Have you ever wished you could see your nasty boss (or ex-boss) cleaning your toilet or picking up your trash? That is exactly what happens on the first episode of CBS’s new show, Undercover Boss. Larry O’Donnell, President and COO of Waste Management, a Fortune 200 with over 45,000 employees goes undercover as every day man “Randy”. He sorts recycling, chases garbage blowing around a hill (and gets fired!), cleans out porta potties, and works on a garbage truck. It changes his perspective about management and how corporate policies are implemented and affect the workers.

This show joins the ranks of reality television from The Biggest Loser to Extreme Makeover Home Edition that truly benefit the stars and makes the viewer feel happy and hopeful. While watching a suit fumbling around in garbage for an hour would presumably be highly amusing, what draws your attention is O’Donnell’s steadfast desire to better understand at least a handful of Waste Management’s 45,000+ employees. Between discovering inspiration from the jolliest porta potty cleaner in the world and promoting an overworked office secretary to a manager, O’Donnell makes a genuine attempt to make immediate improvements to the company’s operations.

If anything, this show will highlight the fact that every boss or corporate bigwig should have a hands on idea of the company operations and how their policy implementations affect all levels. O’Donnell helped a trash collector on her route and got a shock when he realized she had to pee in a coffee tin to meet the company’s efficiency criteria. He took a real interest in his frontline workers, enough to get his hands quite dirty (if only for a week), which one can imagine is not something that happens too often, camera crews or not. Hopefully the future bosses of Undercover Boss will have the same humble nature and drive to improve things for their workers as O’Donnell.

Perhaps the show will inspire other execs to be more aware of how their penny pinching ideas will impact their frontline workers. In any case, the next time you get a new employee in your workplace, it’s always good to remember to be nice whether or not they might be a secret CEO!

Many will be looking forward to the next episode of Undercover Boss where Coby G. Brooks, Hooters President and CEO, goes undercover and sees a manager forcing waitresses to compete in hands-free eating contests for time off. From the commercials, all you can hope is that the pig gets fired, but until then…Coby G. Brooks, you have some big shoes to fill!