OMG_WTF_GSI!!!
Mar. 20th, 2010 10:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vanillafluffyOkay, this is going to be amusing at the very least.
CEO visits Melbourne in 'Undercover Boss'
BY WAYNE T. PRICE • FLORIDA TODAY • March 20, 2010
Adam Curtin had no idea that the scruffy-looking guy wearing a blue floral print shirt, thick Clark Kent glasses and a black baseball cap on backward was the Big Kahuna of GSI Commerce Inc., a company with 4,500 employees nationwide and more than $1 billion in annual sales.
So imagine the surprise of the 25-year-old Curtin, who heads agent relations for GSI's Melbourne operation at 915 S. Babcock St., when he discovered that the guy he was giving pointers to was none other than Michael Rubin, CEO of the King of Prussia, Pa.-based company.
"I felt like I had been 'Punk'd' at the corporate level," Curtin said, referring to a now-defunct television show that pulled practical jokes on unsuspecting celebrities.
But in a way, Curtin was correct.
Rubin's visit to Melbourne was part of another TV show, CBS' "Undercover Boss," which puts the heads of companies such as Waste Management and 7-Eleven in the trenches with the rank and file.
The show with Rubin in Melbourne airs at 9 p.m. Sunday.
At GSI, that meant working at a call center and sometimes dealing with disgruntled customers.
GSI Commerce helps well-established companies such as Dick's Sporting Goods and American Eagle Outfitters operate e-commerce Web sites. In addition to its location in Melbourne, which opened about seven years ago, GSI also operates customer care centers in Brunswick, Ga., Martinsville, Va., and Eau Claire, Wis.
The company has distribution centers in Louisville, Ky.; Shepherdsville, Ky.; and Martinsville, Va.
Rubin's segment in Melbourne was taped in December. Employees were told a film crew was making a documentary on the life of a temporary employee during a recession. Rubin was also taped at two other GSI facilities.
"I thought I would have a chance to see GSI at a level that I've never had a chance to see," Rubin, 37, said in a telephone interview Friday with FLORIDA TODAY. "Secondly, I think the show is really about finding heroes of the company, and that was one of the things really exciting to me. And they live up to every expectation."
Rubin said a nondisclosure agreement with CBS prevented him from revealing too many details of his adventure as an undercover employee. He did say he lived the life of the typical GSI worker in Melbourne, which included activities outside work.
Even with his disguise, selected by the show's producers, Rubin said he "was petrified that people were going to recognize me." He has visited the Melbourne facility more than a dozen times for management meetings and thought he was a widely known figure.
"The closest we actually got was at the Melbourne call center when I overheard someone say, 'Wow, they hired an actor that looks just like our CEO,' " Rubin said.
Locally, GSI employs about 600 people but the number typically doubles during the holidays because of increased orders.
Without going into specifics, Rubin said he did come away from his experience as an undercover CEO with ways to improve procedures. He's also urging management to spend more time in the trenches.
"We're not implementing a program called a 'A Day in the Life,' but we're going to have many of the directors within the e-commerce services business work a week a year in the call center, which is the same thing that I did because I took so much away from that experience," he said.
Critics give mixed reviews to "Undercover Boss."
A blogger, writing at Veracity Stew, called the program "just pure insulting and degrading to America's working class."
However, The Hollywood Reporter had a different view, saying the program was a "goodhearted series in which top bananas get a turn at the bottom of the food chain."
Michael Rubin, CEO of Pennsylvania-based GSI Commerce, speaks with an unknowing employee in Melbourne,
part of the CBS TV show "Undercover Boss." (Studio Lambert)
***
Of course, whatever he went through while he was there was a tame specimen of what it's really like: Seasonal temps DON'T get monitored for metrics (handle time)---only the full-time hire-ons are under that pressure. Still, I'm looking forward to a glimpse of my old stomping grounds and the chance to see this guy try to cope with what I had to do every day.
.
CEO visits Melbourne in 'Undercover Boss'
BY WAYNE T. PRICE • FLORIDA TODAY • March 20, 2010
Adam Curtin had no idea that the scruffy-looking guy wearing a blue floral print shirt, thick Clark Kent glasses and a black baseball cap on backward was the Big Kahuna of GSI Commerce Inc., a company with 4,500 employees nationwide and more than $1 billion in annual sales.
So imagine the surprise of the 25-year-old Curtin, who heads agent relations for GSI's Melbourne operation at 915 S. Babcock St., when he discovered that the guy he was giving pointers to was none other than Michael Rubin, CEO of the King of Prussia, Pa.-based company.
"I felt like I had been 'Punk'd' at the corporate level," Curtin said, referring to a now-defunct television show that pulled practical jokes on unsuspecting celebrities.
But in a way, Curtin was correct.
Rubin's visit to Melbourne was part of another TV show, CBS' "Undercover Boss," which puts the heads of companies such as Waste Management and 7-Eleven in the trenches with the rank and file.
The show with Rubin in Melbourne airs at 9 p.m. Sunday.
At GSI, that meant working at a call center and sometimes dealing with disgruntled customers.
GSI Commerce helps well-established companies such as Dick's Sporting Goods and American Eagle Outfitters operate e-commerce Web sites. In addition to its location in Melbourne, which opened about seven years ago, GSI also operates customer care centers in Brunswick, Ga., Martinsville, Va., and Eau Claire, Wis.
The company has distribution centers in Louisville, Ky.; Shepherdsville, Ky.; and Martinsville, Va.
Rubin's segment in Melbourne was taped in December. Employees were told a film crew was making a documentary on the life of a temporary employee during a recession. Rubin was also taped at two other GSI facilities.
"I thought I would have a chance to see GSI at a level that I've never had a chance to see," Rubin, 37, said in a telephone interview Friday with FLORIDA TODAY. "Secondly, I think the show is really about finding heroes of the company, and that was one of the things really exciting to me. And they live up to every expectation."
Rubin said a nondisclosure agreement with CBS prevented him from revealing too many details of his adventure as an undercover employee. He did say he lived the life of the typical GSI worker in Melbourne, which included activities outside work.
Even with his disguise, selected by the show's producers, Rubin said he "was petrified that people were going to recognize me." He has visited the Melbourne facility more than a dozen times for management meetings and thought he was a widely known figure.
"The closest we actually got was at the Melbourne call center when I overheard someone say, 'Wow, they hired an actor that looks just like our CEO,' " Rubin said.
Locally, GSI employs about 600 people but the number typically doubles during the holidays because of increased orders.
Without going into specifics, Rubin said he did come away from his experience as an undercover CEO with ways to improve procedures. He's also urging management to spend more time in the trenches.
"We're not implementing a program called a 'A Day in the Life,' but we're going to have many of the directors within the e-commerce services business work a week a year in the call center, which is the same thing that I did because I took so much away from that experience," he said.
Critics give mixed reviews to "Undercover Boss."
A blogger, writing at Veracity Stew, called the program "just pure insulting and degrading to America's working class."
However, The Hollywood Reporter had a different view, saying the program was a "goodhearted series in which top bananas get a turn at the bottom of the food chain."
Michael Rubin, CEO of Pennsylvania-based GSI Commerce, speaks with an unknowing employee in Melbourne,
part of the CBS TV show "Undercover Boss." (Studio Lambert)
Of course, whatever he went through while he was there was a tame specimen of what it's really like: Seasonal temps DON'T get monitored for metrics (handle time)---only the full-time hire-ons are under that pressure. Still, I'm looking forward to a glimpse of my old stomping grounds and the chance to see this guy try to cope with what I had to do every day.
.
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Date: 2010-03-20 11:16 pm (UTC)That's just it, during "peak season", IE, the holidays, they're basically looking for any semi-competant body to fill a chair and answer phones. Some of them get hired on afterward, but they don't have metrics goals hanging over their heads until they're hired on permenantly. So Mikey may have taken calls, but not under the pressure the rest of
ushis employees have.