Undercover Reality

                   Now a days it is hard to tell how much of reality TV is actually reality and what is just exaggerated for Now a days it is hard to tell how much of reality TV is actually reality and what is exaggerated for views. Undercover Boss is where a CEO of a large company goes undercover to see how the company is working and if the employs and are happy. The CEO creates an identity so no one can recognize him or her and then travels to different locations of their company, tries out different jobs and, talks to some of the employs to see what is going good and what can be improved. Then the CEO invites the employs that they worked closely with to the company’s headquarters to talk about what is being done wrong in the company and discusses how to fix it, or they are given something personal like a paid vacation or a donation in their name. Out of all the reality shows out there Undercover Boss is one that is more reality then fiction.

 

            First, Undercover Boss uses red herring to mislead everyone in the show to believe that the CEO is someone who they are not. The CEO of Hooters, Coby Brooks shaves his face and stays in a motel that someone doing a documentary on entry level position would stay in. Coby Brooks also makes up a new name and back story. He does this so no one can recognize him and won’t act any different around him because he is the big boss. He makes up a back story about himself so he can share things about himself to help others open up about themselves and their lives. The audience doesn’t see all of the footage shot so it is possible that some of the people recognize the CEO or they know all along and act as if they don’t. In some episodes the boss is recognized and other times the CEO has to walk in and talk to people that will recognize him and tell them to keep their identity a secret. But, the people on the show act as if they have no idea who they are really talking to “This season, producers encouraged the bosses to come up with a character they wanted to play, as opposed to pushing disguises on them.” (Morabito, 58). We see the CEO trying to connect with people at the bottom of their company in order to improve everyone’s enjoyment of their job.     

  

          Secondly, in Undercover Boss we see the CEOs try to perform entry level jobs within their own company. We see the CEO of 7-eleven, Joe DePinto mess up changing coffee filters, mixing coffee ruining the whole pot and, getting in the way of customer. Half way through the time he works, there was a rush of customers coming in and he was thrown in with very little assistance. We saw the CEO struggle dealing with all of the customers, staying out of their way while also trying to make sure that everything was stocked. We saw that the CEO was working hard and trying to get done what he is told while also making sure that the customers have everything that they need. We normally see the CEO fail a lot while not complete the work they are given for the day and another employ has to finish up what they do so it can get done on time. However, it is the CEOs first day working an entry level poisons in a long time so they probably forget a lot of those skills “I did a half-day of training and got my license to drive a forklift in one of our food warehouses…”  Well, what I learned is that it's very hard to do (Aguirre). We saw that there are a lot of screw ups on the CEOs first day in their position but they try and see where it went wrong and how to fix it for the future.

           

        Thirdly, the show Undercover Boss uses staged elements as to add something to the show to give it some drama. With the people that the CEO shadows they always have an issue that needs to be solved either in their personal life or at work. The issues could be that they never see their spouse, that they feel that there’s no room to grow within the company, or that they have a serious medical issue that needs to be taken care of but can’t do it themselves. From what we see they are hardworking employees and it is impossible for us to really know if they have the problems that they claim to have. It is hard to know if the person really has the problem that they claim to have or if they are so posed to say that for emotional reaction” It is highly likely that the producers selected segments that highlighted positive and negative employee role models”(Cumberland and Alagaraja 271-269). The people that show the CEO what to do always have grievance with something in their work or personal life that needs to be fixed.

          

          Fourthly, there is interviewing that happens all throughout the episode and it provides context of what is currently happening. Through an episode there will be an interview with someone on the show currently and in doing so we will learn how the person on the show feels about a subject or another person. We learn how Larry O’Donnell, CEO of Waste Management feels about picking up trash from an open field and how much manual labor it is. Through doing this we find out how they feel about a certain subject and how it effects them. The interviewing goes on after they have already completed their task or after the day is done so how they feel at the time of doing the work could be different then how they feel after completing the work. However how they won’t forget about how they feel about a certain person or job so quickly. Interviewing is an important part of the show and shows us the true feelings of the people being interviewed.

            

         In Conclusion there are many important parts of a reality show that are meant to enhance the viewers understanding and enjoyment. The use red herrings in order to trick people in the low level part of the company have a more realistic moments. They show the CEO screw up to make it look like he’s doing a bad job most of the time to show they make mistakes too. The use of staged elements it to keep us entertained by showing us what goes on behind the scenes of a company that most of us know about.  Interviewing is meant to keep us informed about how they really feel about a subject. Undercover Boss uses many different techniques in order to keep the viewers entertained.  

Work Cited

Cumberland, Denise. Alagaraja, Meera. “No Place Like the Frontline: A Qualitative Study on What Participant CEOs Learned From Undercover Boss”. Human Rescores Development Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 2, 26 February 2016, pp. 271-269, http://ux8qz8ge6t.search.serialssolutions.com/?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.jtitle=Human%20Resource%20Development%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=Human%20Resource%20Development%20Quarterly&rft.atitle=No%20Place%20Like%20the%20Frontline%3A%20A%20Qualitative%20Study%20on%20What%20Participant%20CEOs%20Learned%20From%20Undercover%20Boss%0A&rft.volume=27&rft.issue=2&rft.spage=271&rft.epage=296&rft.date=2016-06-01&rft.aulast=Cumberland&rft.aufirst=Denise%20M.&rft.issn=1044-8004&rft.eissn=1532-1096&rfr_id=info:sid/wiley.com:OnlineLibrary

“Secrets of an Undercover boss”. Fortune, vol. 162, no. 5, 27, September 2010, pp. 14-44, http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?sid=eedca3d2-d29d-42bb-8fa6-419935be0456%40sessionmgr4006&vid=0&hid=4212&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=53739792&db=bth

Morabito, Andrea. “YOU GO, BOSS Another season of 'Undercover' CEOs on CBS.” LexisNexis Academic, 21, December 2016, pp. 58, http://ux8qz8ge6t.search.serialssolutions.com/?sid=EBSCO:InfoTrac%20Newsstand&genre=article&title=New%20York%20Post%20(New%20York,%20NY)&atitle=YOU%20GO,%20BOSS%20Another%20season%20of%20\%27Undercover\%27%20CEOs%20on%20CBS&aulast=&volume=&issue=&spage=&pages=&issn=10903321&isbn=&Date=2016-12-21