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Undercover Boss exposed

A CEO in disguise for Undercover Boss was recently recognised by one of his employees.

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If your supervisor tells you to go along with a television crew filming a new employee for a documentary, you’d have to be pretty stupid not to wonder if Undercover Boss was on your doorstep.

Since the series has become public, how on earth will they keep their smokescreen?

In the US they recently had their first (apparently) exposure by an employee, when a waitress on the cruise ship Norwegian Epic screamed his name.

“To be honest, I don’t know how she did it,” said Kevin Sheehan, who had spent a couple of weeks growing a beard, worn big, clunky prescription glasses and cap.

“We effectively brought her undercover” as well, he says. “From what I understand, it was the first time there’s been such a blatant discovery on the show.”

A second series of Undercover Boss Australia is also coming this year, which will no doubt face similar problems in keeping its secrets since the first local season has done so well for TEN. Keep your eyes peeled, people!

Source: Newsday

10 Responses

  1. @Scott I would have to agree I would like to see if any changes/improvements have been implemented as a result. @Kaz the premise is a great idea and like you CEO’s high level managment should do this are a regular part of their role.

    I didn’t see every ep but caught most and I think only 1 person was fired, it may have been one of the first ep of the US version were a call centre employee was rude and impatiant she was offered further training (as this was a gap found as result that staff didn’t have enough training )but she “left” about a month later. A couple of the CEO’s were fired though which was funny.

  3. Maybe they should film a follow up three months after with the employees that were helped and a general look at the company to see if they have implemented any of the changes they have talked about and to see if the “gifts” the employees received really have bettered their lives.

  4. I agree with everyone else. It starts to lose its sincerity if every episode happens to have some needy employee. I say “starts to” but it never really had any IMO. Smacks of PR to me.

  5. @ Dave – nice to hear that this game is played across the country. We took ours a step further by also guessing what they would receive at the end:

    a) College tuition
    b) A holiday up the road
    c) A new car

    As you can imagine, such a game did have the potential to cross the line, I won’t say anymore 😉

  7. This is going to be an ongoing problem, as employees are not going to swallow the “rookie being filmed for a TV show” ruse anymore, given the show was so successful. Honestly, I don’t see how they are going to set it up for a second series, I don’t see how it will work.

    @Kaz, I agree with you. I love the premise of the show as well, but the fact that every single last employee highlighted had a sob story/major life problem/living on struggle street issue became incredibly grating. I was dying for them to show an employee who was married, boring, normal, white picket fence, 2.3 kids, dog,etc.

  8. I would presume this happens a lot more often than they let on. I worked for Norwegian Cruise Lines years ago, and the CEO’s picture was plastered everywhere!
    My biggest problem with the show is how calculated it is in regards to which employees they meet/work with. Every employee has had a tragedy in their lives, or a very difficult upbringing etc. I know it’s part of the ‘story’, but it starts to grate a bit after a while.
    The other major inherent problem is that people’s behaviour changes instantly when they are put in front of a camera, regardless of what story they are given for it’s presence.
    I love the premise for the show, and I think it would be a great idea for more CEO’s to actually spend time in the workplace and experience what their employees deal with every day.

  10. How about they Show them getting caught out?

    After the first ep from the Australian series aired, the 7PM Project had the ‘undercover boss’ (who I believe was head of Dominos) for an interview. He mentioned that he did, in fact, get caught out by some people.

    It would make more interesting television if they show this aswell as their current ‘plots’. Otherwise, the show will get out-dated. Fast.

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