Undercover Boss, 01092011

The latest undercover boss is the President and CEO, Ronald Croatti of Unifirst. What is Unifirst? It is one of the largest producers of uniforms and workwear in the United States. He joined his father and company founder Aldo Croatti in 1965. Wow! That is a long time in one company! He must really know what is going on all over the company! Cindy, his sister is the executive VP and Michael, his son, is regional VP. He met his wife...where else? at the New Kensington location 35 years ago where she was employed! Wow! That is a good love story.... the boss falling in love with an employee! Lucky her! A Cinderella story? I do not know. Who knows? Maybe she belongs to a well off family too that just wants to work! Enough of this!

Unifirst has more than 200 locations and 10,000 employees. Since he became president in 1995, they have doubled their business and in 2008 exceeded annual revenues of $1 billion! And the business is just manufacturing, selling and process uniforms, as well as clean and press them! Oh my gosh! That is a hard word for employees!

Croatti's first stop is the Sew Seal department with Dee Dee. They sew emblems to the clothing and heat seal the ID tags. Employees can do 100 heat seals an hour...it is a good thing they work on incentives! That is a very hard, monotonous, back breaking job! What was Dee Dee's reward for being with the CEO? A promise to pay her day care costs for a year and $5,000 to go back and finish school!

Next stop was Sumter, South Carolina with Squeeky. All they have to do is fold aprons and put them in plastic bags! Even that was not an easy task for Croatti! What do you expect from an older CEO? After all, he is in his 60's and probably have arthritic hands! Ha! Ha! Ha! Sorry, I could not resist! What did Squeeky get out of this? Since she is getting married soon, Croatti would pay for her honeymoon in Hawaii and will be promoted to supervisory status!

The laundry facility was the next stop which process 150,000 lbs of laundry every week with Tony! I am glad it was a man..he will have more muscles to load and unload the humongous machines! Croatti even found it hard to untie the bags! My! My! My! I was going to say something, but never mind! Good!! Zip your mouth! Tony's reawrd? He and his son are going to the Super Bowl! Croatti even gave Tony $5,000 to visit his family in New Jersey more often? That is it? No long term compensation??? Hmmmm......

The last job was in the plant to press shirts and check for holes, missing buttons, etc with Julie. Croatti was helpless in this field! What do you expect? Julie also showed him how she worked with the maintenance crew to extend the railing to make it easier for shipping, and thus save 1/2 hour a day! Julie's reward? $5,000 for the idea and offered her to pay her rent for a year, so she and her kid could move out of the half way house to an apartment! That is really great!

When I saw the episode, I cannot help but laugh at Croatti's transformation to a hippie, big, bushy hair and a mustache that would not stay put! Ha! Ha! Ha! It was really hilarious! Wonder who will be next undercover boss? I guess we will have to wait and see!