Can't help thinking this is an incredibly cheap way for a company to get the best part of an hour's worth of advertising on TV. Good PR too, and showing yourself as an enlightened employer with the best interests of your employees at heart - priceless. And if you work in a company where crap management and crap pay are issues.... well, you're calling out three or four employees and being seen on TV to reward those three or four people with a free holiday, a few thousand in bonus, or a few thousand in compensation in kind. That's like, in total, paying a hundred thousand or so you'e already budgeted for a TV advert slot with possibly better results. And still a lot cheaper than addressing the real problem - giving all your employees a decent pay rise or, for Americans, decent healthcare! A few cosmetic tweaks done in public on TV....
A boss in the British version of the show was a lot more candid. He called in the star employee at the end and said "I know the problem is low pay for all employees, but I frankly can't afford to do anything about that. It's the nature of the game. you've got to put up with it." The employee, in turn, was utterly underwhelmed by the generous offer his boss made to him - his face said "big fat fucking deal". with none of the tears or surprise or joy of the American wage slaves. Maybe this is why British TV doesn't do this show any more - our bosses are too frank about the difficult issues the American version seems to want to sidestep, and the workers too cynical?
Also.. for a show allegedly filmed on the fly with hidden cameras... a lot of it looks "reconstructed" somehow, as if real life has been scripted to neatly fit the show and they've gone through more than one take. Why do I suspect some bits were reconstructed using actors and actresses? Take somebody fired for bad behaviour like that fitness trainer or the bloke in the "waitresses-with-tight-shirts-and-big-tits" bar. Would they consent to film of them appearing in the final show later, behaving badly in a job they were sacked from? I'm betting they were replaced with actors and their bad behaviour rescripted....
Hmmm..
Can't help thinking this is an incredibly cheap way for a company to get the best part of an hour's worth of advertising on TV. Good PR too, and showing yourself as an enlightened employer with the best interests of your employees at heart - priceless. And if you work in a company where crap management and crap pay are issues.... well, you're calling out three or four employees and being seen on TV to reward those three or four people with a free holiday, a few thousand in bonus, or a few thousand in compensation in kind. That's like, in total, paying a hundred thousand or so you'e already budgeted for a TV advert slot with possibly better results. And still a lot cheaper than addressing the real problem - giving all your employees a decent pay rise or, for Americans, decent healthcare! A few cosmetic tweaks done in public on TV....
A boss in the British version of the show was a lot more candid. He called in the star employee at the end and said "I know the problem is low pay for all employees, but I frankly can't afford to do anything about that. It's the nature of the game. you've got to put up with it." The employee, in turn, was utterly underwhelmed by the generous offer his boss made to him - his face said "big fat fucking deal". with none of the tears or surprise or joy of the American wage slaves. Maybe this is why British TV doesn't do this show any more - our bosses are too frank about the difficult issues the American version seems to want to sidestep, and the workers too cynical?
Also.. for a show allegedly filmed on the fly with hidden cameras... a lot of it looks "reconstructed" somehow, as if real life has been scripted to neatly fit the show and they've gone through more than one take. Why do I suspect some bits were reconstructed using actors and actresses? Take somebody fired for bad behaviour like that fitness trainer or the bloke in the "waitresses-with-tight-shirts-and-big-tits" bar. Would they consent to film of them appearing in the final show later, behaving badly in a job they were sacked from? I'm betting they were replaced with actors and their bad behaviour rescripted....