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Undercover Boss Canada, episode 10: the boss cries, the employees cry and we cry (it was sad, okay?)

Undercover Boss Canada, episode 10: the boss cries, the employees cry and we cry (it was sad, okay?)
Undercover Boss Canada Episode 10

After nine episodes, we’ve got the Undercover Boss Canada formula down: first there’s the awkward boardroom announcement, and then there’s a weirdly unfashionable makeover, employees with hearts of gold, random physical tasks, and lastly, gifts (and sometimes the gifts aren’t great). The final episode of the first season, featuring FedEx Canada president Lisa Lisson, follows that pattern, but to the extreme: Lisson’s fellow execs look absolutely flabbergasted at her plan to slum it; the employees she works with would made Mother Teresa look selfish; and the gifts are the most lavish to date. (Sorry Ellis Jacobs, but you’ve been bested.)

Pre-makeover, Lisson is one of the most glam bosses to work with, so her transformation, with long brown extensions and glasses, is all the more striking. (Though, apparently, Lisson isn’t a fan—before she even packs or does her last video diary, she puts on her makeup). Newly shaggy, she meets Diana, a terrifyingly efficient (and also just terrifying) processing centre manager, who isn’t impressed with Lisson as an employee. To be fair, Lisson loses her pen and then tries to hide, which is pretty pathetic.

Thank goodness couriers Kathy, Rob and Mark are a little more understanding of Lisson’s inability to work a power pad and fear of driving a truck. Lisson bonds with each of them as they share their sad stories of losing family members and dealing with disease, and she talks about losing her husband. We were doing some sniffing and eye wiping throughout the episode, but let loose with full-fledged sobs as Lisson gave her lovely employees trips to New York, the British Virgin Islands and Paris, and made a $25,000 donation to a Vancouver-area drug treatment facility. It was enough to make us believe that not all execs are selfish fat cats—and it certainly made us want Undercover Boss Canada to come back for a second season.

Wherein we note where the CEOs embrace life as a plebe (everyday heroes, represented by Amy Poehler’s Leslie Knope), and where they out themselves as fat-cat fakes (everyday zeroes, represented by Ricky Gervais’s David Brent)

She concocts a really detailed backstory for her undercover persona, complete with a psychological explanation of why she’s looking for work: she wants to “regain her own identity.”

She wears long fake nails for the entire week, which is really impractical and kind of gross.

Mark gave her a Wilson ball and she didn’t seem to know what it was. Come on, there’s one movie about FedEx, and you haven’t seen it?

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She gamely tries to pretend that eating lunch standing up in an employees’ kitchen is natural and not something the producers have made her do.

She rates herself a three out of 10 as a courier, which is probably about right. Efficient, no. Honest, yes.


Genuine. When Mark talked about his battles with cancer, Lisa started to weep—and so did we (again).


Fired. It would only be a matter of time before she crashed one of those trucks.

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