4 ms·

The show Undercover Boss is kind of like that. Every episode some CEO realizes that all of their employees are underpaid, picks one with an especially sad story

The show Undercover Boss is kind of like that. Every episode some CEO realizes that all of their employees are underpaid, picks one with an especially sad story, and gives them some money to pay for their kid's surgery or college tuition.

jjeaff 8y ago
I thought the same thing. And they never seem to come to the realization that maybe a lot of their employees are underpaid. No, it's just the ones with stories that go best with violin music playing in the background. And one of the most delusional CEOs was the Hooters guy. He was talking about how he would be perfectly fine with his daughter working at Hooters. Then the manager where he was undercover was found to be a total pig. Making the waitresses compete for time off by eating canned beans with their hands behind their backs. He also talked about "inspecting" the "product" on a daily basis to make sure the customers stay happy. It was a gross display of abuse. Of course, he didn't even fire the manager later. Had this episode not been 10 years ago, I think #metoo would have had both the manager and the CEO fired within a week of the episode airing.
- hartator 8y ago
  The CEO was a the son of the founder, and was very shy and not very competent for sure. The manager deserved to be fired for sure and probably more.
- ses1984 8y ago
  I think you need to take what you see on reality TV with a grain of salt. That's the size of the moon.
  - jjeaff 8y ago
    So Hooters worked with the tv show to paint an extremely unflattering picture of their business? Or the show misled viewers and Hooters made no effort to correct the record?
    - ses1984 8y ago
      So you think what was portrayed was wholly accurate with no spin?
jpernst 8y ago
There's an interesting book on this topic of individualized philanthropy by the powerful and its effect of masking the deeper systemic problems. It's called "Winners Take All" by Anand Giridharadas. I'm only about halfway through, but the central thesis appears to be that the powerful, even if they truly want to make a good-faith effort to improve the world, will naturally gravitate towards forms of social change that don't challenge their power. He describes this kind of thinking as "win-win" in that only solutions that don't involve those in power sacrificing the conditions that made them powerful will be considered by the philanthropic class. These "win-win" solutions then displace more direct "win-lose" solutions that actually address the underlying power dynamic. The arguments put forth ring pretty true to me, and this GoFundMe stuff fits the model perfectly.
- mjd22 8y ago
  Google is a good example. They start with search. Become king of the search hill and then search goes into the background. Are the people running Search in charge of Google? Nope. The empire defense people get put in charge. Who then spend more time and resources on Chrome and Android. They don't create knowledge. Humanity does. But the empire defense folk, get it into their head they need to own the knowledge graph and rent it out to humanity. No questions or debate. Now imagine if StackOverflow or Wikipedia decided to pull the same bullshit.
  - jdhzzz 8y ago
    StackOverflow was created in response to Experts Exchange, for which I am thankful. It doesn't work forever where information is concerned. Information wants to be free.
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  or as Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi put it: "Charity is the drowning of rights in the shithole of mercy."
- Shacklz 8y ago
  For those interested, he held a Talk at Google about this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_zt3kGW1NM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_zt3kGW1NM I thought it rather interesting that he was able to hold this kind of talk at Google - after all, his audience there probably consists of people that are probably part of the "winners" he is talking about.

jjeaff 8y ago

I thought the same thing. And they never seem to come to the realization that maybe a lot of their employees are underpaid. No, it's just the ones with stories that go best with violin music playing in the background. And one of the most delusional CEOs was the Hooters guy. He was talking about how he would be perfectly fine with his daughter working at Hooters. Then the manager where he was undercover was found to be a total pig. Making the waitresses compete for time off by eating canned beans with their hands behind their backs. He also talked about "inspecting" the "product" on a daily basis to make sure the customers stay happy. It was a gross display of abuse. Of course, he didn't even fire the manager later. Had this episode not been 10 years ago, I think #metoo would have had both the manager and the CEO fired within a week of the episode airing.

hartator 8y ago
The CEO was a the son of the founder, and was very shy and not very competent for sure. The manager deserved to be fired for sure and probably more.
ses1984 8y ago
I think you need to take what you see on reality TV with a grain of salt. That's the size of the moon.
- jjeaff 8y ago
  So Hooters worked with the tv show to paint an extremely unflattering picture of their business? Or the show misled viewers and Hooters made no effort to correct the record?
  - ses1984 8y ago
    So you think what was portrayed was wholly accurate with no spin?

jpernst 8y ago

There's an interesting book on this topic of individualized philanthropy by the powerful and its effect of masking the deeper systemic problems. It's called "Winners Take All" by Anand Giridharadas. I'm only about halfway through, but the central thesis appears to be that the powerful, even if they truly want to make a good-faith effort to improve the world, will naturally gravitate towards forms of social change that don't challenge their power. He describes this kind of thinking as "win-win" in that only solutions that don't involve those in power sacrificing the conditions that made them powerful will be considered by the philanthropic class. These "win-win" solutions then displace more direct "win-lose" solutions that actually address the underlying power dynamic. The arguments put forth ring pretty true to me, and this GoFundMe stuff fits the model perfectly.

mjd22 8y ago
Google is a good example. They start with search. Become king of the search hill and then search goes into the background. Are the people running Search in charge of Google? Nope. The empire defense people get put in charge. Who then spend more time and resources on Chrome and Android. They don't create knowledge. Humanity does. But the empire defense folk, get it into their head they need to own the knowledge graph and rent it out to humanity. No questions or debate. Now imagine if StackOverflow or Wikipedia decided to pull the same bullshit.
- jdhzzz 8y ago
  StackOverflow was created in response to Experts Exchange, for which I am thankful. It doesn't work forever where information is concerned. Information wants to be free.
PavlovsCat 8y ago
or as Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi put it: "Charity is the drowning of rights in the shithole of mercy."
Shacklz 8y ago
For those interested, he held a Talk at Google about this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_zt3kGW1NM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_zt3kGW1NM I thought it rather interesting that he was able to hold this kind of talk at Google - after all, his audience there probably consists of people that are probably part of the "winners" he is talking about.