Reality television may provide the reality check that motivates bosses to improve their automotive service facilities.
Watching "Undercover Boss," on CBS, may spur tire dealers and service shop operators to acknowledge and then rectify problems plaguing their businesses.
"Undercover Boss" cleverly operates one reality show inside another. The program's premise begins with a top executive — usually a president or CEO — who wants to evaluate the company's performance firsthand. To do this, executives physically disguise themselves, assume new identities and perform jobs inside their own companies.
The undercover executive masquerades as an aspiring business person competing in a reality show. Supposedly, they win the show's prize — money to start their own business — by doing their assigned tasks properly.
Part of the reality show ruse is a camera crew that shadows undercover bosses, documenting their sometimes-frightful, sometimes-comic exploits on the job.
Some folks enjoy the show for simple, non-business reasons. For example, they want to see the lengths to which executives go to disguise themselves successfully.
They also want to see if the disguise survives each task the undercover boss must attempt on the job. After all, some of these are arduous chores.
For instance, these bosses may find themselves loading trucks, stocking shelves, taking inventory and learning to operate forklifts. They may toil inside sweltering, suffocating warehouses or workshops.
Sometimes tasks take them high above the ground working on a communications tower or repairing a giant billboard.
In other episodes, the boss washes dishes, preps food or operates the cash register in busy fast-food eateries.