Undercover Boss (2010) s06e13 Episode Script
Vivint
Since premiering to nearly 40 million viewers in 2010, more than 70 bosses Oh, my God! Have posed as subjects on a fake show to get honest feedback from their employees.
All right.
It's been shocking.
A lot of people smoke pot.
It's been challenging.
It's not the homeowner's fault that I get paid peanuts.
But it's inspired them to change their employees' lives forever.
I've decided to invest around $3 million because of you.
Thank you.
For real? Like, this is real? Without a doubt.
I am going to give you your own store.
Yay! Probably the best thing somebody ever did for me.
I have a check for $250,000.
Oh, my God.
Tonight the latest boss to take on this challenge is Todd Pedersen.
Why are you laughing at me? You don't even look the same.
I don't even look the same? The founder and CEO of Vivint, a cutting-edge solar and home-security giant.
By joining his employees on the front lines, this fun-loving CEO Whee! Will meet the people who keep his company wired.
Here we go.
We have an alarm.
Good afternoon.
It was like scrambled eggs.
Along the way, he'll find he needs to step up his game.
She had cancer, so she had a big scare.
- Your wife did? - Yeah.
Vivint didn't give me the time off.
It made me question, who am I working for? People that we get here, the turnover's so great.
You know, they can't make their car payment, their rent - Right.
- And stuff on what they're getting paid.
And what will happen when he blows his own cover? Hey, you Mark? - Yes.
- I'm Todd.
- Nice to meet you.
- Oh, my hell.
I cannot believe I just said my real name.
Find out next on Undercover Boss.
With a base of operations in Provo, Utah, Vivint is one of the largest home-automation companies in North America, offering residential security and the latest in state-of-the-art smart-home technology.
At the controls of this $2 billion business and its 7,000 employees is one man.
My name is Todd Pedersen, and I'm the CEO and founder of Vivint.
Vivint is a smart-home technology company that provides multiple services.
We have home security, fire detection, home automation services, like lighting control, thermostat controls.
We provide wireless Internet, and we are also the second-largest residential solar company in the United States.
I'm not a typical CEO.
If you see me, it's always in a Vivint-branded hat.
Did you have a good weekend? - Yep.
- Good.
I've worn a suit and tie maybe four times ever, and I was forced to.
Growing up, I challenged everything.
And so I would say about age 19 or 20 was when I first started thinking, "You know, maybe I could build a business.
" I was a college student.
I didn't have money for school.
And I came up with a crazy idea to start a security business.
You know, basically burglar-alarm services.
The very first summer, I actually made $80,000.
So I dropped out of school and pursued the business.
Children, do not do that.
But that's what I did.
After the first summer, we grew really fast and eventually it's become what it is today.
Vivint provides services in all 50 states.
We've also expanded internationally.
We're in Canada, Puerto Rico, New Zealand, and last year we had in excess of $550 million in annual revenue.
Well, a Provo-based security alarm company just sold for a whopping $2 billion.
In 2012, Vivint was acquired for just over $2 billion.
I could have chosen to sell more equity, and I wouldn't have had to work anymore, but I chose to keep equity and retain the CEO title because I believe in the future, and I didn't want to miss out on being part of something great.
- Hey, what's up, man? How you doing? - Hey, Todd, how are you? I think it's probably ironic that I'm the CEO of a tech company, being that I'm the least technical person that I know.
I have a hard time turning on my own TV.
This is our system that we released this last year.
So we're making some changes to the interface.
This is a system that's gonna work for anyone? Yeah, this'll be super easy.
I just want it simple, and I want it to work every time.
If you walked around our campus, I think you'd see a fairly relaxed vibe here.
We have a gym.
We have a basketball court, volleyball courts, foosball tables - Oh! - Yeah.
Ping-pong tables This is embarrassing.
I'm embarrassed for you.
A restaurant in each of our campuses.
The environment is super important to me, because I think if we do enjoy being here, we're going to do our best work.
Here we go.
What's up, Jerry? My wife and I are part of the Mormon religion.
My faith is very important to me.
We do spend an immense amount of time with our family, but we always want to be having fun.
We jump on the trampoline Oh! Play games in our yard Go, D! We have a nice yard next door where we can ride Razors.
Whee! Faster! All right, well, let's get started.
All right.
Let's do it.
We serve over and people really don't even know who we are yet.
We now have competition like Comcast, AT&T, Google, Apple companies much, much larger than we've competed with in the past.
And now we get to see how good we really are.
It's like putting shoes on that are, like, two sizes too small.
I want to go undercover now to see how we can compete with these bigger companies.
I want to see what things are out there that we can improve on.
While undercover, I'll be posing as Eddie Vowels, a video-store manager trying to win my own business.
My employees they have no idea this is actually Undercover Boss.
It's pretty sweet.
I do Dad with gray hair.
I do Dad with red hair.
What's up? Oh, my God.
Why are you laughing at me? You don't even look the same.
I don't even look the same? I'm not Dad anymore.
My name's Eddie.
Where are you from? I'm from Bend, Oregon.
How old are you? I'm 46.
Do you have brothers and sisters? Um Jenna and Bob.
Oh, no.
I am a bit nervous.
Some of the jobs that I'm going to do I'm not going to be great at.
Okay, love you guys.
See you.
But I can say I will do my best.
Bye! Today I'm in Syracuse, Utah, working on a wireless install.
Our wireless portion of our business is blowing up right now.
I'm hoping to see really good efficiency.
As this company grows and scales, we need great efficiency out of these installers.
Hey, you Mark? - Yes.
- I'm Todd.
- Nice to meet you.
- Oh, my hell.
I cannot believe I blew this.
I just said my real name.
I screwed up.
What in the crap was I thinking? - Eddie? - I'm Eddie.
I am Eddie, yes.
How you doing, Eddie? Nice to meet you.
There's no question he could know that it's me because I introduced myself as Todd.
- Are you ready for today? - I am ready.
I have no idea what we're gonna do, but let's go for it.
No idea? Okay, that's even better.
He did continue to call me Eddie, so I'm going to proceed as if he doesn't know, and we'll see what happens.
This is a hub home, so we are going to bring Internet to the house.
- Okay.
- And then set up two radios to broadcast out to other potential customers.
Sounds good.
So this is one of the other radios that we'll broadcast out.
- Okay.
- So I put one together already.
I'm excited to learn from you.
I appreciate you taking the time to do this with me.
Not a problem.
It's what I'm here for to help you learn some new things, I guess Todd.
I think he knows it's me.
Let's go ahead and move this to the front of the van real quick.
I've got to figure it out, so I start to dig a little bit.
Did it kind of surprise you when I I introduced myself with the wrong name? Yeah.
I guess.
But I'm nervous.
You're nervous.
I'm sure everybody's a little nervous.
I don't know.
And I am Eddie in some ways.
- Yeah.
- Did you think maybe I was someone different than Eddie? Could be, yeah.
And who would you assume that I would be? If you had to take a wild guess.
Mr.
Todd Pedersen? Mr.
Todd Pedersen.
So we are part of Undercover Boss, and I am that undercover boss.
Cool.
Little less nerves, then? A little less nerves.
- Okay.
- And we're gonna roll forward.
- Yeah.
- And we're gonna do our job.
Thank you for telling me you're Todd.
Now I don't have to be nervous.
You don't have to be nervous.
- Okay.
- Yep.
- Okay, perfect.
- I'm Todd, nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you, Todd.
I want real discussion up here.
It's gonna help you.
It's gonna help me.
And it's gonna help consumers.
- Okay.
- Is that fair? - That's perfectly fair.
- Okay.
I'm gonna have you put this tool belt on.
Okay.
I felt a tense nature of the situation after I blew my cover.
Now that this is kind of behind us, the nerves are gone, and the excitement is still there to figure out what things we can do better.
And honestly, I feel really good with this belt on my hips.
It feels really manly, and I love it.
And I'm being serious about that.
Let's go ahead and set the ladder up right here, I think.
- To get up on the roof? - To get up on the roof, yep.
Okay, let's do it.
And we're gonna have to wear harnesses because it's a really steep roof.
Are you nervous? Very.
I have been on top of a roof, but I did not like being up there.
We're going to run five wires on the roof.
- Here we go.
Just hold on to it like that.
- Okay.
Okay, and it's steep, so go slow.
Very steep.
It was a pretty scary sight.
He was slipping and falling a lot.
Couldn't really grab on to anything.
I'm taking one step forward, I come back almost 3/4 of a step.
That's how bad I was slipping.
You want to head to that next peak? In my brain, I'm thinking, "How am I not gonna fall off this roof and die?" I'm already thinking about my exit.
Whoa! I'm already thinking about my exit.
In my brain, I'm thinking, "How am I not gonna fall off this roof and die?" Careful.
I got you.
Dude, these are not These don't grip one bit.
- I got it, though.
- Okay.
And I'm gonna try to feed this so we don't cut the cables.
I don't know what the type of grip or sole is that you should have, but, obviously, whatever's on the bottom of my shoes isn't right.
Yeah, it needs to just be able to grip.
- I buy cheap skater shoes.
- Okay.
- That's what I wear.
- Do we provide them? No.
How do we not provide the appropriate shoes for these installers to walk across these rooftops? The biggest concern I have is, the salesmen, when they come sell a home, they tell the customer what's going on.
Yeah.
Then when we get here, they have no clue what we're talking about.
There's definitely a breakdown going on.
It sounds like the salespeople not fully describing to the customer what we're installing.
That falls on my shoulders.
These are things that we're gonna have to change to help him do his job better.
Makes your back tired.
Yeah.
This is gonna be the tricky part.
- So you don't - Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
After going up on that roof and seeing the amount of physical effort that it takes Let's point this towards the tower there and try to tighten those two bolts.
I kept thinking, "We just don't give these guys enough credit.
" - Nice little break.
- Yeah.
That's more physically demanding than I anticipated, you know, Hey, so tell me more about you.
Are you married? I was engaged, and less than a month before we were supposed to get married, she she called it off.
A month later, she found out she was pregnant.
You know, my son was born, and she said, "You know what? "We were never married.
You don't have any rights.
You're not having anything to do with him.
" And I just said, "He's my son.
You know, I will have something to do with him.
" I've been going to court for the last five years just because she she really still doesn't want me involved.
- You know? - Man, honestly, I can't even imagine.
It's been the probably toughest five years of my life.
- You know, I want to spend time with him.
- Yeah.
Till you have kids, you just don't realize it, I guess.
They're everything, right? I mean, just everything.
Yep.
I can't even fathom that emotion that he goes through every time he has to separate from his child.
It seriously breaks my heart.
Custody battles, court - Yeah.
- It's expensive.
How do you do it? - And I'm saying - Rack up a bill.
- I mean, I haven't paid it all yet.
- Wow.
That's amazing.
But I got 50/50 custody now, and it's like the greatest thing in the world, you know.
Yeah.
Is he your best friend? According to him, I'm his best buddy.
My son and I, he says, "Hey, Dad, you're my best buddy" - Yep, yep.
- All the time.
It just makes me want to cry every time he says it.
I love it.
I can't even stand being away from my family for, like, a day.
And yet, he does whatever it takes to make sure that he takes care of his son and that he's around him as much as is possible.
I guarantee you, no matter what he does, he does his best.
I love that guy.
All right, let's go ahead and get back to work, Todd.
All right.
See if we can get this finished up.
Today I'm in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
I'm going to be working with one of our monitoring-center representatives.
When alarms go off inside of someone's home, all of those calls come right through this monitoring center.
We cannot mess up, or we put peoples' lives at risk.
I'm a little bit nervous about being undercover today because I blew it yesterday.
And I don't want that to happen again.
My name is Eddie.
Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.
So, hopefully I can pull it off.
Sandy? Oh, good morning.
- How you doing? - Hi.
- I'm Eddie.
- Nice to meet you, Eddie.
- Nice to meet you.
- Why don't you come have a seat? When I first met Eddie, he seemed a bit rough around the edges.
You know, his eyes were just, like, kind of big like saucers.
And I don't know.
He just seemed like he's been through the woods a little bit.
So what we do is, we monitor home and commercial alarms.
That includes fire, medical, burglary, holdup.
A lot of times we've had where people are at You know, "Get them here.
My brother is vomiting blood.
" - Oh, wow.
- And you've got people held at gunpoint, and they're freaking out, and you got to stay calm.
Okay, that's important.
- Yeah, very calm.
- Okay.
I was feeling, honestly, a bit stressed.
When they set off an alarm, we first of all need to verify, "Are you okay?" And if they're not, then we get them the help they need.
There was a lot of things to think about.
My head was spinning.
That's where this comes in.
I was trying to remember step one, two, and three, and Sandy is telling me step seven, eight, and nine at the same time.
One is to speak.
Two means we can talk and listen.
I hope I don't have to take a burglary call, because if that happens, that house is getting cleaned out.
Why don't you go ahead and put on your headset? Okay.
Good afternoon.
This is Sandy with Vivint.
We did receive your front-door burglary alarm, followed by a cancel signal.
Is everyone all right there? I do apologize, ma'am.
We're having trouble with the two-way.
May I have your name, please? Stephanie.
The whole time she's training me, there's a lot of interference.
I'm sorry, could you repeat your name one more time? Every single time it's hard to hear.
I'm sorry, Megan, do you have the verbal pass code? Disconnect.
Yeah, I think this cord is something's bad.
I think so.
How is this going on? We have a back-door audible burglary.
I'm having a hard time hearing you.
I'm sorry, ma'am.
This is critical to peoples' lives and safety.
There's no way we can allow things like that to be happening, and I need to do something about it immediately.
- It'll take you a little getting used to.
- Okay.
Do you think you're ready to take a real one? No.
I mean, I I would try it, but I I'm a little I mean, I'll try it.
Here we go.
We have an alarm.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
This is Eddie with Vivint.
You know, watching Eddie trying to process every little detail, it was like scrambled eggs.
Is there anything else we can do for you today? No.
"May I have your name?" Oh, excuse me.
May I have your name? He was just, you know, forgetting things.
Excuse me? I We didn't disconnect.
Did you nine it? I can't remember.
Oh, man.
We received - "This is Eddie with Vivint.
" - Oh, shoot.
Then I thought, "Oh, boy, he's lost.
" Goodness gracious.
This is not easy.
I was horrible.
It was embarra I was embarrassed.
I am not good at this type of work at all.
You might want to do some typewriter tutor.
Computer work, typing Just copy and paste.
Do you know how to do that? No.
That is not my cup of tea.
I had no idea it was that difficult.
I know it's a lot of multitasking, but this is the way it is every day.
And it does need some fine-tuning because we don't always feel appreciated.
We hear stories of people making beaucoup bucks during the summer selling systems.
Yeah.
And we kind of feel like the little people here.
We're the ones trying to make people know that they're cared about.
Right.
People that we get here, the turnover's so great.
You know, they can't make their car payment, their rent - Right.
- And stuff on what they're getting paid.
I mean, my daughter is a 911 dispatcher.
- Yeah.
- She's 21 years old.
And I'm making $7 less an hour than her.
- Really? Here? - Yeah.
It's hard to hear things that are negative about a company that I'm running, but the truth of the matter is, it's happening because of me my leadership.
And so there are things that need to change.
Some people wouldn't even apply for this job - Right.
- Starting out at $10 an hour.
- Right.
- I did it because I came off of the fact that my first husband passed.
He had cancer.
I have children, and he couldn't work.
That's huge.
I'm tapped out.
And plus, my car just recently went bad.
And so that just increases the debt on top of the other debt.
Right now I'm using home-equity loans, so I'm in debt to myself Just on selling your home? Yeah, right.
And I knew this.
I knew this, but I loved my husband.
I thought, "Well, it's there to use.
" If we have to live in a trailer, we do.
- I don't really care.
- Yeah.
I'm not in keeping up with the Joneses or anything.
Right, right.
Sandy has gone through a lot in her life and through it all kept a positive attitude never quit.
She obviously cares about what she's doing.
She's exactly who I need.
Well, I suppose we should get back to work.
Okay.
Good afternoon.
This is Sandy with Vivint.
Coming up You have to be able to work under pressure.
- I know, I'm - Like, don't, like I'm feeling like I'm sweating.
Eddie struggles to pick up the pace in a busy warehouse.
Oh, shoot.
I messed another one up.
And later, the boss gets a wake-up call from a hardworking employee.
She had cancer, so she had a big scare.
- Your wife did? - Yeah.
Vivint didn't give me the time off.
It made me question, who am I working for? I don't want to be the CEO known for not allowing people to focus on taking care of their family.
I'm in Camarillo, California, today, working in Vivint Solar's warehouse with the inventory lead.
This is where all of the install teams come on a daily basis to stock their trucks and vans, and that's why I chose to come here.
Hello.
How you doing? Hi.
I'm Eddie.
Nice to meet you.
Hi, I'm Alma Delia Rios.
I'm the Vivint solar lead.
And I'll be your instructor for today.
- I can't wait.
- Okay.
Well, let's head over to my desk, because usually in the morning, the guys will come in and start asking for the work orders - for the day.
- Okay.
So I have to make sure that they get the right information, because if they go out there and they install the wrong stuff on the roof, it's a big problem.
What I'm doing right now is just writing down the address of where they're going to, 'cause usually they go by what I write.
This account right here is a fix, so right here it says "fix roof ridge.
" So I have to let the installer know what they have to do that day.
So, as you can see, they're coming in, and they need their job work orders.
- Right.
- So you know what, guys? I'm gonna teach him right now.
So give me one second, okay? So you need to start writing all this information down on this install work order.
Here's the customer's name, the address.
And please do it fast, because like you heard I'm gonna try.
- They need their work orders.
- Yes, yes.
They need to, like they need to get out of here.
Every minute counts.
Oops.
I just kind of messed up that U.
Sorry about that.
No, you know what? That looks kind of sloppy.
- I know.
- Let me just get you another one.
Try not to make any mistakes.
I'm a little bit surprised we're writing things down.
Vivint is a tech company.
Using paper doesn't feel like a technology company.
That's something that I definitely want to look into.
Oh, shoot.
I messed another one up.
Do you mind if I scratch that, or should I redo it completely? Um we have some Wite-Out right here.
You have to be able to work under pressure.
- I know, I'm - Like, don't, like I'm feeling like I'm sweating, even though it's not cold or hot in here.
- You know what? - Yeah.
But you know what? The pressure's on.
- Yeah.
- And that's just the way it is.
He had a little bit of a problem with his writing.
That's gonna be a very big issue.
Or am I doing this wrong? Looks like My name would go right here.
The installers and the electricians wanted their work orders this morning.
I had to kind of tell them, like, "Hold on.
We're working on it.
" Drop site address.
We're working on it.
I'm having a little bit of performance anxiety or something.
Sometimes you're gonna be in a situation where you're going to be under a lot of pressure.
Seems like you don't mind it.
Because I'm used to it.
If I wouldn't have been around, guess what.
They would have chewed up and threw and spit him out.
So, Craig, you're taking the Hayward, and then you're gonna get Bennett.
This is one of the jobs.
These are two fixes.
Here you go, Craig.
Awesome.
Thank you.
That was kind of crazy.
There were so many people coming in and out.
You know, it's only me that's running this warehouse in the morning there's a lot happening.
Yeah.
And sometimes I think that an extra hand would help here.
I completely understood what Alma was talking about, needing additional help.
If she forgets something, if she loses her thought process for a minute, everything can go wrong.
So, look, we're gonna get started on this inventory.
I'm gonna give you your beautiful hard hat.
Okay.
We're gonna start doing the weekly inventory.
- Okay.
- So go ahead and count that.
Times 24.
You have to add this.
So 2,043.
Okay, and let me check that for you.
plus 7 plus 28 plus 20 plus 19 plus 13 plus 17.
You got 2,043? Is that what you got? Oops.
When it comes down to inventory, Eddie was doing horrible.
There's 18.
Let me just double-check your eyes.
- Okay.
- One, two - I counted 17.
- I was off.
I was off.
So far, he is not a good candidate for this type of job.
So 48 plus 39? That's 87.
Mm-mm.
- I'm gonna go over your evaluation.
- Yeah.
I just think that This is how fast I have to move.
- Right.
- You might need to work on that.
Right.
This whole thing's super important to me.
I bet.
You know, I'm kind of trying to get myself in a better situation financially.
- Okay.
- So doing this, it can help fund what I'm trying to do.
Mm-hmm.
How did you get to this, you know, position? I grew up very fast paced.
I was a teen mom, and it made me grow up really quick.
How old were you when you had your first child? I was between I left my house when I was 14.
- What? Wow.
- I left my house very at a very yeah, at a very young age.
My household was something something that I wanted kind of, like, to run away from.
I got here.
It was very hard for me.
I had to get my GED.
- Okay.
- I had to go to college.
I just didn't want to be like, "Oh, another teen mom.
Didn't do anything.
Didn't graduate.
" I wanted to prove to myself most of all - Yeah.
- That it could be done.
What kept me going is my girls.
Family is, like, my number-one thing to me.
Just the fact that I just didn't want to have them go through the same struggles I did.
- You want them to have the best, right? - Yeah.
And that drive keeps you going.
- Yeah.
- And eventually you do get there.
Yeah.
And I'm proof of it.
So you could do it too.
- Yeah.
- If you want it, it's all in your hands.
Well, thank you.
I appreciate it.
- Okay.
- Thanks for the day.
Alma could have said, "Hey, life's tough," but she's done nothing but try to improve herself and her situation.
She, like, exudes positive out of her.
She's just ama she's an amazing person.
We're gonna start inputting this stuff into the spreadsheet.
- Okay.
- So let's head over here.
- Okay, great.
- Okay? Let's go.
Today I'm in Plainfield, Illinois, to do a smart-home installation with one of our field service professionals.
The smart-home technology is really the future of living lighting controls, thermostat controls, the security functionality.
If we're gonna be able to compete with the bigger companies in the industry, our field service professionals can't make any mistakes.
- Will? - Hey, you must be Eddie.
- Yes, I am.
- Eddie, how are you? - I'm good.
- You ready to work today? - I'm ready.
- Well, I'll give you a small idea of what we're gonna be doing today.
We're gonna be putting in thermostats, door locks, the works.
- Okay.
- All right? All right, let's get started.
- Hi.
- Hi, Miss Franks? - Yes.
- How are you? - I'm William with Vivint.
- Hi, good to meet you.
I'm your field service professional today.
You have a lovely home.
Oh, thank you.
So we're gonna get you all hooked up.
- Okay.
- All right.
Usually what I do is try to start with the motion.
I'm gonna put up the first one.
So right now what I got to do is figure out where we're gonna put this.
- Okay.
- The best spot will probably be here.
If we put it here, it will shoot this whole entire area.
Start off a little slow and - Okay.
- And then you put it - Now, you see the red light? - Obviously it's working now.
So let's see how much you retained.
So where do you think would be a good spot for this motion? I'd probably want to be, like 'cause I would want to cover that.
Yeah.
But I kind of feel like that's a pretty good spot.
Here is not a bad spot.
My specialty And I'm not even kidding.
Like, I don't think anyone gets angles the way I do.
Oh, boy.
How come there's no hole in the - Think I made a mistake.
- Plate? Or you just go right through the? Eddie was a little slow.
He had all type of problems trying to get that screw in that thing.
It's looking a little low.
He need to work on that drill Eddie.
Hoo.
Just kind of clip it.
- And that's it.
- Okay.
Let's put this panel up.
- Like this? - A little higher.
Now we got to get this back up and out of here.
Okay.
Close it up like that.
And then it shows up, "front door lock.
" - Your press it, and it locks.
- Oh, wow.
- Look at that.
- Oh, I like that.
We got some more stuff we got to grab out of the truck, and then we'll be almost done with this house.
Sounds good.
With this type of work, we are entrusted to do this job, and it means peoples' lives.
If someone comes through that window, and your motion doesn't work, it's no good.
Yeah.
I think we have a great product here at Vivint, but I'm stressed out because I'm working so many hours.
I start at 10:00, and I'm off every night, I still come in with a good attitude or at least try.
- Yeah.
- My wife is not as understanding, though.
She has a bitter taste a little bit in her mouth, a little bit.
Yeah.
She had cancer, so she had a big scare.
- Your wife did? - Yeah.
- Twice.
She beat it twice.
- Are you serious? And when she was going through her struggle with cancer and stuff It's like Vivint didn't give me the time off.
They were like, "No, you got to work.
" - Wow.
- You know.
And it left a bad taste in my mouth too, you know Yeah.
Because I'm like, she's going through surgery, she's going to the doctor visit where they're going to decide whether or not it's growing or if it's shrinking.
- Right.
- You know, it's a big And I'm not at none of them.
It really made me question, who am I working for, you know? Yeah.
That was like a kick in the gut, you know.
That was really difficult to hear.
I don't want to be the CEO known for not allowing people to focus on taking care of their family.
How's your wife doing, anyway? She had to have the amputation.
Right now we're trying to decide whether or not to do the reconstructive.
- Okay.
- You know, it's gonna be a again, a lot of time.
- Yeah.
- She already knows, like, "You're probably not gonna get that time off.
" So I want to save up a little money so that when she does, I can afford to take off some days.
Yeah, you want to be there.
Have some, you know, some money on the back end, because after she had it those two times, we ran into some hard times.
The medicine alone was, like, $1,000 a month.
Crazy.
Wow.
- For medicine.
- And once the car went down, it's medicine or get the car fixed.
Yeah, right, of course.
Yeah.
So that's why this is the only vehicle we have right now.
Will he's gone through a lot of challenges personally.
He's gone through a lot of challenges with Vivint, and even through that, he still has an incredibly positive attitude, which makes me love him to death.
We better get back in there and get this job done.
I've always tried to be a leader with the intention of taking care of the people that work inside of Vivint.
Am I doing that as effectively as possible? It didn't really feel like that every single time I was out on these job sites.
That's probably the thing that's bothered me the most, because that's my fault.
I want to run a company that's about people, that's about, you know, family.
And after this week, I'm more committed than ever to making that happen.
Coming up The employees think they're going to decide if Eddie deserves to win his own business.
How will they react when he reveals his true identity? I am Eddie or I was Eddie, but I'm the founder and CEO of Vivint.
Wow.
This is a little I'm a little taken back.
I think I've got some really good ideas that are gonna simplify our employees' lives and make sure that we're proving to them that we're here for them, and they are the core of this business.
How you doing today? What's up? Uh Uh? Uh, what? You look like Eddie.
Really? How was Eddie? - Horrible.
- Yeah.
Are you related to Eddie? I am Eddie or I was Eddie, but I'm the founder and CEO of Vivint.
Scott Pedersen.
Close, close.
- I'm Todd Pedersen.
- Wow.
I decided to do a project called Undercover Boss.
Yeah, I saw that before.
You're part of Undercover Boss also.
This is a little I'm a little taken back.
Mark, I blew my cover.
I mean, I just blew it.
It was the biggest choke ever.
Hey, you Mark? - Yes.
- I'm Todd.
- Nice to meet you.
- Oh, my hell.
I screwed up.
Regardless of that, I mean, I just I had the best day.
You know, you were absolutely incredible.
And so we're gonna give you a new position.
Really? You're now going to be a micro hub team supervisor.
Oh, that's awesome.
There's a 20% pay increase with that job.
- Really? - Yeah.
That's just gonna help me more than you know, more than you know.
You deserve it, period.
You know, we climbed up on that roof, and, I mean, I literally thought I was gonna fall off the roof.
Yeah.
From this point on, shoes are on us.
- That would be awesome.
- That's done.
And then you described to me that there's a disconnect between the sales rep and the technician.
Mm-hmm.
We're gonna have the salespeople they're going up on the roof with you.
- Perfect.
- And see what it is that we're installing, how it's installed, and close that gap.
Good.
That'll be good.
A little bit more on the personal side you know, when you were talking about your boy.
I want to send you and your son on the trip of a lifetime.
- Really? - It's all expenses paid, time off paid, everything paid for.
Oh, that's awesome.
Thank you so much.
Going to court, I think you have some - some outstanding debt for legal fees.
- Mm-hmm.
I want to give you $20,000 to pay off your legal costs.
- Really? - Yes.
That's just awesome.
I mean, you know, that doesn't happen.
It's happening right now.
I mean, it's happened.
That's gonna be a huge, huge burden taken off my shoulders.
Thank you.
You know, one more thing I was thinking about.
I know how incredibly expensive it is to raise children.
And I want to give you $25,000 to help in any way you see fit.
Anything he needs, that's for you.
Oh, my gosh.
I-I can't thank you enough.
So, honestly, thanks for everything.
Okay.
I want my son to have things that I wasn't able to have, and now I won't have to stress as much.
I just love him with all my heart, and I would do anything for him.
Alma, you are incredibly confident.
It actually intimidated me a little bit.
Oops.
I just kind of messed up that U.
Sorry about that.
No, you know what? That looks kind of sloppy.
I know.
I did not realize people are still writing things down on paper.
So you're gonna get new systems to manage everything in the warehouse, from the jobs to the scheduling to the inventory.
This is amazing.
I feel like I almost feel like pinching myself.
So one other thing that I was thinking about.
You were juggling so many things, it was amazing.
But I felt like there was a need for someone to help you It would make your job easier.
Thank you.
That's amazing, 'cause I thought it would never happen.
I have been trying for quite a while.
That's more than money can buy.
You know, we talked about yourself teen mom, went back and got your GED, and then school.
- Do you still have school debt? - Yeah, I do.
I want to give you $75,000 Huh? To pay off your debt with school and take care of your daughters.
- Really? - Yes.
Are you being serious? I've never, ever had anybody treat me like ever give me anything in life.
It's gonna, like, change my life, like, completely.
Oh, wow.
Thank you.
Can I hug you? - Thank you very much.
- You are welcome.
I'm speechless.
Like, it's amazing.
I have no words.
When you live paycheck by paycheck, it's hard.
It's a big relief.
I was already blessed before.
I'm even blessed now even more.
Wow.
Sandy, watching you do what you do, I just had the best time.
- I was horrible.
- Yeah.
Is there anything else we can do for you today? No.
- "May I have your name?" - Oh, excuse me.
May I have your name? You have a different skill set.
I don't know what it is, but I was nervous to do your job.
- It's not easy.
- It isn't.
And there were some things that were a bit broken to me.
The phone connector, the cord.
- Was crackling.
- Crackling.
Unfortunately, I cannot upgrade those phones.
I just can't do it.
Okay.
But instead, I want to get you a brand-new monitoring center.
Wow.
Brand-new cubicles, all new equipment, everything.
Wow.
That's exciting.
Really, and all the other people will be happy too, because we struggle.
You deserve it.
I mean, you all deserve it.
It's amazing.
Some of the things that you mentioned just resonated with me.
You know, I know that your husband had passed, and you have your house debt, bills stacking up.
Yeah.
You deserve all the happiness in the world.
Thank you.
So I want to give you $30,000 and allow you to take care of your house debt, - pay off these bills.
- Wow.
That's really kind.
You're making me get emotional.
It really means a lot to me.
- Thank you, Todd.
- You're very welcome.
That's an amazing amount of money that Todd offered to me.
He is going to take the weight off my shoulders.
I'm just excited.
I just feel like I have no holds against me anymore.
- Hug? - Yeah, I think we deserve that.
I can't wait to tell people at Vivint.
There is hope, you know.
And I'm happy for all of us.
Will, I watched you operate.
You were a professional the entire time.
- How are you? I'm William with Vivint.
- Hi, good to meet you.
I'm your field service professional today.
Yes.
- You have a lovely home.
- Oh, thank you.
You've been through some incredible personal challenges.
I remember you used the word "bitter" when it came to your wife's sentiment towards Vivint.
- And it just, like - Yeah.
I mean, seriously, like, crushed me.
I'm here to say I apologize.
I appreciate that.
That means a lot to her, and it means a lot to me.
Just one more thing with that.
You mentioned she needs the reconstructive surgery.
I want to pay for that.
Appreciate that.
I mean, I really appreciate it.
Appreciate that.
You're welcome, definitely welcome.
And another thing you mentioned you don't own a car.
I'm gonna give you $15,000 towards a new car.
Man.
You know what? It's like It's like all the problems I had, that I told you about, you addressed them all right here, right now, and I appreciate it, man.
Incredible.
It's hard for me to see you go through some of the struggles you've gone through.
And, you know, you've been amazing to us.
And so I want to give you $100,000 towards a home or your nest egg or whatever you choose.
Thank you so much.
- No, thank you.
- Thank you so much.
You've answered all my prayers in one meeting.
It's unbelievable.
Hey, man, I don't usually hug a man, but I'm hugging you.
Appreciate it.
Oh, my God, I could have kissed that dude, man.
I'm talking about kissed him.
Oh, my God.
Big burden off my shoulder to just it's a big burden off my shoulder not to have to worry about my wife and her reconstructive surgery.
This is unbelievable, man.
I can't believe it.
I'm happy.
I'm overjoyed.
I'm I'm relieved.
I needed this, man.
Oh, man.
All right.
It's been shocking.
A lot of people smoke pot.
It's been challenging.
It's not the homeowner's fault that I get paid peanuts.
But it's inspired them to change their employees' lives forever.
I've decided to invest around $3 million because of you.
Thank you.
For real? Like, this is real? Without a doubt.
I am going to give you your own store.
Yay! Probably the best thing somebody ever did for me.
I have a check for $250,000.
Oh, my God.
Tonight the latest boss to take on this challenge is Todd Pedersen.
Why are you laughing at me? You don't even look the same.
I don't even look the same? The founder and CEO of Vivint, a cutting-edge solar and home-security giant.
By joining his employees on the front lines, this fun-loving CEO Whee! Will meet the people who keep his company wired.
Here we go.
We have an alarm.
Good afternoon.
It was like scrambled eggs.
Along the way, he'll find he needs to step up his game.
She had cancer, so she had a big scare.
- Your wife did? - Yeah.
Vivint didn't give me the time off.
It made me question, who am I working for? People that we get here, the turnover's so great.
You know, they can't make their car payment, their rent - Right.
- And stuff on what they're getting paid.
And what will happen when he blows his own cover? Hey, you Mark? - Yes.
- I'm Todd.
- Nice to meet you.
- Oh, my hell.
I cannot believe I just said my real name.
Find out next on Undercover Boss.
With a base of operations in Provo, Utah, Vivint is one of the largest home-automation companies in North America, offering residential security and the latest in state-of-the-art smart-home technology.
At the controls of this $2 billion business and its 7,000 employees is one man.
My name is Todd Pedersen, and I'm the CEO and founder of Vivint.
Vivint is a smart-home technology company that provides multiple services.
We have home security, fire detection, home automation services, like lighting control, thermostat controls.
We provide wireless Internet, and we are also the second-largest residential solar company in the United States.
I'm not a typical CEO.
If you see me, it's always in a Vivint-branded hat.
Did you have a good weekend? - Yep.
- Good.
I've worn a suit and tie maybe four times ever, and I was forced to.
Growing up, I challenged everything.
And so I would say about age 19 or 20 was when I first started thinking, "You know, maybe I could build a business.
" I was a college student.
I didn't have money for school.
And I came up with a crazy idea to start a security business.
You know, basically burglar-alarm services.
The very first summer, I actually made $80,000.
So I dropped out of school and pursued the business.
Children, do not do that.
But that's what I did.
After the first summer, we grew really fast and eventually it's become what it is today.
Vivint provides services in all 50 states.
We've also expanded internationally.
We're in Canada, Puerto Rico, New Zealand, and last year we had in excess of $550 million in annual revenue.
Well, a Provo-based security alarm company just sold for a whopping $2 billion.
In 2012, Vivint was acquired for just over $2 billion.
I could have chosen to sell more equity, and I wouldn't have had to work anymore, but I chose to keep equity and retain the CEO title because I believe in the future, and I didn't want to miss out on being part of something great.
- Hey, what's up, man? How you doing? - Hey, Todd, how are you? I think it's probably ironic that I'm the CEO of a tech company, being that I'm the least technical person that I know.
I have a hard time turning on my own TV.
This is our system that we released this last year.
So we're making some changes to the interface.
This is a system that's gonna work for anyone? Yeah, this'll be super easy.
I just want it simple, and I want it to work every time.
If you walked around our campus, I think you'd see a fairly relaxed vibe here.
We have a gym.
We have a basketball court, volleyball courts, foosball tables - Oh! - Yeah.
Ping-pong tables This is embarrassing.
I'm embarrassed for you.
A restaurant in each of our campuses.
The environment is super important to me, because I think if we do enjoy being here, we're going to do our best work.
Here we go.
What's up, Jerry? My wife and I are part of the Mormon religion.
My faith is very important to me.
We do spend an immense amount of time with our family, but we always want to be having fun.
We jump on the trampoline Oh! Play games in our yard Go, D! We have a nice yard next door where we can ride Razors.
Whee! Faster! All right, well, let's get started.
All right.
Let's do it.
We serve over and people really don't even know who we are yet.
We now have competition like Comcast, AT&T, Google, Apple companies much, much larger than we've competed with in the past.
And now we get to see how good we really are.
It's like putting shoes on that are, like, two sizes too small.
I want to go undercover now to see how we can compete with these bigger companies.
I want to see what things are out there that we can improve on.
While undercover, I'll be posing as Eddie Vowels, a video-store manager trying to win my own business.
My employees they have no idea this is actually Undercover Boss.
It's pretty sweet.
I do Dad with gray hair.
I do Dad with red hair.
What's up? Oh, my God.
Why are you laughing at me? You don't even look the same.
I don't even look the same? I'm not Dad anymore.
My name's Eddie.
Where are you from? I'm from Bend, Oregon.
How old are you? I'm 46.
Do you have brothers and sisters? Um Jenna and Bob.
Oh, no.
I am a bit nervous.
Some of the jobs that I'm going to do I'm not going to be great at.
Okay, love you guys.
See you.
But I can say I will do my best.
Bye! Today I'm in Syracuse, Utah, working on a wireless install.
Our wireless portion of our business is blowing up right now.
I'm hoping to see really good efficiency.
As this company grows and scales, we need great efficiency out of these installers.
Hey, you Mark? - Yes.
- I'm Todd.
- Nice to meet you.
- Oh, my hell.
I cannot believe I blew this.
I just said my real name.
I screwed up.
What in the crap was I thinking? - Eddie? - I'm Eddie.
I am Eddie, yes.
How you doing, Eddie? Nice to meet you.
There's no question he could know that it's me because I introduced myself as Todd.
- Are you ready for today? - I am ready.
I have no idea what we're gonna do, but let's go for it.
No idea? Okay, that's even better.
He did continue to call me Eddie, so I'm going to proceed as if he doesn't know, and we'll see what happens.
This is a hub home, so we are going to bring Internet to the house.
- Okay.
- And then set up two radios to broadcast out to other potential customers.
Sounds good.
So this is one of the other radios that we'll broadcast out.
- Okay.
- So I put one together already.
I'm excited to learn from you.
I appreciate you taking the time to do this with me.
Not a problem.
It's what I'm here for to help you learn some new things, I guess Todd.
I think he knows it's me.
Let's go ahead and move this to the front of the van real quick.
I've got to figure it out, so I start to dig a little bit.
Did it kind of surprise you when I I introduced myself with the wrong name? Yeah.
I guess.
But I'm nervous.
You're nervous.
I'm sure everybody's a little nervous.
I don't know.
And I am Eddie in some ways.
- Yeah.
- Did you think maybe I was someone different than Eddie? Could be, yeah.
And who would you assume that I would be? If you had to take a wild guess.
Mr.
Todd Pedersen? Mr.
Todd Pedersen.
So we are part of Undercover Boss, and I am that undercover boss.
Cool.
Little less nerves, then? A little less nerves.
- Okay.
- And we're gonna roll forward.
- Yeah.
- And we're gonna do our job.
Thank you for telling me you're Todd.
Now I don't have to be nervous.
You don't have to be nervous.
- Okay.
- Yep.
- Okay, perfect.
- I'm Todd, nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you, Todd.
I want real discussion up here.
It's gonna help you.
It's gonna help me.
And it's gonna help consumers.
- Okay.
- Is that fair? - That's perfectly fair.
- Okay.
I'm gonna have you put this tool belt on.
Okay.
I felt a tense nature of the situation after I blew my cover.
Now that this is kind of behind us, the nerves are gone, and the excitement is still there to figure out what things we can do better.
And honestly, I feel really good with this belt on my hips.
It feels really manly, and I love it.
And I'm being serious about that.
Let's go ahead and set the ladder up right here, I think.
- To get up on the roof? - To get up on the roof, yep.
Okay, let's do it.
And we're gonna have to wear harnesses because it's a really steep roof.
Are you nervous? Very.
I have been on top of a roof, but I did not like being up there.
We're going to run five wires on the roof.
- Here we go.
Just hold on to it like that.
- Okay.
Okay, and it's steep, so go slow.
Very steep.
It was a pretty scary sight.
He was slipping and falling a lot.
Couldn't really grab on to anything.
I'm taking one step forward, I come back almost 3/4 of a step.
That's how bad I was slipping.
You want to head to that next peak? In my brain, I'm thinking, "How am I not gonna fall off this roof and die?" I'm already thinking about my exit.
Whoa! I'm already thinking about my exit.
In my brain, I'm thinking, "How am I not gonna fall off this roof and die?" Careful.
I got you.
Dude, these are not These don't grip one bit.
- I got it, though.
- Okay.
And I'm gonna try to feed this so we don't cut the cables.
I don't know what the type of grip or sole is that you should have, but, obviously, whatever's on the bottom of my shoes isn't right.
Yeah, it needs to just be able to grip.
- I buy cheap skater shoes.
- Okay.
- That's what I wear.
- Do we provide them? No.
How do we not provide the appropriate shoes for these installers to walk across these rooftops? The biggest concern I have is, the salesmen, when they come sell a home, they tell the customer what's going on.
Yeah.
Then when we get here, they have no clue what we're talking about.
There's definitely a breakdown going on.
It sounds like the salespeople not fully describing to the customer what we're installing.
That falls on my shoulders.
These are things that we're gonna have to change to help him do his job better.
Makes your back tired.
Yeah.
This is gonna be the tricky part.
- So you don't - Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
After going up on that roof and seeing the amount of physical effort that it takes Let's point this towards the tower there and try to tighten those two bolts.
I kept thinking, "We just don't give these guys enough credit.
" - Nice little break.
- Yeah.
That's more physically demanding than I anticipated, you know, Hey, so tell me more about you.
Are you married? I was engaged, and less than a month before we were supposed to get married, she she called it off.
A month later, she found out she was pregnant.
You know, my son was born, and she said, "You know what? "We were never married.
You don't have any rights.
You're not having anything to do with him.
" And I just said, "He's my son.
You know, I will have something to do with him.
" I've been going to court for the last five years just because she she really still doesn't want me involved.
- You know? - Man, honestly, I can't even imagine.
It's been the probably toughest five years of my life.
- You know, I want to spend time with him.
- Yeah.
Till you have kids, you just don't realize it, I guess.
They're everything, right? I mean, just everything.
Yep.
I can't even fathom that emotion that he goes through every time he has to separate from his child.
It seriously breaks my heart.
Custody battles, court - Yeah.
- It's expensive.
How do you do it? - And I'm saying - Rack up a bill.
- I mean, I haven't paid it all yet.
- Wow.
That's amazing.
But I got 50/50 custody now, and it's like the greatest thing in the world, you know.
Yeah.
Is he your best friend? According to him, I'm his best buddy.
My son and I, he says, "Hey, Dad, you're my best buddy" - Yep, yep.
- All the time.
It just makes me want to cry every time he says it.
I love it.
I can't even stand being away from my family for, like, a day.
And yet, he does whatever it takes to make sure that he takes care of his son and that he's around him as much as is possible.
I guarantee you, no matter what he does, he does his best.
I love that guy.
All right, let's go ahead and get back to work, Todd.
All right.
See if we can get this finished up.
Today I'm in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
I'm going to be working with one of our monitoring-center representatives.
When alarms go off inside of someone's home, all of those calls come right through this monitoring center.
We cannot mess up, or we put peoples' lives at risk.
I'm a little bit nervous about being undercover today because I blew it yesterday.
And I don't want that to happen again.
My name is Eddie.
Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.
So, hopefully I can pull it off.
Sandy? Oh, good morning.
- How you doing? - Hi.
- I'm Eddie.
- Nice to meet you, Eddie.
- Nice to meet you.
- Why don't you come have a seat? When I first met Eddie, he seemed a bit rough around the edges.
You know, his eyes were just, like, kind of big like saucers.
And I don't know.
He just seemed like he's been through the woods a little bit.
So what we do is, we monitor home and commercial alarms.
That includes fire, medical, burglary, holdup.
A lot of times we've had where people are at You know, "Get them here.
My brother is vomiting blood.
" - Oh, wow.
- And you've got people held at gunpoint, and they're freaking out, and you got to stay calm.
Okay, that's important.
- Yeah, very calm.
- Okay.
I was feeling, honestly, a bit stressed.
When they set off an alarm, we first of all need to verify, "Are you okay?" And if they're not, then we get them the help they need.
There was a lot of things to think about.
My head was spinning.
That's where this comes in.
I was trying to remember step one, two, and three, and Sandy is telling me step seven, eight, and nine at the same time.
One is to speak.
Two means we can talk and listen.
I hope I don't have to take a burglary call, because if that happens, that house is getting cleaned out.
Why don't you go ahead and put on your headset? Okay.
Good afternoon.
This is Sandy with Vivint.
We did receive your front-door burglary alarm, followed by a cancel signal.
Is everyone all right there? I do apologize, ma'am.
We're having trouble with the two-way.
May I have your name, please? Stephanie.
The whole time she's training me, there's a lot of interference.
I'm sorry, could you repeat your name one more time? Every single time it's hard to hear.
I'm sorry, Megan, do you have the verbal pass code? Disconnect.
Yeah, I think this cord is something's bad.
I think so.
How is this going on? We have a back-door audible burglary.
I'm having a hard time hearing you.
I'm sorry, ma'am.
This is critical to peoples' lives and safety.
There's no way we can allow things like that to be happening, and I need to do something about it immediately.
- It'll take you a little getting used to.
- Okay.
Do you think you're ready to take a real one? No.
I mean, I I would try it, but I I'm a little I mean, I'll try it.
Here we go.
We have an alarm.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
This is Eddie with Vivint.
You know, watching Eddie trying to process every little detail, it was like scrambled eggs.
Is there anything else we can do for you today? No.
"May I have your name?" Oh, excuse me.
May I have your name? He was just, you know, forgetting things.
Excuse me? I We didn't disconnect.
Did you nine it? I can't remember.
Oh, man.
We received - "This is Eddie with Vivint.
" - Oh, shoot.
Then I thought, "Oh, boy, he's lost.
" Goodness gracious.
This is not easy.
I was horrible.
It was embarra I was embarrassed.
I am not good at this type of work at all.
You might want to do some typewriter tutor.
Computer work, typing Just copy and paste.
Do you know how to do that? No.
That is not my cup of tea.
I had no idea it was that difficult.
I know it's a lot of multitasking, but this is the way it is every day.
And it does need some fine-tuning because we don't always feel appreciated.
We hear stories of people making beaucoup bucks during the summer selling systems.
Yeah.
And we kind of feel like the little people here.
We're the ones trying to make people know that they're cared about.
Right.
People that we get here, the turnover's so great.
You know, they can't make their car payment, their rent - Right.
- And stuff on what they're getting paid.
I mean, my daughter is a 911 dispatcher.
- Yeah.
- She's 21 years old.
And I'm making $7 less an hour than her.
- Really? Here? - Yeah.
It's hard to hear things that are negative about a company that I'm running, but the truth of the matter is, it's happening because of me my leadership.
And so there are things that need to change.
Some people wouldn't even apply for this job - Right.
- Starting out at $10 an hour.
- Right.
- I did it because I came off of the fact that my first husband passed.
He had cancer.
I have children, and he couldn't work.
That's huge.
I'm tapped out.
And plus, my car just recently went bad.
And so that just increases the debt on top of the other debt.
Right now I'm using home-equity loans, so I'm in debt to myself Just on selling your home? Yeah, right.
And I knew this.
I knew this, but I loved my husband.
I thought, "Well, it's there to use.
" If we have to live in a trailer, we do.
- I don't really care.
- Yeah.
I'm not in keeping up with the Joneses or anything.
Right, right.
Sandy has gone through a lot in her life and through it all kept a positive attitude never quit.
She obviously cares about what she's doing.
She's exactly who I need.
Well, I suppose we should get back to work.
Okay.
Good afternoon.
This is Sandy with Vivint.
Coming up You have to be able to work under pressure.
- I know, I'm - Like, don't, like I'm feeling like I'm sweating.
Eddie struggles to pick up the pace in a busy warehouse.
Oh, shoot.
I messed another one up.
And later, the boss gets a wake-up call from a hardworking employee.
She had cancer, so she had a big scare.
- Your wife did? - Yeah.
Vivint didn't give me the time off.
It made me question, who am I working for? I don't want to be the CEO known for not allowing people to focus on taking care of their family.
I'm in Camarillo, California, today, working in Vivint Solar's warehouse with the inventory lead.
This is where all of the install teams come on a daily basis to stock their trucks and vans, and that's why I chose to come here.
Hello.
How you doing? Hi.
I'm Eddie.
Nice to meet you.
Hi, I'm Alma Delia Rios.
I'm the Vivint solar lead.
And I'll be your instructor for today.
- I can't wait.
- Okay.
Well, let's head over to my desk, because usually in the morning, the guys will come in and start asking for the work orders - for the day.
- Okay.
So I have to make sure that they get the right information, because if they go out there and they install the wrong stuff on the roof, it's a big problem.
What I'm doing right now is just writing down the address of where they're going to, 'cause usually they go by what I write.
This account right here is a fix, so right here it says "fix roof ridge.
" So I have to let the installer know what they have to do that day.
So, as you can see, they're coming in, and they need their job work orders.
- Right.
- So you know what, guys? I'm gonna teach him right now.
So give me one second, okay? So you need to start writing all this information down on this install work order.
Here's the customer's name, the address.
And please do it fast, because like you heard I'm gonna try.
- They need their work orders.
- Yes, yes.
They need to, like they need to get out of here.
Every minute counts.
Oops.
I just kind of messed up that U.
Sorry about that.
No, you know what? That looks kind of sloppy.
- I know.
- Let me just get you another one.
Try not to make any mistakes.
I'm a little bit surprised we're writing things down.
Vivint is a tech company.
Using paper doesn't feel like a technology company.
That's something that I definitely want to look into.
Oh, shoot.
I messed another one up.
Do you mind if I scratch that, or should I redo it completely? Um we have some Wite-Out right here.
You have to be able to work under pressure.
- I know, I'm - Like, don't, like I'm feeling like I'm sweating, even though it's not cold or hot in here.
- You know what? - Yeah.
But you know what? The pressure's on.
- Yeah.
- And that's just the way it is.
He had a little bit of a problem with his writing.
That's gonna be a very big issue.
Or am I doing this wrong? Looks like My name would go right here.
The installers and the electricians wanted their work orders this morning.
I had to kind of tell them, like, "Hold on.
We're working on it.
" Drop site address.
We're working on it.
I'm having a little bit of performance anxiety or something.
Sometimes you're gonna be in a situation where you're going to be under a lot of pressure.
Seems like you don't mind it.
Because I'm used to it.
If I wouldn't have been around, guess what.
They would have chewed up and threw and spit him out.
So, Craig, you're taking the Hayward, and then you're gonna get Bennett.
This is one of the jobs.
These are two fixes.
Here you go, Craig.
Awesome.
Thank you.
That was kind of crazy.
There were so many people coming in and out.
You know, it's only me that's running this warehouse in the morning there's a lot happening.
Yeah.
And sometimes I think that an extra hand would help here.
I completely understood what Alma was talking about, needing additional help.
If she forgets something, if she loses her thought process for a minute, everything can go wrong.
So, look, we're gonna get started on this inventory.
I'm gonna give you your beautiful hard hat.
Okay.
We're gonna start doing the weekly inventory.
- Okay.
- So go ahead and count that.
Times 24.
You have to add this.
So 2,043.
Okay, and let me check that for you.
plus 7 plus 28 plus 20 plus 19 plus 13 plus 17.
You got 2,043? Is that what you got? Oops.
When it comes down to inventory, Eddie was doing horrible.
There's 18.
Let me just double-check your eyes.
- Okay.
- One, two - I counted 17.
- I was off.
I was off.
So far, he is not a good candidate for this type of job.
So 48 plus 39? That's 87.
Mm-mm.
- I'm gonna go over your evaluation.
- Yeah.
I just think that This is how fast I have to move.
- Right.
- You might need to work on that.
Right.
This whole thing's super important to me.
I bet.
You know, I'm kind of trying to get myself in a better situation financially.
- Okay.
- So doing this, it can help fund what I'm trying to do.
Mm-hmm.
How did you get to this, you know, position? I grew up very fast paced.
I was a teen mom, and it made me grow up really quick.
How old were you when you had your first child? I was between I left my house when I was 14.
- What? Wow.
- I left my house very at a very yeah, at a very young age.
My household was something something that I wanted kind of, like, to run away from.
I got here.
It was very hard for me.
I had to get my GED.
- Okay.
- I had to go to college.
I just didn't want to be like, "Oh, another teen mom.
Didn't do anything.
Didn't graduate.
" I wanted to prove to myself most of all - Yeah.
- That it could be done.
What kept me going is my girls.
Family is, like, my number-one thing to me.
Just the fact that I just didn't want to have them go through the same struggles I did.
- You want them to have the best, right? - Yeah.
And that drive keeps you going.
- Yeah.
- And eventually you do get there.
Yeah.
And I'm proof of it.
So you could do it too.
- Yeah.
- If you want it, it's all in your hands.
Well, thank you.
I appreciate it.
- Okay.
- Thanks for the day.
Alma could have said, "Hey, life's tough," but she's done nothing but try to improve herself and her situation.
She, like, exudes positive out of her.
She's just ama she's an amazing person.
We're gonna start inputting this stuff into the spreadsheet.
- Okay.
- So let's head over here.
- Okay, great.
- Okay? Let's go.
Today I'm in Plainfield, Illinois, to do a smart-home installation with one of our field service professionals.
The smart-home technology is really the future of living lighting controls, thermostat controls, the security functionality.
If we're gonna be able to compete with the bigger companies in the industry, our field service professionals can't make any mistakes.
- Will? - Hey, you must be Eddie.
- Yes, I am.
- Eddie, how are you? - I'm good.
- You ready to work today? - I'm ready.
- Well, I'll give you a small idea of what we're gonna be doing today.
We're gonna be putting in thermostats, door locks, the works.
- Okay.
- All right? All right, let's get started.
- Hi.
- Hi, Miss Franks? - Yes.
- How are you? - I'm William with Vivint.
- Hi, good to meet you.
I'm your field service professional today.
You have a lovely home.
Oh, thank you.
So we're gonna get you all hooked up.
- Okay.
- All right.
Usually what I do is try to start with the motion.
I'm gonna put up the first one.
So right now what I got to do is figure out where we're gonna put this.
- Okay.
- The best spot will probably be here.
If we put it here, it will shoot this whole entire area.
Start off a little slow and - Okay.
- And then you put it - Now, you see the red light? - Obviously it's working now.
So let's see how much you retained.
So where do you think would be a good spot for this motion? I'd probably want to be, like 'cause I would want to cover that.
Yeah.
But I kind of feel like that's a pretty good spot.
Here is not a bad spot.
My specialty And I'm not even kidding.
Like, I don't think anyone gets angles the way I do.
Oh, boy.
How come there's no hole in the - Think I made a mistake.
- Plate? Or you just go right through the? Eddie was a little slow.
He had all type of problems trying to get that screw in that thing.
It's looking a little low.
He need to work on that drill Eddie.
Hoo.
Just kind of clip it.
- And that's it.
- Okay.
Let's put this panel up.
- Like this? - A little higher.
Now we got to get this back up and out of here.
Okay.
Close it up like that.
And then it shows up, "front door lock.
" - Your press it, and it locks.
- Oh, wow.
- Look at that.
- Oh, I like that.
We got some more stuff we got to grab out of the truck, and then we'll be almost done with this house.
Sounds good.
With this type of work, we are entrusted to do this job, and it means peoples' lives.
If someone comes through that window, and your motion doesn't work, it's no good.
Yeah.
I think we have a great product here at Vivint, but I'm stressed out because I'm working so many hours.
I start at 10:00, and I'm off every night, I still come in with a good attitude or at least try.
- Yeah.
- My wife is not as understanding, though.
She has a bitter taste a little bit in her mouth, a little bit.
Yeah.
She had cancer, so she had a big scare.
- Your wife did? - Yeah.
- Twice.
She beat it twice.
- Are you serious? And when she was going through her struggle with cancer and stuff It's like Vivint didn't give me the time off.
They were like, "No, you got to work.
" - Wow.
- You know.
And it left a bad taste in my mouth too, you know Yeah.
Because I'm like, she's going through surgery, she's going to the doctor visit where they're going to decide whether or not it's growing or if it's shrinking.
- Right.
- You know, it's a big And I'm not at none of them.
It really made me question, who am I working for, you know? Yeah.
That was like a kick in the gut, you know.
That was really difficult to hear.
I don't want to be the CEO known for not allowing people to focus on taking care of their family.
How's your wife doing, anyway? She had to have the amputation.
Right now we're trying to decide whether or not to do the reconstructive.
- Okay.
- You know, it's gonna be a again, a lot of time.
- Yeah.
- She already knows, like, "You're probably not gonna get that time off.
" So I want to save up a little money so that when she does, I can afford to take off some days.
Yeah, you want to be there.
Have some, you know, some money on the back end, because after she had it those two times, we ran into some hard times.
The medicine alone was, like, $1,000 a month.
Crazy.
Wow.
- For medicine.
- And once the car went down, it's medicine or get the car fixed.
Yeah, right, of course.
Yeah.
So that's why this is the only vehicle we have right now.
Will he's gone through a lot of challenges personally.
He's gone through a lot of challenges with Vivint, and even through that, he still has an incredibly positive attitude, which makes me love him to death.
We better get back in there and get this job done.
I've always tried to be a leader with the intention of taking care of the people that work inside of Vivint.
Am I doing that as effectively as possible? It didn't really feel like that every single time I was out on these job sites.
That's probably the thing that's bothered me the most, because that's my fault.
I want to run a company that's about people, that's about, you know, family.
And after this week, I'm more committed than ever to making that happen.
Coming up The employees think they're going to decide if Eddie deserves to win his own business.
How will they react when he reveals his true identity? I am Eddie or I was Eddie, but I'm the founder and CEO of Vivint.
Wow.
This is a little I'm a little taken back.
I think I've got some really good ideas that are gonna simplify our employees' lives and make sure that we're proving to them that we're here for them, and they are the core of this business.
How you doing today? What's up? Uh Uh? Uh, what? You look like Eddie.
Really? How was Eddie? - Horrible.
- Yeah.
Are you related to Eddie? I am Eddie or I was Eddie, but I'm the founder and CEO of Vivint.
Scott Pedersen.
Close, close.
- I'm Todd Pedersen.
- Wow.
I decided to do a project called Undercover Boss.
Yeah, I saw that before.
You're part of Undercover Boss also.
This is a little I'm a little taken back.
Mark, I blew my cover.
I mean, I just blew it.
It was the biggest choke ever.
Hey, you Mark? - Yes.
- I'm Todd.
- Nice to meet you.
- Oh, my hell.
I screwed up.
Regardless of that, I mean, I just I had the best day.
You know, you were absolutely incredible.
And so we're gonna give you a new position.
Really? You're now going to be a micro hub team supervisor.
Oh, that's awesome.
There's a 20% pay increase with that job.
- Really? - Yeah.
That's just gonna help me more than you know, more than you know.
You deserve it, period.
You know, we climbed up on that roof, and, I mean, I literally thought I was gonna fall off the roof.
Yeah.
From this point on, shoes are on us.
- That would be awesome.
- That's done.
And then you described to me that there's a disconnect between the sales rep and the technician.
Mm-hmm.
We're gonna have the salespeople they're going up on the roof with you.
- Perfect.
- And see what it is that we're installing, how it's installed, and close that gap.
Good.
That'll be good.
A little bit more on the personal side you know, when you were talking about your boy.
I want to send you and your son on the trip of a lifetime.
- Really? - It's all expenses paid, time off paid, everything paid for.
Oh, that's awesome.
Thank you so much.
Going to court, I think you have some - some outstanding debt for legal fees.
- Mm-hmm.
I want to give you $20,000 to pay off your legal costs.
- Really? - Yes.
That's just awesome.
I mean, you know, that doesn't happen.
It's happening right now.
I mean, it's happened.
That's gonna be a huge, huge burden taken off my shoulders.
Thank you.
You know, one more thing I was thinking about.
I know how incredibly expensive it is to raise children.
And I want to give you $25,000 to help in any way you see fit.
Anything he needs, that's for you.
Oh, my gosh.
I-I can't thank you enough.
So, honestly, thanks for everything.
Okay.
I want my son to have things that I wasn't able to have, and now I won't have to stress as much.
I just love him with all my heart, and I would do anything for him.
Alma, you are incredibly confident.
It actually intimidated me a little bit.
Oops.
I just kind of messed up that U.
Sorry about that.
No, you know what? That looks kind of sloppy.
I know.
I did not realize people are still writing things down on paper.
So you're gonna get new systems to manage everything in the warehouse, from the jobs to the scheduling to the inventory.
This is amazing.
I feel like I almost feel like pinching myself.
So one other thing that I was thinking about.
You were juggling so many things, it was amazing.
But I felt like there was a need for someone to help you It would make your job easier.
Thank you.
That's amazing, 'cause I thought it would never happen.
I have been trying for quite a while.
That's more than money can buy.
You know, we talked about yourself teen mom, went back and got your GED, and then school.
- Do you still have school debt? - Yeah, I do.
I want to give you $75,000 Huh? To pay off your debt with school and take care of your daughters.
- Really? - Yes.
Are you being serious? I've never, ever had anybody treat me like ever give me anything in life.
It's gonna, like, change my life, like, completely.
Oh, wow.
Thank you.
Can I hug you? - Thank you very much.
- You are welcome.
I'm speechless.
Like, it's amazing.
I have no words.
When you live paycheck by paycheck, it's hard.
It's a big relief.
I was already blessed before.
I'm even blessed now even more.
Wow.
Sandy, watching you do what you do, I just had the best time.
- I was horrible.
- Yeah.
Is there anything else we can do for you today? No.
- "May I have your name?" - Oh, excuse me.
May I have your name? You have a different skill set.
I don't know what it is, but I was nervous to do your job.
- It's not easy.
- It isn't.
And there were some things that were a bit broken to me.
The phone connector, the cord.
- Was crackling.
- Crackling.
Unfortunately, I cannot upgrade those phones.
I just can't do it.
Okay.
But instead, I want to get you a brand-new monitoring center.
Wow.
Brand-new cubicles, all new equipment, everything.
Wow.
That's exciting.
Really, and all the other people will be happy too, because we struggle.
You deserve it.
I mean, you all deserve it.
It's amazing.
Some of the things that you mentioned just resonated with me.
You know, I know that your husband had passed, and you have your house debt, bills stacking up.
Yeah.
You deserve all the happiness in the world.
Thank you.
So I want to give you $30,000 and allow you to take care of your house debt, - pay off these bills.
- Wow.
That's really kind.
You're making me get emotional.
It really means a lot to me.
- Thank you, Todd.
- You're very welcome.
That's an amazing amount of money that Todd offered to me.
He is going to take the weight off my shoulders.
I'm just excited.
I just feel like I have no holds against me anymore.
- Hug? - Yeah, I think we deserve that.
I can't wait to tell people at Vivint.
There is hope, you know.
And I'm happy for all of us.
Will, I watched you operate.
You were a professional the entire time.
- How are you? I'm William with Vivint.
- Hi, good to meet you.
I'm your field service professional today.
Yes.
- You have a lovely home.
- Oh, thank you.
You've been through some incredible personal challenges.
I remember you used the word "bitter" when it came to your wife's sentiment towards Vivint.
- And it just, like - Yeah.
I mean, seriously, like, crushed me.
I'm here to say I apologize.
I appreciate that.
That means a lot to her, and it means a lot to me.
Just one more thing with that.
You mentioned she needs the reconstructive surgery.
I want to pay for that.
Appreciate that.
I mean, I really appreciate it.
Appreciate that.
You're welcome, definitely welcome.
And another thing you mentioned you don't own a car.
I'm gonna give you $15,000 towards a new car.
Man.
You know what? It's like It's like all the problems I had, that I told you about, you addressed them all right here, right now, and I appreciate it, man.
Incredible.
It's hard for me to see you go through some of the struggles you've gone through.
And, you know, you've been amazing to us.
And so I want to give you $100,000 towards a home or your nest egg or whatever you choose.
Thank you so much.
- No, thank you.
- Thank you so much.
You've answered all my prayers in one meeting.
It's unbelievable.
Hey, man, I don't usually hug a man, but I'm hugging you.
Appreciate it.
Oh, my God, I could have kissed that dude, man.
I'm talking about kissed him.
Oh, my God.
Big burden off my shoulder to just it's a big burden off my shoulder not to have to worry about my wife and her reconstructive surgery.
This is unbelievable, man.
I can't believe it.
I'm happy.
I'm overjoyed.
I'm I'm relieved.
I needed this, man.
Oh, man.