Americas Toughest Jobs on NBC

Anyone watching this show?

13 contestants try their hand at some of the most demanding jobs in America. I don't think HR is one of the jobs but they do have rodeo clown and that's close enough.

Comments

  • 24 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • Both jobs do require dealing with large amounts of BS...

  • And rolling in barrels... ok, maybe not so much with the barrels.

    I watched the first episode and it was pretty interesting. I like how they have set this up. Two teams compete at a very demanding job (catching crab in alaska) and then they have the ships captains decide who were the worst four "employees".

    The bottom four were sent back out to sea for 60 more hours of crabbing. Finally, the captains decided on who was the worst worker and they got the boot from the show.

    In this situation, the bottom four were:

    - a tall athletic (but somehow unmotivated) ex jock
    - a wild eyed 50 year old sculptor
    - a caucasian woman who said "im not used to being called the worst at anything"
    - a friendly but not so tough African american woman secretary

    The show depicted the secretary as the most inept of the four but I wasnt sure if they would vote her off first. I figured NBC might be uncomfortable about two white ship captains voting off the only African American woman on the show in the first episode.

    But, no. They gave her the boot. The cool part though was that she explained to the camera that the experience had really opened her eyes to a more vibrant life beyond working in an office. The last shot was a statement that said that after the show, this young woman quit her job and returned to Alaska to work in the Denali state park.

    If you are like me (ok, no jokes please), you will prolly enjoy the show just to watch OTHER people have to deal with employee performance problems.

    If you missed this episode you can watch it online at nbc.com
  • My husband and I also tuned in. I don't do well on boats, airplanes, or as a backseat passenger so I definitely would've been one of the ones heaving at the rail. Next week should be very interesting with the arctic semi driving!
  • Were you surprised by who got the boot?

    I have to admit it was kind of fun watching people try to step up their performance knowing that one of them would get the boot.

    Perhaps we should start announcing in our organizations "One person will be fired at the end of the month. Make sure its not you!"
  • I watched part of the re-run of it on MSNBC last night, and I was kind of surprised that they kicked her off. I thought for sure it was going to be the blonde woman, she struck me as pretty inept at that particular job (not to mention whiny) but then I didn't catch the whole show so maybe I missed something.

    I thought it was pretty cool that the woman who did get kicked off went back home, quit her job, bought a ticket back up here, and is now working at Denali.

    I think you may be on to something, Paul....when we spend so much time trying to figure out what motivates people to work harder (or work at all sometimes) maybe making it a competition to see who doesn't get fired might just be what does the trick!
  • My director has often joked that we should just fire one person at the beginning of our busy summer season. At least, I think he was joking.

    Lately, I am starting to agree with him. It just takes a few bad apples to spoil the bunch and when you do get rid of them WOW! what a huge improvement in morale!

    I thought maybe the blonde gal would get the boot too. She was pretty annoying but she did manage to throw the hook correctly at least one time.

    Like the young lady who got fired said "If there was a competition for watching tv and surfing the internet, I would do fine!" Umm.. yeah, we all would.

    I predict the blonde is next. She is toooooo high maintenance.
  • Yeah, she struck me as extremely high maintenance. I probably wouldn't be able to do most of the stuff they do on crabbers, either, but then I wouldn't be going on a show like that trying to do it and then whining about it, that's for darned sure.

    We've had several firings around here in the last month and it's amazing what getting rid of a "bad apple" can do for the rest of the apples' morale. It's very gratifying to see how much more smoothly things are going in a couple of our departments because they can finally get on with business without having to worry about dealing with those individuals. Of course, I'm not such an optimist that I think that new bad apples won't come along eventually to replace those that have gone, but at least for the moment, things are good!
  • Not to mention that blondie kept climbing on top of the pots after she'd been told not to, repeatedly! The captains must have seen stuff that wasn't aired to kick off the person they did. It also cracked me up that when blondie was chosen for kitchen duty, she said that she didn't cook. She turned off her oven in NY and put books in it.


  • Im glad you brought that up. Maybe she misunderstood the concept of "cook books".

    But seriously, that scene made me think of other employee interactions where a simple job assignment becomes an opportunity for the employee to express an elaborate and generally irrelevant reason for why they cannot do the task.

    I have this theory that good workers find ways to get the job done no matter what and bad workers find only obstacles.

    It will be interesting to see how the crazy sculptor will handle some of the jobs. He seemed to need to tie the knots on the crab pots in his own "creative" way no matter how many times the deck hands yelled at him to do it right.
  • What a coincidence that this thread would start today! Turns out, NBC is here at our offices filming a future episode of America's Toughest Jobs. The contestants are all trying their hand at -- you guessed it -- Forum monitoring! The producers tell me that a little drama would be OK, so please go ahead and act out just a little, but only today. And, well, they also strongly suggested that they would frown on any wardrobe malfunctions (FFC rules, y'know). So, Frank, please keep your pants on. tk
  • Actually I think that if NBC were to choose more realistic jobs the show would be more interesting. Monster truck driver? Uh...ok. I have no point of reference for that.

    I say they take the contestants and make them:

    - teach a squirmy class of 3rd graders
    - drive a new york cab
    - work at Mcdonalds
    - pick fruit
    - coordinate an open enrollment or RIF

    I think that would be alot more interesting.
  • I took a 4-day weekend... Lucky for M.Lee I didn't check the board Friday. They would have used video of TK for a new show - "World's Funniest Meltdowns".
  • Hello everyone, sorry for my extended absence. No reason just otherwise engaged!
    Apparently the Toughest Jobs now include MSNBC news anchor, based on Olbermann and Matthews being demoted today. Gosh, I watched them briefly during the conventions and they seemed like normal network announcers to me.
    Sorry if this takes this thread in a wrong direction.....

  • Well, i just watched episode 2 online. I think the highlight was one of the contestants called his instructor (who would judge his performance) a "belligerent ass". Nice.
  • Is that not acceptable? Darn, I have some explaining to do then.

    In the last two episodes I like that they used a more measurable reference to see who is eliminated from the 'worst' four. In the first episode it was more at the discretion of the "bosses" as to who should leave. But I guess, in reality, that is often the way it goes.

    And last night I was so surprised when they eliminated...
  • Dont do it! I need at least 24 hours until they post it online.

    It wasnt just that "Chris" called his instructor a belligerent ass. He also insulted him and criticized him IN THE MAN"S OWN TRUCK. Then he tried to lie about it when he was confronted. That was the part that felt too much like real HR.

    And also like real life, he managed to escape consequences and live to see another day... er... episode.
  • > She turned off her oven in NY and put books in it.

    I think that line was stolen from "Sex in the City"...



  • Interesting. I'll have to ask Ray if that is true.
  • Wait 'til I finish peppering him with Dangerous Housewives questions.
  • Dangerous Housewives? Is that a show?
  • He was just Desperate to name the show. When he couldn't think of the real name, he came up with something close.
  • Haha! You're right! I guess that shows how much TV I watch. If it doesn't involve a ball or detectives I've probably not seen much of it.

    Now, excuse me... I have a few seasons of Gilligan's Island to catch up on.
  • By the way, I think Dangerous Housewives sounds infinitely more interesting.
  • Wasn't that the name of the Sarah Palin biography?
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