Channel 4 staple “Undercover Boss” has made its way to Finland and the results are…. low-fi.
For the uninitiated, Undercover Boss sees a member in an upper-management position at a big firm don a disguise and work with entry level staff at their business.
The idea is by spending time with people on the frontlines, they can find faults with the company, realise who are working for the company, and in the REALLY good rare episodes, find someone who more or less talks themselves out of a job. (There was one episode in the US version where an entry level employee at Yankee Candle more or less admitted to the CEO that he wanted to hit truant kids who messed with his stall. Boy that one was a goodie).
The series works when the entry level staff don’t twig to the fact they’re venting all their working woes to someone who has the ability to fire them. It’s The Prince and the Pauper, only at the end someone gets a pay-rise and a proper lunch break.
And KEY to that is the disguises for the bosses being good.
https://twitter.com/Ankaman616/status/672005084352524288
So when the series recent made it’s way to Finland, you’d hope the production team would bear this in mind. After all, the series is now internationally known, if someone new joined your team and was followed by a video crew, you’d think something was up. Even if they told you it was just for a documentary. Right?
Not quite…
As the helpful folk at Reddit have pointed out, the disguises in the Finnish version leave something to be desired.
Drink in those wigs.
Anyone who doesn’t see through these disguises should be sacked on the spot.
