'Undercover Boss' works the post-Super Bowl shift

The boss does not always know best.

Most workers could tell you that, but so few top bosses would be willing to prove it publicly. Rarely could such a social experiment, translated into a reality show, be more public than CBS' compelling "Undercover Boss," premiering Sunday after the Super Bowl.

The one-hour show has a documentary feel. Cameras are not hidden. Producers tell workers that the boss, using an alias, is trying entry-level jobs and being filmed for a documentary. People have become so accustomed to the chronicling of mundane moments for reality shows, no one seems taken aback.

Instead, workers are uniformly welcoming and helpful.

This show, perhaps necessarily, is based on a lie, with the boss pretending to be someone else. Not that reality shows are beacons of honesty and logic, but this, at least judging by the pilot, does some good.

"We are being a little economical with the truth," executive producer Stephen Lambert says. "It works very well with the view on this, particularly if it is done in a good spirit. We are not trying to catch people out; essentially, the boss is trying to make the company better and find the unsung heroes of the business and say thank you to them. In every single episode, none of the co-workers has had any problem when the boss explains because they immediately understand the intent was not to trick them."

Larry O'Donnell, chief operating officer of Waste Management, a $13-billion-a-year business with 45,000 employees and 20 million customers, is an affable guy.

The workers toil at jobs no one dreams about. They vacuum out portable toilets, sort recyclables and pick up trash. Those shown do so with grace and humor, including Walter, who, though he's on dialysis three times a week, is far speedier at picking up trash than O'Donnell. Walter fires O'Donnell.

O'Donnell travels around the country, staying in budget hotels and working different jobs.

Impressed with employees' work ethic and touched by how they take a stranger into their lives, he finishes his one-week stint a changed man.

One of the great results from O'Donnell's time among the rank and file is that he sees corporate policies misconstrued. While on lunch break, the camera catches a woman racing to the time clock, frantic that she might clock in a minute late and be docked two minutes. That punitive measure is later corrected.

Another woman juggles several jobs and keeps her family together, though she's about to lose her house. O'Donnell ensures she's promoted, earning a raise.

When O'Donnell works on a garbage truck, he discovers that the female driver must relieve herself in a tin can. This truck driver takes the time to listen to a developmentally disabled woman on her route, yet by doing so she could get in trouble because she's not strictly on schedule.

"I learned a lot spending that day with Janice," O'Donnell says of the driver. "I put her on a team to help understand a number of things about how to make the company a lot more female-friendly, especially in that line of the business. I felt like a total male chauvinist in that I had never even thought of it. We made arrangements where she could stop along the route."

Next Sunday's episode features the president of Hooters, and on Feb. 21, 7-Eleven CEO Joe De Pinto goes undercover at a store in Shirley.

"I was very keen to do a program about the workplace because so many scripted shows are set in the workplace," Lambert says, "but very little in unscripted reality is done in the workplace."

TOUCHDOWNS AND FUMBLES AFTER THE SUPER BOWL

By Andy Edelstein, andy.edelstein@newsday.com

'Undercover Boss" is this year's entrant in what is considered one of broadcast TV's plum time slots - immediately following the Super Bowl. Airing an unfamiliar show as the Super Bowl lead-out (as they say in the TV biz) is a throwback of sorts. Since 1999, the networks have played it safe, preferring to put on new episodes of well-established series (like last year's one-hour "Office").

You can't blame the networks for being more conservative. The strategy of airing new shows in that time slot has had decidedly mixed results:

HITS

The A-Team (NBC, 1983)

The cartoonlike action hour would become one of the decade's biggest smashes.

The Wonder Years (ABC, 1988)

This baby boomer's look back at his suburban adolescence would become a top-10 show.

Homicide: Life on the Street (NBC, 1993)

Would go on to become one of TV's best cop dramas.

The Family Guy (Fox, 1999)

The long, strange journey of the Griffin family began here.

MISSES

Brothers and Sisters (NBC, 1979)

It may share the title of the current family drama, but this comedy was one of three lame network attempts to do a TV version of "Animal House."

MacGruder and Loud (ABC, 1985)

Two cops (John Getz, Kathryn Harrold) are secretly married to each other. Let's hope their marriage lasted longer than this show.

The Last Precinct (NBC, 1986)

Adam West starred in this forgettable sitcom that tried to copy the sensibility of "Police Academy."

Hard Copy (CBS, 1987)

Drama set at a hard-hitting Los Angeles newspaper. (Imagine that!)

Grand Slam (CBS, 1990)

Rival bounty hunters (John Schneider, Paul Rodriguez) go into business together.

The Good Life (NBC, 1994)

Forgotten sitcom starring comedian John Caponera (although Drew Carey had a large supporting role).

Extreme (NBC, 1995)

In this adventure drama, James Brolin played the leader of a wilderness rescue group.

IN-BETWEEN

Airwolf (CBS, 1984)

Jan-Michael Vincent starred in this drama, but the real star was the titular high-tech helicopter.

Davis Rules (ABC, 1991)

Single dad (Randy Quaid) lived with his three kids and immature father (Jonathan Winters).