Undercover Boss

Lifting Boats Here Boss Is the series "Undercover Boss" an attempt to make GOP values appealing?

Last night we watched a Tivo'd episode of Undercover Boss- 7-Eleven, our first exposure to the series.  You can watch it online with the link.  The premise is that a "boss," in this case CEO and President of 7-Eleven, Joe DePinto, goes to work as a new employee in his own stores. His cover: he lost his job, and is building a new life.   Putting aside all my usual cynical thoughts, etc., I found it tremendously uplifting. I excerpted this clip, where trainee "Danny" rides with a 7-11 delivery truck driver named Igor, an immigrant from Uzbekistan, I believe. This guy is genuinely in love with the United States for giving him the chance to succeed.  Igor sure lifted all boats in this household.  In the end the trainers are all flown to Dallas for the reveal.  All except one, a good looking woman who had trouble getting her lights fixed.   Wonder what happened there?  I think I'll write a book about it - the one that's already ion my head. I digress. Now for the bad part, courtesy of some Obamanites, for whom the promise of America is still an enigma. Duration 1:48 “ I watched it last night, and while on the surface it's a feel-good series about the CEOs of companies (7-11 in this one) going undercover and working with the average workers and learning how hard those jobs are, I got concerned about a number of things. The CEOs are really appealing guys, deeply concerned about their employees and charmingly incapable of doing the mopping up while the generally noble (one woman was working between dialysis sessions, for Christ's sake) employees teach them about how hard it is out there for a working person. There was a long exchange with an immigrant about how America's the land of opportunity, how "only in America" could a guy with only 50 dollars become a truck driver working the third shift delivering deli food to stores, etc. Eventually the reveal happened, everyone felt good and the employees got the adult equivalent of a pony--well, to be fair, they got some help in job advancement. But it felt like an ad for how great the CEOs of corporations treat their people, how as soon as they know there's something wrong they leap in to fix it, how much they truly are emotionally invested in the well being of their employees rather than profit. ”