Undercover Boss Episode 5

I watched UB episode 5 last night. All in all, it was a pretty good episode. Since the format of the show does not deviate much, it comes down to how interesting and engaging is the CEO.

This episode featured one of the youngest CEOs in America, a hyper workaholic who started his first company in his teens and has zero work/life balance (much to the dismay of his wife and 3 year old daughter).

The company is called GSI and they handle the online sales for large websites (NFL, NBA, etc). They have 5,000 employees.

While the usual characters were present (the upbeat, hardworking minority, the gruff but loveable lady, and the young diamond in the rough) the show was pretty good. I think it really was an eye-opening experience for this CEO both in terms of how difficult working in a fast paced warehouse could be and also how tough the lives of his employees were.

In this episode, there is one "bad" employee. She worked in the "escalation" call center. The place where customer service calls are directed when the customer is not happy. On one hand, the employee was terrible. She spoke down to the customer and was sarcastic. On the other hand, it appeared that what the customer wanted wasn't an option she could actually have. At the end of the episode, this employee is sent back for retraining but then is said to be "no longer with the company."

So its more of the same. On one hand its a fun show to watch. On the other hand, its frustrating that workplace issues are handled with such a sugary sweet, happy endings for all manner.

As we all know, sometimes the workplace bully wins and sometimes there are real morale issues that aren't simply solved by a few days in the trenches with the grunts.

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