sees potential in his boss.
“I definitely think he has a future here.”
For his final task, O’Donnell accompanies Janice on a 300-house Rochester, N.Y., trash collection route, “the public face of the company.”
Her direct supervisors ride around in white pickup trucks, spying on her. Driving a garbage truck is not female-friendly, as she must relieve herself in a can to adhere to productivity targets set by “corporate,” which is Larry.
“I feel like a male chauvinist. I never thought about it.” Her customers want to visit, but she isn’t allotted time. “I’m going to remember this day forever,” Janice says. “This is awesome.”
His seven-day journey ended, “I’m going to approach the whole way I do my job differently. I don’t want to be doing things that are going to cause disruption,” he says. “The things I’ve learned could change the way we do business forever … and make things better for our front-line employees.”
“It means a lot,” says Walter, who is now a health mentor motivating the entire company. “Most people in that position that high, you never see them. They won’t take the time out to come down to see what you do or even say hello.”
O’Donnell makes Jaclyn a salaried supervisor. She hires two people to replace herself at the landfill and is now a customer account manager. She also became bonus eligible, “which is going to result in a pretty nice pay increase for you.” She and her family keep their dream home.
“All my hard work has been noticed,” Jaclyn said.
“I’m going to be a different manager,” O’Donnell says, “because now I have a whole new appreciation of the impact my decisions can have on you folks.”
Next we follow Coby Brooks, president and CEO of Hooters of America, an Atlanta-based billion-dollar business with almost 500 restaurants in 27 countries built on wings, beer and beautiful women.
He swaps his corporate jet and limousines for a tight T-shirt and a new identity as Scott Archer. He is alarmed by the management style of Jimbo, who treats the Arlington wait staff as prima donna bimbos, deciding who leaves early with bean-eating contests.
“I want to pull him by the ears,” but he also meets a good manager, Marcee, in Fort Worth. She has two daughters, ages 5 and 4, and has been with Hooters since 1999. “Marcee respects her girls and the girls respect her. She seems to have a lot better relationship with her crew than Jimbo.”
Hooters originated in 1983 in Clearwater, Fla. Brooks’ father developed the concept of six original partners and ended up with worldwide franchising rights.
Coby had a contentious relationship with his dad, who made him president at 34 without consulting him. Coby, who still lives in his dad’s large shadow, saw his future in law enforcement. His brother perished in a corporate plane crash in 1993.
The well-traveled CEO married his high school sweetheart, but it didn’t last. They had three children, including two daughters.
Brooks reinforces his suspicion that the chain’s name is its biggest weakness as well as a strength because many believe the skimpy uniforms degrade women, such as those he encounters on the street while giving away boneless wings as a sales promotion with Amanda and Brittney.
Brooks reports to the Dallas store that is Hooters’ largest at 15,000 square feet. He hasn’t worked in the kitchen in 20 years.
Dave, a former police officer and Marine, seems bemused by the “cannon fodder” he has been sent. “They let you work this slow in construction?”
Brooks donates $50,000 to the military charity Operation Homefront in Dave’s name. He sends Marcee’s family on a vacation to rejuvenate her. Jimbo is called out for his “inappropriate” disrespectful management style and apologizes to his staff. “I took a step back,” Jimbo says. “I get it. I’ll make it happen.”
Coby visits Naturally Fresh in Atlanta which produces Hooters’ sauces and salad dressings. Morale used to be higher, he and Patti agree. He hasn’t been in the plant since he was a teen.
“It hurt” to hear Ricky talk about Brooks’ son taking over and everything seeming to fall apart. “What I hear mostly is they don’t see you and they don’t feel the family presence,” Patti informs him. “Even walking the floor would go a long way to reassure them they’re still in good hands and in the Brooks family.” Patti agrees “that would mean a lot.”
“It’s been an absolutely riveting, emotional seven days for me,” Brooks tells his company. “I learned that if it wasn’t for each and every one of you, I wouldn’t be here. This company is great, but we’re going to make it better. We’re going to work on time management to help out single moms and single dads. We’re going to start a new marketing campaign to show the world what a Hooters girl is. Doctors, lawyers and movie stars have worked for us and gone on to do great, amazing things. I don’t know if I even knew why I did my job before.”
Feb. 21 we meet West Point graduate Joe DePinto, CEO and president of 7 Eleven, who is inspired by a delivery driver living the American dream and disheartened that a policy to channel leftover food to charities is being ignored, doughnuts discarded.
His convenience store empire spans five continents.
DePinto, “the sultan of the Slurpee,” swaps his personal putting green for a mop and a pot of coffee as “Danny Rossi,” formerly in real estate. He is the son of a Chicago blue-collar worker. His first job, at 13, was delivering newspapers.
Headquartered in Dallas, 7 Eleven has more than 36,000 stores open around the clock every day of the year to do $17 billion in business.
“This will change the way I work every day as CEO in our company,” he pledges. “The brand is 82 years old. We use a franchise model whereby we partner with independent operators who distribute our products. We support them with our staff back in Dallas. There are roughly 200,000 associates who operate 7 Eleven.” He and Ingrid have four sons.
DePinto starts at the New York store that is the “epicenter” of coffee sales that total 1 million cups a day storewide.
He tries to keep up with Dolores, whose store alone sells more than 2,500 cups. She’s “the secret.” She knows all the customers personally and they like to patronize her after 18 years.
Next, he pairs up with Phil, an eight-year employee in the Baltimore bakery. 7 Eleven turns out 60 million pastries a year.
In Medford, N.Y., he shadows store clerks who work the night shift. Waqas observes, “Mr. Danny seems like a nice guy, but he wasn’t working very hard.”
Waqas, from Pakistan, is a four-year employee putting himself through college. DePinto is disheartened to hear Waqas considers it a dead-end job with no future.
DePinto visits Lorie at one of the highest-grossing stores in his system and washes windows. His other duties were keeping hot food items fresh, sweeping floors and stocking shelves.
She directs him to make a maintenance call for four lights on the sales floor that have been out for weeks, which is a safety issue in the back room. When the support center assigns him a low-priority five, Joe intercedes.
Finally, DePinto rides with Igor, whose truck stops in South Lake, where he lives and nearly blows his cover until he ducks in the bathroom.
“America is the best country in the world,” says Igor, who only sees his wife on weekends. “You guys do just not really know how blessed you are.”
A member of his management team asks, “What did you learn undercover that you couldn’t have learned as Joe DePinto, CEO?”
“Going undercover tells me we have more work to do,” he responds. “We have a program where we give away sandwiches and bakery items to charities, but in the store I was in we threw those products away. We’ve got these great programs, but they haven’t reached the stores.
“Every single employee I met was amazing. It was an opportunity for me to step out of the role of CEO and work alongside employees in our business. I have a lot more to learn.”
Dolores, who needs a kidney, saw her employer donate $150,000 to a foundation in her honor. Waqas becomes responsible for 10 franchises. DePinto offers to personally mentor Waqas.
“He cares about me and that makes me more confident I will be successful in my life.”
Phil picked up his slack. His artistic ability is channeled into freelance work for the marketing department. “I almost started crying.” Igor is “speechless” at being rewarded with a vacation.
Joe gave Igor a franchise so now he’s his own boss.
“Only in America,” to quote Igor.
John Eby is Daily News managing editor. E-mail him at john.eby @leaderpub.com.