The CEO realized the truck loaders had a hard job and he gave all of them a raise... of $0.25 per hour... a hefty increase of $10.00 per week. I almost peed myself laughing. That's a half a tank of gas every two weeks.
ROTFLMAO. Don't spend it all in one place.
Aside from those training the CEO, the rest of the poor employees got free sports drinks for the TWO hotest months of the year... and an overhead fan.
WAY TO GO CEO Sam Taylor.
I haven't watched this episode--or any episode!--for a while now, but something I remember about it, and I know I've commented about this before, is how the CEO and his family snickered at his undercover car. It was a perfectly nice, late model, small car--something many millions of people would JUMP AT to own, if only their credit and/or finances allowed. But they snickered at it like it was a beat up, 30-year-old rent-a-wreck or something. That's always stuck with me--and not in a good way.
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http://www.CaliforniaDreamsPhotography.comshare
Good point. Perfectly acceptable, new small car but yeah, it was a laugh-fest for the family.
What really struck me is that aside from the people that "trained" CEO Sam Taylor (who, as usual, had $thousands given to them), everyone else in that literal sweatshop was screwed over. He did absolutely nothing of any consequence for any of the other 99% of his employees, whom I would suspect all harbored the same ill-will towards the company as all his trainers did and for the same reasons.
I mean a $0.25 per hour raise for the truck loaders? Why even bother? That's not even a weekly McDonald's happy meal for the other truck loader's families that CEO Sam Taylor DIDN'T work with. Oh but he bought an overhead fan, which at some temperature point does little more than move around hot air... what a guy.
I'm sure his wife and kids told him what a generous, kind boss he is. To the people Taylor worked with, I'm sure he is... but the other 99% of his employees got essentially nothing, aside from bottles of Gatorade, for the 2 hottest months of the year and a fan.
I worked in a can factory during the summers in between my college years. Menial, factory based piecework is brutally soul-sapping and mind-numbing. I'm not saying all these employees should be getting $50,000 salaries, but in a single city operation like Oriental Trading, Diamond Jim (Sam) Taylor could downscale his mansion, take a modest cut in pay, cut executive pay by 10%, combine executive job responsibilities, trim the executive deadwood and provide the proceeds to his employees if he was serious in raising morale and job satisfaction.
I'd like to see the series actually go back to particular employers and interview employees to see if anything ever changed. In this case, I bet morale is just as low in 2015 as in 2011 when the show was filmed.
[deleted]
I agree completely that minimum wage jobs are supposed to be a "starting point" for most young employees but consider this. Not everyone is necessarily cut out to attend college for any of a number of reasons. The work force needs letter carriers, doormen, janitors, cooks, maids, bellhops, waitresses, factory line workers (as I was for years while attending college)... and in this case, truck loaders.
Oriental Trading CEO Sam Taylor learned that his employees perform physically demanding jobs in a harsh environment. To "reward" his employees with a $0.25 per hour raise, Gatorade and a fan seems like he's hardly committed to improving the working conditions of his employees and thereby raising overall employee morale. That "raise" is essentially pointless and amounts to the ability to buy a candy bar after an eight hour shift. Frankly, I don't think he learned a damn thing during his stint as the "Undercover Boss".
At the end of the day, Taylor is still going home to his mansion, his pool and his BMWs and I'm fine with that. He's the boss and I'm sure he earns every penny he makes. BUT, if he REALLY wanted to improve things for his employees, he could do what I suggested above (downscale his mansion, take a modest cut in pay, cut executive pay by 10%, combine executive job responsibilities, trim the executive deadwood and provide the proceeds to his employees to improve their working conditions). That's if he was truly serious in raising morale and job satisfaction.
I just don't think he is serious about doing so, at all.
[deleted]
What are you running for the Dem nomination for president?
Let's hear about some "Democrat" business owners who are so generous and over pay their employees and underpay themselves.
No lame ass Google searches either. If so many generous business owners are Dems, you should be able to rattle off a few right off the top of your head.
[deleted]
I see you couldn't do it. You could have put me in my place but had nothing.
Today's 1% (which includes Democrats) who have continued to get rich thanks to the stock market that the left now loves disagree with you. Getting rich isn't just a Republican thing. Just like Dems were having fun getting rich flipping houses and using their homes as an ATM back in the early 2000's and didn't complain about the bubble until they stopped getting rich.
The left sure loves pointing fingers at everyone but themselves.
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Reps are for the rich and if you ain't rich, then ain't for ya!
BornToBeANovelist:
It is, of course, patently absurd to paint all republicans with the broad brush you did.
It would be just as ridiculous for me, a republican, to assert all democrats are anti-capitalist rabid socialists. I've never have done so here, or in any of my posts on IMDB, or anywhere else for that matter.
You're clearly a democrat as you are the one that brought political party adherence into the discussion with your disparagement of republicans. YOU opened that door; so let's review a bit.
Democrats always like to describe themselves as "open-minded", "tolerant" and "inclusive". How do you explain republican individuals INVITED to speak on college campuses but have had pies thrown at them as Ann Coulter, David Horowitz and Jim Gilchrist have, to name a few have? Certainly doesn't seem like "tolerance" to me.
I could provide example after example after example of the intolerance of the "tolerant" left but I suspect doing so wouldn't be worthwhile.
The democrat party used to welcome all opinions. Today, it welcomes voices only if that voice is a member of it's lockstep political choir.
Bottom line: I mentioned nothing about my political party affiliation. I reacted to the CEO and what I perceived as a wholly insufficient response to his employee's needs. YOU lodged the political disparagement. YOU assumed since I was standing with the needs of the employees I was somehow a kindred political spirit, a democrat, and YOU then "outed" your republican hate.
Its clear you dislike republicans based via your posted words here. I get that. It's obvious.
You might want to rethink things, stop drinking the democrat party Kool-Aid that insists republicans hate everyone (but the uber rich), use your brain, and realize that the majority of either party membership isn't as stupid or hateful as its hierarchy claims.
Or, of course, you can adopt the expected democrat default position of launching ad hominem attacks and name-calling.
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BornToBeANovelist:
YOU said...
"Historically and today, majority of republicans are pro-corporations."
Being "pro-corporation" seems to be somehow "BAD" in your intolerant world.
Corporations, because of capitalism, are funded and seeking cures for cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease to name just a few.
YOU said...
"To argue that republicans aren't strictly for the rich and esp. for corporations is to deny the truth."
What "truth"? YOUR "truth"? What agency "determined" this "truth" you speak of? Care to post a link to evidence supporting this allegation?
YOU said...
"I'm actually Independent NOT Democrat".
Pathetic.
This is truly the hallmark of a political COWARD proven to be unable to intellectually defend his/her political position.
Of course the next ploy used by democrat robots, like you, will be to accuse me of being “stupid” (clearly I’m not), or “intolerant” (I think I’ve proven YOU to be intolerant).
[deleted]
Claiming "I'm An Independent" is what political dolts, dullards and intellectual defectives do when the Democratic political position he/she supports comes under logical, intellectual attack, and it becomes obvious he/she is unable to rationally refute.
Historically, republicans fought for freedom for slaves, the democrats were in favor of slave ownership.
Democrats WROTE the Jim Crow laws, not republicans, lets not forget this fact.
Decades later democrat governors like George Wallace fought the U.S. government in order to deny equality to blacks.
I can provide additional recitation of "uncomfortable fact" as regards how democrats have treated African-Americans, but the response will likely be "that was back then"... as if anything has changed.
[deleted]
I'm actually Independent NOT Democrat.
You might want to rethink things, stop drinking the democrat party Kool-Aid that insists republicans hate everyone (but the uber rich), use your brain, and realize that the majority of either party membership isn't as stupid or hateful as its hierarchy claims.jet_85225, I don't want to get into a political war here, but I do want to ask that you consider what I'm about to say. *I* am a lifelong registered Democrat. With that said, go back and look at my posts [on this board and in this thread]! I've agreed with your comments and have said so. Not only that, but if you go to other boards I'm active on, such as "My 600-lb Life" and "Judge Judy," you'll see my VERY OUTSPOKEN take on lazy bums who work the system so they have everything handed to them for free. I'm probably everything you THINK Democrats are not.
http://www.CaliforniaDreamsPhotography.comshare
YOU said: "I worked HARD against Obama because I couldn't stand him. Still can't stand him. When he stole the party's nomination from its rightful owner, Clinton, I did everything I could to persuade people not to vote for him".
Please specifically describe how Obama "stole the party's nomination from it's rightful owner, Clinton".
<This is REALLY going to be amusing, especially the "rightful owner" of the nomination idiocy.
The "rightful owner" of any political party's nomination is the individual that receives, in an uncorrupt primary election, the votes needed to become that party's nominee". Grade school civics class." >