Why employment lawyers screamed more than those Denny's chickens

If you couldn't find the remote after the Saints pantsed the Colts (regretting their "We're baaa-ack!" call in the pregame yet?) in this evening's Super Bowl, you were stuck watching CBS's new show "Undercover Boss." I have to admit: I wasn't planning on watching it, and when the remote fell between the sofa cushions, I then planned on hating it. But in the end, I didn't. I'm not saying that I'm going to fan it on Facebook and start planning my life around it, but I did watch this debut episode.

The premise is simple: The president of a huge company goes "undercover" as a frontline worker for his own company to see just how miserable his employees can be. (In the pilot, it was Waste Management president and COO Larry O'Donnell.) To explain the camera crew following him around, a cover story was created that he was part of a documentary about working in entry-level jobs. (Oooh ... clever. The old base-your-lies-on-the-truth gambit.) Then at the end of the hour, he tears off his disguise (which apparently was a day of stubble, which distracted people from his five-hundred-dollar glasses) and reveals his COO-ness. Then he promotes all the nice people and sternly rebukes vaguely needles the employment-law-violating plant manager. Cue the credits.

After a night filled with chickens screaming during commercials for Denny's, I'm certain that employer attorneys around the nation had a similar reaction. Letting a camera crew film your bad employment practices and labor-law violations? Yikes.

On the other hand, the message that a company president should have firsthand experience with what his or her frontline employees are experiencing is a good one. Perhaps if more executives watch "Undercover Boss," they might worry more about how their employees are being treated.

Now pardon me while I go work on my day-old stubble so that no one recognizes me at work tomorrow ...