Channel 4 this week. Followed Hyundai UK MD as he explored his empire. Wonder they get to sell any cars at all. He seemed particularly clueless.
www.channel4.com/programmes/undercover-boss/4od
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Have been trying to watch this all week but have not been able to find it on 4od, looks like it has only just been added. I will watch it when I come back from Weatherfield.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Wed 17 Jul 13 at 19:15
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>> Channel 4 this week. Followed Hyundai UK MD as he explored his empire. Wonder they
>> get to sell any cars at all. He seemed particularly clueless.
Nothing there I haven't seen 1st hand.
The higher up management you go, the less they understand the needs of the business.
Training courses are often little more than box ticking exercises, one I went on recently was around 2 years out of date, the systems have moved on, the course hasn't, and in fact I taught the lecturer a few things they didn't know about the systems.....
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The time to do the new service valet struck me as ridiculous. The manager bloke said he washed his own car (as most people do) yet he was one of a bunch of people who sat around a table and decided 15 mins was fine when they must have realised it wasn't.
People have probably been sacked for either not hitting the time or not doing a good enough job.
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A large number of the labour time allowances were and probably still are utterly bonkers.
The time assumes that you are well practised and have the job off to a tee. For common jobs, like sevices, brakes, OK, but as soon as you get a non-standard job in, it's a real struggle to even hit the labour time, never mind make any bonus.
So, a full service and brakes on a Nova meant that I would earn the best part over an hour's bonus.
A really unusual job like fitting new gearbox bearings for a Bedford Midi would mean I would lose my hour's bonus and more by going over the labour time (working out how to do the job, finding and blowing the dust off the special tools, reading the workshop instructions, getting the extra parts and gaskets I would need from the stores, working out which tools will give me best access...)
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Setting a *rigid* time for a particular activity shows a lack of skill, understanding, strategy and capability on the part of the Management as a whole.
Guideline times have a value, but only if used properly. It sounds like this bunch had neither the wit nor the awareness.
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Watched a snippet where the MD found the "man on the gate" / working out of an old container was a AGENCY TEMP - who struck me as competent but worried about his job security.
Man in charge of the gate - £50 million stock, worked by paper and pencil and they have cars going missing....maybe only misplaced but a car can go amiss with lax security. Should of course be bar coded and tracked movements and parking places again being barcoded with drivers carrying the barcode guns you see in Tesco/Asda Etc.
I'd have a retired Policeman/Prison Officer who took early retirement at an office at compound exit - anything fishy they lose their Pension from the Police etc - costs you more than an Agency Temp but any losses on stock, even a per cent per year on £50m is megabucks.
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Whilst the format of the programme is very watchable, I find it a bit, oh I don't know, annoying perhaps, that the people who get picked to appear always get some ridiculous award at the end.
The boss unveils himself and says, oh you had such a sob story I'll fly you to see your parents, I'll pay for a holiday, I'll give you a promotion. Ideally that results in a few tears and a massive zoom in on their sobs.
That seems very unfair on all their colleagues who didn't get to work with the boss for a couple of hours one morning.
I guess it's just a lottery.
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>> Watched a snippet where the MD found the "man on the gate" / working out
>> of an old container was a AGENCY TEMP - who struck me as competent but
>> worried about his job security.
>>
I didn't think there was much in the way of job security guaranteed to that guy - it was all a bit meally-mouthed. Let's face it, firms more and more want to use agency staff. I'm quite surprised the whole operation wasn't contracted out.
>> I'd have a retired Policeman/Prison Officer who took early retirement at an office at compound
>> exit - anything fishy they lose their Pension from the Police etc -
>>
I don't think that applies once they've left, and they only lose it while in service if the offence is very serious, it's not routine by any means.
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The original Series' were very, very good - they've become rather hackneyed now - and attempt to play on the viewers' emotions - still enjoy them. The American ones are far more cheesy..."This is Hank, despite living in a shoe with 48 children and having no arms or legs, works 25 hours a day and actually pays to be there" you get the picture.
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Enjoyed this episode. The last dealership they visited used to be my local. Family owned outfit in a nice area that used to be a rover dealership 40+ years back. Some of the staff there now were there under the rover banner so I was surprised by the negativity, but my only interaction with them has been through the sales team. Quite well regarded locally, and a good flow of OAP's who just switched from Rover to Hyundai and will go in for a new i10 every couple of years paying list price.
They operated as an independent rover specialist for a bit and bought my 218 vvc coupe from me. Gave me a good price with no more than a brief walk around.
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Godfathers I want to see the one with Hank. Not laughed so much all day. The shoe is brilliant.
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I seem to remember a police helicopter pilot loose his entire pension for a driving offence, driving through a road corrdoned off as road works or some such. Didnt seem particularly fair, equitable, or proportional.
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Wasnt the hyundai guy the finance director? as the MD and Chairmen were too well known?
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Programs like this make me plain cross now. Looks like a great concept (and it is) but everything is so predicable.
Was a junior sales girl with no training really picked out of no-where to be filmed on national TV, no matter what the channel / program would ultimately be? Really? Would you not stick a trained experienced person to deal with someone trying a different career path, rather than a junior?
Would the sales manager really not have stepped in to help if she was clearly floundering? Instead we see him flouncing his arms in sight of both cameras and the 'customer'. There is better acting on the other side to be honest.
The 15 minute to clean a car bit got me too. Local VW dealer here has 3 guys permanently cleaning cars. 15 mins for a team of guys would do it. Local 'hand car wash' to me does pretty much everything on that not unrealistic list in 15 mins or less. Are they seriously telling all of us they have just one guy for cleaning all the cars at the dealer? I assume he is also never ill and never takes a holiday.
The portakabin bit had me asking of there was also a nearby office with facilities and a toilet, and whether the shipping container itself was genuinely 'it' as far as the working environment went. Something did just not sit quite right.
Conveniently most staff chosen to be filmed have some issue in their lives that the guy at the final reckoning could improve, but even cynical old me got it wrong in thinking that the chap who was on a weekly contract would have been employed full time instead of having just a longer contract offered. No wonder he was nearly in tears....
Such TV drives me to crackers in that every break (or even the start of the program, sheesh!) is prefaced with a "coming-up" section that pretty much tells you every thing apart of trying to give some sort of cliff-hanger that is not actually borne out 10 minutes later.
Members of staff like those two mechanics are bright enough to know that if the same film company goes in your taxi to HQ as filmed you with a complete 'stranger' some weeks before that there is a program like this behind it, so having them saying that they have no idea why they are going to HQ stretches my credulity to breaking point.
Am I too cynical? Am I actually wrong and all this is completely un-prepared? .
Argh!!!!!!!.
Rant over / spleen vented.
p.s: I will probably still watch the next one, and also 'secret millionaire', etc, but now I only seem to rant about the program rather than genuinely enjoying it which I used to do. What has changed?
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>> Am I too cynical? Am I actually wrong and all this is completely un-prepared? .
>>
>> Argh!!!!!!!.
>>
>> Rant over / spleen vented.
>>
>> p.s: I will probably still watch the next one, and also 'secret millionaire', etc, but
>> now I only seem to rant about the program rather than genuinely enjoying it which
>> I used to do. What has changed?
>>
It is entertainment, you are not supposed to believe any of it. :-)
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Yesterday's episode (Southwark Council) was devoid of any cheesy back-stories and showed a more pragmatic approach to rewarding hard work etc. Maybe Public Service is the new Private Sector..?
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Undercover Boss. - RattleandSmoke
