Original subtitles

male announcer: More than 100 of America's biggest bosses...

- I just hope I can keep up with the guys.

announcer: Have gone undercover

in their own companies.

- That wasn't as easy as it looks.

- Here we go! - Lift me up!

- I'm about to just flip out here.

- I would almost swear you look like somebody else.

- Right here, right now,

we're gonna shut the restaurant down.

announcer: More than $20 million

have been awarded to employees.

- I'll write up a check for $250,000.

- Oh, my God.

announcer: And millions of lives...

- I'm gonna pay off the mortgage.

announcer: Changed forever.

- For real? - This is real.

The greatest reward is to see people live their dream.

- That's a life changer.

[dramatic music]

announcer: This season...

- Oh, that's pretty cold.

announcer: The most incredible...

- We just got an emergency response.

- Let's rumble!

[employees cheering and pounding]

announcer: Surprising... - [gasps]

- Oh, my God.

- I'm Drew Brees. - My God.

announcer: And challenging journeys...

- [screams] announcer: So far.

- Report of a building on fire.

- Blech. - Uh-uh, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no.

- Coming up!

- Let's talk about getting you out of this system.

♪

announcer: Tonight...

- Going down!

announcer: On "Undercover Boss"...

announcer: The founder of America's largest

hazardous waste disposal company...

- Holy mackerel.

announcer: Will be getting down and dirty...

- Stinks over here.

announcer: As he battles to hold on

to his highly trained workforce

in the face of rapid expansion...

- I feel like an industrial janitor.

announcer: As he goes undercover.

- I've never done anything like this.

announcer: The boss will trade in his luxury lifestyle

to put his life on the line...

- He started shaking.

He looked terrified.

announcer: Dealing with disaster zones...

- We're heading out for an emergency response.

- Safety valve in hand! Eyes on him.

announcer: And a workforce tasked with responding 24-7.

- I miss Thanksgiving.

And I don't get compensated for that.

- Seems like the people at corporate,

we're wearing the same shirt,

but they're kind of on the other team.

announcer: But how will his coworkers react...

- [gasps]

announcer: When they find out he's really the boss?

- Oh, my God.

You really just changed my life today.

announcer: All this next on "Undercover Boss."

[upbeat music]

♪

- I'm Alan McKim.

I'm the chairman and founder of Clean Harbors.

It's been my life's work

to build Clean Harbors from scratch,

and it's my baby.

I love this company.

I love working with the people here.

I love the customers.

announcer: With its headquarters

in Norwell, Massachusetts,

this $3.3-billion-a-year company

has been cleaning up America for 40 years.

- We've done so many major events,

from 9/11 to cleaning up anthrax

to hurricane damage

to the big Gulf oil spill.

♪

We are the Ghostbusters of America.

I mean, we do all the dirty jobs

that nobody else would want to clean up.

♪

[soft music]

Growing up, we were pretty poor.

There were times it was really difficult financially.

My mom and dad, you know, struggled.

I had always been entrepreneurial.

You know, I would be the kid

running two or three paper routes

or fixing cars.

I helped pay the bills.

And so I was somewhat driven to prove that I could

be successful because of that upbringing, I think.

♪

I started Clean Harbors in 1980.

There was a lot of oil spills

in the '70s and '80s, particularly here in Boston.

So me and three other guys, we started cleaning up spills

and doing everything you could, really, to survive.

I had three children at the time,

and people thought I was a little crazy

to go and start a company from scratch.

There were many a week where I never took a paycheck.

Just didn't have the money.

My family were very supportive

because they knew we were making something

that, quite frankly, ended up being

beyond my wildest dreams successful.

[upbeat music]

The company grew for the first ten years

so significantly that we got to about $100 million by 1990.

Today Clean Harbors is a public company

on the New York Stock Exchange.

This year, we'll do about $3.5 billion in revenue.

And we've been able to acquire many companies.

We've done about 50 acquisitions.

We started off in an office trailer

in the back of a friend's shop.

And we've grown from that one location

to now 750 locations.

I never imagined Clean Harbors

would ever be the size that it is today.

♪

- How are you feeling about going undercover?

- Looking forward to it, actually.

My undercover name is Bill Anderson.

I'm a mechanic.

I really need to go back to work

and keep earning a living now.

- That's believable.

- Yeah. - Yeah, I like that.

- What do you guys think I should look like?

- Like, maybe one of those huge mustaches

that go all the way out to here.

- Oh, handlebars? [laughter]

- Hi. Welcome.

- Hi, how are you? - Good, good.

How are you? - Good.

I've never done anything like this,

and I'm extremely nervous and apprehensive.

Being at corporate,

everything gets filtered to me.

I want it unfiltered.

I want to find out what we need to do

to stay ahead of our competitors.

Oh, my God.

Holy mackerel.

I need a ponytail.

[laughs]

Unbelievable.

[dramatic music]

♪

- Oh, my God. - Stop it right now.

- I'm Bill. [laughter]

- Oh, man.

- Look at you.

- Posing as a former car mechanic,

my employees are gonna be tricked into thinking

that they're taking part in a documentary

about second careers.

They have no idea this is really "Undercover Boss."

- Bye. Bye. - Bye.

- We love you. - Love you too.

- Stay safe!

♪

[upbeat music]

- So today we're going to the East Chicago, Indiana,

re-refinery.

It's the largest of its kind in the world.

This is where we take waste oil,

clean it, recycle it.

It's a sustainable solution for hazardous waste,

and this is what a lot of our customers are looking for.

This is a really important revenue stream

of our company here at this plant.

We want it to be operating at the highest safety

as well as efficiency level.

Hey, I'm looking for Brianna.

[laughs] Brianna, I'm Bill.

- Hi, Bill. - Nice to meet you.

- So you're shadowing me today?

- I'm gonna be your right-hand man today, I guess.

- Okay, so we're gonna go in this tank

full of asphalt and sludge and oil

and we're gonna clean it out.

- Asphalt and sludge.

- [laughs] - Okay.

- It's real dirty.

Have you done anything like this before?

- No, I haven't.

I was a mechanic before.

- So you're used to getting a little dirty.

- Oh, yeah, I can get dirty.

- Oh, there's a lot of dirt. [laughs]

- Think a guy my age would be able to handle that?

- Depends on how healthy you are, Bill.

- I'm pretty healthy.

- [laughs] You'll be all right, then.

- It's important that we clean these railcars

because we use those same railcars

after they're clean

to send our re-refined product back out again,

and that's a real efficient use of the rail.

- So you don't have any problems with, like,

tight spaces or anything, right?

- A little claustrophobic sometimes.

I'm a little worried about getting into a vessel.

This is the first time I'm doing this job,

and that makes me a little nervous.

♪

- There's a hole over here.

So there's a hole where everything--

it's like a drain, almost.

- Okay. - There's no shame.

If you want to get out, you get out.

So we're gonna wear our fire-resistant clothing.

- Is there potential with a fire?

- Well, with the materials that we sometimes clean, yes,

sometimes they have explosive levels.

- What would happen if we actually had a fire in there?

- If there was a fire in there,

there's a chance we...

we can't come out, you know what I mean?

- This is not necessarily what I expected.

I didn't really know that it was gonna be so dangerous.

♪

How long are we gonna be in the suit?

- Well, depends on how long you can handle it.

You look a little nervous, Bill.

This is an efficient job.

I don't think he can keep up.

You're only as strong as your weakest link.

♪

- If you're not getting any air,

you grab like this.

- All right. - Just do that.

- You all right?

- Can't believe that it takes you so long

just to get yourself set, you know?

- Oh, he's kind of nervous.

Okay.

He's kind of nervous. He's drinking water.

- When we got ready to go,

it seemed like Bill maybe panicked a little bit.

He looked terrified.

- It's just too [...] hot

to be [...] around up here.

My heart was racing. I was sweating.

Wow, it really was hot in there.

- All right. You guys be safe.

- Yes, sir.

- Going down!

- Going down.

So watch your step going in.

♪

Second person going down.

♪

- Oh, yeah.

- All right.

Pull.

- We had our hand tools in there,

and we were moving the sludge away

from the bottom of that tank.

And, you know, it was heavy labor,

heavy labor moving that stuff around.

♪

- Bill, you all right?

Hey, Bill.

- Don't panic. Don't panic.

♪

- I was feeling really hot. My heart was racing.

It was almost like a claustrophobic feeling.

- All right.

- Coming up!

[dramatic music]

- You gotta adjust that bottle, Bill.

You gotta move that bottle to the front.

- As I got near the top,

my emergency bottle was starting to be wedged in.

I was starting to really breathe pretty heavy.

- Hold on.

Here, hold on. Hold on, Bill. Hold on.

- Yeah, hold on. Hold on.

Stay right there. Don't panic.

Don't panic, whatever you do.

- It's the only way out,

and the manhole was just not wide enough,

so I had to go back down,

back into the tank again

and try to shift my bottle around,

and then try to come back up again

to get through that hole.

- Come on.

- Take your time.

- Take your time. You're good.

- Take your time. - Take a step up.

There you go. - There you go.

- Now sit on the edge right there.

- Yeah, there you go. - See?

♪

- Bill looked like he just ran a marathon or something.

It's a hard job.

- I didn't like getting stuck in the hole.

- No, nobody likes that.

♪

- I have so much respect for Bri

'cause this is hard work in very difficult conditions,

but what I did find is that she's got a great crew here.

These guys really made sure

that I was calm and I didn't panic.

♪

- All right, Bill, so...

this is where you can get changed.

- Okay. Nice hot shower.

That would feel really good.

What's that?

- That's your shower.

[quirky music]

- Oh, wow. No shower here for you?

- No. We don't have showers.

We don't even have a bathroom in here.

- Wow.

You do that kind of work,

and you have to go home at night,

all sweaty like that?

Am I gonna have to do that?

- Yes, sir.

- How do you change here?

I mean, you don't have, like, shades,

and it's not private,

and anybody could kind of walk in.

- I really don't get to do a full change

because there's nowhere to change.

- Bri, are there other females working here on the site?

- I am the only female. - Wow.

I have three daughters, and, you know,

I would want them to be treated with respect,

have their own change room,

have a working bathroom,

and a clean space to eat their lunch.

I was hungry. - I know.

- It takes a lot out of you, doesn't it?

- Truly.

No offense, but your first time

going in this tank today was, what, like, 15, 20 minutes?

- Yeah.

- My first time going in that tank,

I was in there about two hours and a half.

- Wow.

- My mom doesn't even know how dangerous

the stuff that I work with is.

- Wow. You're living with your mom still?

- Yeah, my mom's the best.

When I was young, like, my mom,

she ended up with stage four chondrosarcoma,

which is a--it's a connective tissue cancer.

I had to be a provider

because my mom couldn't do that anymore.

- Wow.

- I work 12-hour days, sometimes 16s,

just so that I can help support my family.

- Right.

She really touched my heart, quite frankly.

She's dedicating her paycheck to helping her mother,

who can't work, raise their family.

She is quite an impressive young woman.

- I have two brothers and two sisters.

My sister's a single mom. I have a two-year-old niece.

Here name's Italy.

She's my favorite person in the whole world.

- Wow, she's so beautiful.

- [laughs] - Look at her.

But you gotta support your mom, your niece,

and you really have four other siblings home?

- See, the way I look at it,

I don't have the luxury of being able to give up.

So many people rely on the things that I do.

I have to keep going.

- At 27 years old, she's basically

the primary caregiver for seven people,

including a two-year-old niece.

You know, she really needs this job,

and I'm quite disappointed

in seeing that she didn't have any facilities to work from.

I'm really hoping that we can

make some real improvements here.

[upbeat music]

♪

So today I'm going undercover

at our field services office in New Jersey.

This particular office has handled

some really unique projects,

whether it's anthrax or part of 9/11

or a fire or an explosion at a refinery.

Our emergency response teams here

really do put their lives on the line when they go out.

So today I'm really looking forward

to working with this team to see firsthand

if there's anything that we could be doing differently

to support them because they really are

the heroes of our business.

How you doing? I'm looking for Gregg.

- How you doing, Bill? My name is Gregg Maier.

- Oh, very nice to meet you.

- South Plainfield office. - Bill Anderson.

How do you do? - Good.

So you're gonna be shadowing me today.

- Great.

- So we have a hard hat here and road vest for you.

We're gonna make sure you're safe

and you come home in the same condition you're here now.

All right? - All right, good.

- Go ahead, Kevin.

- All right, copy that.

Hey, Bill, we just got an emergency response

to go down to Lower Manhattan.

I got a crew dispatched there,

so we're gonna go out there and assist them.

- I'll follow you. - When I met Bill,

I was really surprised how old he was.

I don't think Bill would make it as a laborer--

potentially as a driver but not as a laborer.

[dramatic music]

[upbeat music]

- What kind of spill is this, a chemical spill?

- Yeah, seems like a chemical spill

that got released into an alleyway.

- How long you been with Clean Harbors?

- 25 years. 25 years in September, yeah.

It's a good wage,

but you're away from your family a lot.

We're on call every other week

for emergency response after your normal shift

of 10, 12, 14 hours.

- Like, 2:00 in the morning?

- Sure, 8:00 in the morning, 9:00--

- Wow. Saturdays and Sundays too?

- Absolutely.

- You must be missing a lot of personal stuff.

- I miss Thanksgiving where I can't get, you know, coverage.

And I don't get compensated for that.

- First impression of Gregg is,

he's a real dedicated employee,

works a lot of hours.

Think he's a dedicated family man as well.

♪

- Bill, I hope you're ready to work.

Come on, Bill. Some backstreet kitchen,

they spilled some chemicals in the alleyway here.

- All right. - It's a corrosive

that we're gonna be handling. - Okay.

- You're gonna be pressure-washing

around that area.

We're gonna get you suited up.

♪

- This looks like a lot of gear to put on.

Is this necessary? - This absolutely is.

We want to make sure that you're protected,

that you don't get exposed to chemicals.

All right, Bill, keep that away from your foot

at about an angle like this.

- Okay. - All right?

♪

- Running that wand, it's a little different

than running a pen in the office.

Operating all this high-pressure water, you know,

you really gotta have stamina.

You gotta be strong.

Stinks over here.

- All right, we're gonna start sucking the water.

- Okay. - Very high-powered truck.

Whatever gets in that end of that

is gonna go into the truck, all right?

So we want to make sure everything stays clear.

You ready to do this? - I'm ready to do it.

- Let's go. Safety valve in hand.

Eyes on him.

If anything gets close to his feet,

you pull that immediately.

Let's go.

♪

- Looking at how Gregg runs the job

and his attention to safety,

he really is a leader, and I'm really proud of him.

♪

- I see your shirt's a little wet.

You didn't get hit with the pressure washer, did you?

- No. No, it's a little sweat.

- A little bit, huh? - [laughs]

This little fat guy really sweated a lot in there,

and I was only in there for a while.

So that was a hard day.

- It sure was.

I'm glad we got some water to cool down.

You got a chance to get some fresh air.

- Yeah.

[somber music]

- This is really bringing back some memories.

I actually worked at the cleanup operations of 9/11.

- Is that right?

- We just worked a few blocks from here

couple days after it happened.

I haven't been back since.

- Is that right? - Yeah.

- That really is amazing.

It's peaceful. - Yeah.

- May they rest in peace. - That's right.

♪

So...

you must've seen some really difficult scenes, I'm sure.

- Absolutely. Something I could never forget.

The destruction, it was just burning and burning

for months.

- What kind of work did you actually do here?

- So if you look over here,

you can see our stations that we had.

They were setting up the vacuum truck,

similar to what you were doing today.

And here you can see some of our guys

washing the firemen's boots. - Wow.

How long did the project last overall for you?

- I guess it was probably two years.

18-hour days. - Yeah.

- We'd go home, turn around, shower, and come back.

- That must've been really difficult

to be here every day, wow.

- I hope we never have to do something like that again.

- For sure, huh?

- I think this just shows the resilience

of New Yorkers here,

that we're not gonna let this stop us.

- Yes.

- I'm glad I was part of that.

♪

- To know that all of my employees were here

working 12, 18 hours a day,

seven days a week for months on end

is just something that I'll never forget.

So I guess with all the time that you had to invest,

did that have a big impact on your family?

- Oh, it does.

That workload that we do,

I'm still trying to find some vacation time.

- [laughs]

- And I would love to go to Italy.

I have two daughters.

My oldest is taking Italian,

so it's our dream vacation,

but obviously it's a very expensive trip

to go for a family of four. - Yeah.

- So maybe I can spend some time with my kids

before they go off to college,

and I gotta try to figure out how to pay for that,

'cause that's gonna be super challenging.

- That's a big amount of money too.

- Yeah, I don't know how I'm gonna afford college.

- Listening to Gregg today about how many hours

he puts in and how much he's away from his family,

we gotta take a hard look at that.

Rewarding our employees is really important to me,

and it's something that I'm gonna talk to my team about.

Thank you very much for telling me about

what you experienced here,

was something that I'll never forget.

He played a really important role.

I really felt he and many of our employees

are unsung heroes.

♪

announcer: Coming up...

- We have the rattlesnakes we have to watch out for.

- Oh, man.

announcer: Alan faces his biggest fear...

- I [...] hate snakes.

announcer: And is bitten by the truth.

- People at corporate are kind of on the other team.

- Wow.

[dramatic music]

[upbeat music]

♪

- Clean Harbors responds to incidents

that are the result of natural disasters.

We're getting calls more and more

for emergency response work,

whether it's the wildfires out in California

or it's the hurricanes or it's flooding.

And you never know when they're gonna hit.

Our field techs would be called upon

anywhere to go in the United States.

Sometimes we could have 1,000 mobilized to a major disaster.

Field techs are really important,

but it's really hard to retain good workers,

so it's important for me to be undercover

to really understand

some of the needs that they might have firsthand.

Morning. I'm looking for Vance.

- Yeah. - I'm Bill. Nice to meet you.

- Welcome to Texas. - Thanks so much.

A little warm here. - Yeah, sweaty.

I got you an outfit. - Okay, great.

Gonna be going out in the boats?

- Yeah.

♪

- So, Vance, what's going on today?

Where are we going?

- We're head over to the Aransas National Refuge.

It's one of the most important refuges in America.

It's 115,000 acres.

It's still contaminated from Hurricane Harvey

when it hit two years ago.

- I saw on the news when this hurricane hit.

It was quite a disaster. - Yeah.

- So it's really important, I guess, to get it back

to the way it was before the hurricane.

- Yeah, and we've been working on getting this ever since.

- I think it's a testament to just how much damage

was done from this past hurricane,

the fact that almost two years later,

we're still doing cleanup effort here.

What are we expecting to see when we get to the site?

- Um, a lot of debris, possibly oil containers,

washers, dryers, you know.

- Really? Wow.

♪

- I'm gonna brief you a little bit about the animals

because we have the rattlesnakes

we have to watch out for, especially near, like,

the water lines, as well as alligators.

- I really don't like snakes.

Help me understand about the snake part.

- Scan the ground area around us before you step out

into the tall grass, obviously.

- Oh, man.

I [...] hate snakes.

I don't know what it is,

but I really don't like snakes.

- I don't know if Bill's gonna be cut out for the job today.

- I would be paralyzed if a snake came across me.

♪

- Whew, that looks like an entire house.

- Wow. - Let's suit up.

We're in a rattlesnake area,

so we're gonna use these to protect our feet

and our boot area. - Okay.

- Be careful. Don't slip. - Okay.

- Any kind of household waste, we'll start picking up.

- These both have liquids in them.

Is that okay? - Yeah, let's throw it in.

- Looks like peroxide. - Peroxide?

- [sighs] - Grease?

- Yeah, you got a grease can?

I got another grease can over here.

- There's a lot of stuff here. - Lot of stuff.

Keep it like this, just like this.

That should be good. [sighs]

Heavy?

- Yeah, it's kind of heavy, huh?

And the heat, you know, and the sun beating down on you,

it's a young man's game.

- I don't think he'd be too good

on the field tech team.

He just doesn't have the energy, I don't think,

to be able to keep up with us younger guys.

♪

You know, as you're operating it,

if I need to stop you,

I'm gonna raise my arms in a big X,

tell you to stop. - All right.

♪

- And you can turn on your hydraulics.

Go ahead and close it.

Perfect.

Let's tilt it up.

- I was very impressed with Vance.

- All right, you got it. Let's get it out of here.

- I really felt that, you know,

he had safety at the top of his mind.

Doing all right? - Yeah, you're doing good.

Let's make sure we don't hit the ATV

when we back up, though.

[vehicle beeping]

♪

I'm pretty thirsty. You want to take a break?

- That sounds great.

Work in this environment, work in this heat,

worry about snakes, it's not a fun job.

- My job, I feel like an industrial janitor sometimes.

- Oh, really? - You know?

Just day in and day out, doing the dirty work.

- Yeah, yeah.

What things would you improve?

- I don't feel we get paid enough

for the type of work we do.

New guys come in with no experience

and start at a higher rate than us

because we don't get those yearly raises

like we should be getting.

- Wow. That's not fair, huh?

That's gotta be demoralizing, really, huh?

'Cause you're now so experienced,

and some greenhorn's making more money.

- Yeah, it hurts.

The last six months, I've actually

been trying to find, like, a new job

or figure out a plan,

'cause I've been looking to buy a house, right,

and I couldn't do it as a field tech.

- I was taken back by that because

we want to hold on to our people,

and if we're not giving them pay increases,

then that's gonna force those people to look elsewhere.

You're probably away from home quite a bit.

- Me and my girl live together.

I maybe only get one weekend a month free time.

- Your girl doesn't mind that too much?

- She gets really upset about it.

She don't like me going away.

We got engaged last year,

and I want to have a real nice wedding with her

'cause she deserves it.

- You want to have a family and get married and...

- Yeah, get married, have a kid, be happy.

Yup. - There you go.

[heartfelt music]

It's been a long time since I've been in the field,

and it really brought back my respect

and appreciation for what our people do.

I'd hate to see us lose an employee like Vance,

so we gotta find ways to make our employees

feel more satisfied and appreciated

so they'll stay here longer.

♪

[upbeat music]

♪

This whole experience has highlighted to me

how crucial it is to hang on to our experienced employees.

So I've traveled here to Braintree.

This is one of our distribution centers.

The red trucks that you see here

are the lifeblood of this company.

The drivers here, they're able to transport

all sorts of different types of chemicals.

They're handling acids and corrosives.

There is serious risk, obviously,

but they're highly trained to deal with those risks.

I'm looking for Brian. - Bill, what's up, bud? Brian.

- How are you? - How's it going?

All right, you'll be riding with me today.

Gonna do some local drop-offs, pickups, and whatnot.

We'll go in here and get you changed up.

- A lot of our drivers are coming up on retirement age,

and it's really hard to recruit new drivers.

I want to go undercover because recruiting

is a very important issue for me to solve.

I want to hear firsthand from our drivers

what we could do to make their jobs better.

♪

- Should be a nice ride.

- Yeah. Beautiful truck. You like what you do?

- I like the truck. I like the schedule.

I like the customers.

They can throw anything at me, and I can figure it out,

but generally, the company's known

for not taking care of their drivers.

- Wow.

- You should at least give some kind of incentive

to the drivers that are out there in society

hauling 80,000 pounds of...

a bomb. - Right.

- If they just upped the benefits

and, like, maybe kicked, like, some of the senior guys,

like, a profit sharing or something,

like, something to invest in the company, like...

- Yeah.

- Drivers can stay here a long time.

- I was wincing in my seat a little bit.

I was trying not to show my emotions.

It was very frustrating.

Do you think the people in corporate

know what's going on in the field?

- The higher-ups, I know they know what's going on.

But they're higher up.

They don't gotta do a whole lot.

They make really good money,

so they're just-- it's not gonna get fixed.

- Some of the points that Brian made,

it was hard to hear.

Do you think that's the way that everybody thinks of them?

- For the most part. Not everyone.

I don't think everyone.

They're in the glass palace. They can't do anything wrong.

So it seems like the people at corporate

are kind of on the other team.

We're wearing the same shirt, but they're on the other team.

[dramatic music]

♪

- Do you think the people in corporate

know what's going on in the field?

- It seems like the people at corporate

are kind of on the other team.

We're wearing the same shirt, but they're on the other team.

- I was wincing in my seat a little bit.

It was hard to hear.

When I think of a driver like Brian

who doesn't feel that people at corporate

care about him, it really troubles me.

I have to take responsibility as being the CEO

to ensure that all employees feel part of one company.

We can't have people that are working for us

in such an important role

not feel like they're appreciated.

[upbeat music]

- I'm ready for you.

- You're gonna load the drums right to here?

- Yeah. - I see.

A typical driver will operate well over 100,000 miles a year,

as well as doing the manual work of loading drums.

It's a tough job.

Is this flammable and dangerous material?

- Yeah, any material that says--has a class three

flame liquid on it, it's all flammable liquid.

- You're comfortable carrying this kind of material, right?

- Not a problem. I do it every day.

- My first impressions of Brian

is that he's a real true professional.

He was well informed about the material.

He understood the hazards.

I was pretty impressed.

- Give it a go. - All righty.

- Get right over there. - All right.

- Get up to it. Grab this.

Step here. Pull it to you.

All the way. All the way.

Right in. Go for it.

♪

- These are heavy.

- Sometimes corrosives and acids

can weigh up to 14 pounds a gallon.

♪

- How many of these every day do you do?

- The trailer can hold 104, and I've filled it.

- So you do it all by yourself?

- Uh, for the most part, yeah.

You do, after a couple years, get used to it.

- They were a lot heavier than I remember

when I was handling drums.

Maybe I'm just a little weaker,

but, you know, it was a little bit

of effort there to load up 30 or so containers.

♪

That's a lot of work moving those drums

on and off the trailer.

- Yeah.

A lot of guys don't want to drive the trailer.

Pretty much there's a lot of guys that don't want to get

into truck driving in general.

I'm 35. I'm the youngest guy we have.

Nationwide, there's a problem finding drivers.

The higher-ups, they know there's a driver problem,

but how they go about recruiting,

it's not the best way to do it.

- Oh, is that right?

- The hiring process

does recruit a lot of college grads.

You don't need a college degree to work here.

We got guys that have a college degree

in environmental science.

That has nothing to do with how we do our jobs.

I don't have a degree in anything.

- And so I was a little bit surprised

we're trying to recruit

more college-degreed people as a priority,

and we really shouldn't.

We're a blue-collar company.

We don't require a college education

for many of the jobs that we have,

particularly in the field.

- I had a friend who I think was solid candidate

for the entry-level position at Braintree.

He's 27, and I think he'd be a good fit.

But because of degree, they missed their opportunity,

and it just doesn't make sense.

He applied when there was snow on the ground.

The job is still vacant.

- Wow.

It seems like we don't trust

the people that work for us

who are recommending employees to come to work for us.

And why do we want to make that so difficult?

- It was good seeing you. - Hey, thanks, Brian.

I hope I didn't get in your way.

- No, you're fine. You're good.

You're better than guys half your age.

- Thank you, thank you. - All right, I'll see you, bud.

[soft music]

- Being undercover has been harder than I ever imagined.

I discovered a lot about the company.

It was difficult to hear some of the criticisms

about management,

about the way that the company is run,

but for Clean Harbors to grow in the future,

I need to fix the problems that I've uncovered.

♪

[dramatic music]

♪

I'm about to reveal my true identity

to the people I worked with this week,

and I've asked for everyone to meet me one last time.

- What about you? Where you coming from?

- New Jersey. - Oh, wow.

- They think they're coming to be interviewed

about their time spent with Bill.

They have no idea this is really "Undercover Boss."

♪

[tense music]

♪

Good morning. - What's going on?

- How are you today?

- Good. How are you? - Good.

How are you? - You look familiar.

- You know me?

- Not...not really.

- No? - No, sir.

- You were working with a guy named Bill.

- Yes, yeah.

- Any resemblance to me, you think?

- Uh, a little bit, yeah.

[both laughing]

The voice sounds familiar.

- Well, that was me,

and I'm also the CEO and founder of Clean Harbors.

- [laughs]

Hi. Hi.

- This is "Undercover Boss."

- Wow. - [laughs]

- What? [laughs]

- I'm shocked.

- [laughs]

announcer: Coming up... - [gasps]

announcer: The boss delivers life-changing news.

- Thank you so much.

- You okay?

- Oh, my God.

[dramatic music]

- Brian, you said a lot of things when we drove together.

- I know.

- And Bill's ears

are still hurting a little bit.

You called corporate the glass palace,

and you think you're just a number.

- Everything I said that day was true.

- I did take a lot of what you had to say

really to heart,

and if this company's gonna move forward,

we need to be one company.

I think another thing that I remember you telling me

was about the fact that you're trying to get a friend in,

and it was really kind of frustrating

- Yeah.

- Well, for the last six months,

I've had a committee

trying to figure out, how do we get more

qualified drivers into the company...

- Yeah. - But, more importantly,

how do we hold on to the ones we have?

- That's what I want to do too.

- And I would really like to get you

to participate on that task force with me.

- Okay. Then I'll do it.

You got a guy in front of you that's 35 years old.

I would like this to be my last job.

But I'm maxed out at 35 years old.

Where can I go?

- Maybe letting more employees

become owners of the company. - Yeah.

- You'll treat it more as not just a job

but also as a career.

- Yeah.

- What I'd like to do for you

is give you 1,000 shares of stock worth $70,000.

[upbeat music]

- Wow.

♪

- It's entirely yours to do what you want to,

whether you want to hold it and grow with it

or whether you want to sell some of it

and use it to pay off bills or whatever.

Do you think this at least is gonna help

your family a little?

- It'll help out a lot.

I appreciate it. Thank you.

Oh, it feels great to finally be respected and rewarded.

Cool, thank you. - It was awesome.

- This will go a long way. I got three kids.

I'm the only income.

So it...

it means a lot.

- Vance, you're one of these guys that really does

run out the door when the bells rings

and respond to an emergency,

so I hope you know how much the company appreciates you.

- Oh, actually, this is...

the first time I really do feel appreciated.

You know, you don't get a lot of thanks out in the field.

- That's kind of disappointing. - Yeah.

- One of things that was really concerning is, you had,

you know, talked about the fact

that you're thinking about leaving.

- Yes. Yeah.

- You're the kind of guy that the company

really wants to have stay with the company

and really invest in,

and so I was wondering if you could come to corporate,

spend a little time helping me hire better people

and understand more about what our pay practices are

in the field.

- I'd love to actually come up to corporate

and work with you guys.

- Oh, that'd be awesome.

When I talked to you, you had some tears

coming out of those eyes

when you started talking about your girl,

and so sounds like you got somebody special there.

- You know, I got engaged last year,

but we're gonna work on figuring out a date.

Save up and start the planning.

- I was hoping maybe we could

push that along for you a little bit.

I'd like to give you $50,000 for your wedding.

- [laughs]

- I'd like to get you to a point

where you don't have to worry about saving up for that.

- You don't know how much that means to me.

You really don't. Can't wait to tell her.

I get emotional when I talk about her

'cause, you know...

she's always there for me. She does so much.

So...

that 50 grand, she deserves it.

Thank you, Alan--Mr. McKim.

You know, I really appreciate.

- Thanks. Thanks so much, okay, pal?

- Thank you, sir. - Thank you.

- I was expecting, you know,

to save up just a couple grand,

have something small at the house.

I'm gonna take her out and treat her

how she deserves to be treated.

She's gonna have the nicest wedding

she ever could've asked for.

And ring. I want to buy her a nicer ring.

- Gregg, you really were terrific to work with.

When you and I worked on the Manhattan job,

we went over to where the World Trade Center was.

- Yeah. - Was it tough going back?

- It really was.

- I was so proud of the work

that our team performed there.

There's actually a new memorial,

just opened up,

really to honor the people that actually

helped with the cleanup,

and I would like to contribute $30,000...

- Oh, wow.

- To that in honor of you

and all the other Clean Harbors employees who

really did such a great job on that.

- I'm glad that my work got noticed.

It's amazing.

- So you've been doing this for 25 years.

- Yeah, 25 years in September.

- I want to recognize and thank you

for the sacrifices that you've made for Clean Harbors.

You spend a lot of time away from your family.

So I'm gonna pay

for an all-expenses-paid trip to Italy.

- Oh, my...

I've never been out of the United States.

- No kidding?

- My kids are gonna freak out.

Oh, my God. That's amazing.

- And that's not all.

I'm gonna give you $40,000

to help put your girls through college.

- [gasps]

Thank you so much.

Oh, my God. I'm so amazed.

It's such shock.

Thank you so much.

- You're welcome. Thank you so much.

Take care. - I will.

This is gonna be a once-in-a-lifetime trip

that my kids will never forget.

- Bri, I remember you handing me a wet wipe--

do you remember-- and saying that's the shower?

- [laughs] Yeah.

- I was really quite surprised at that.

- It's pretty gross. - Right.

What I would like to do is invest $200,000

and build out a new facility there

that will give you, you know,

a shower, a lunch area,

a clean room, and a dirty room.

- It would be so cool. That would be so cool.

- You shared with me...

a picture of your niece on your phone, right?

And I can tell you've got a real soft spot for her.

She's so young, right?

So we can put some money aside for her in a college fund.

So if we put $10,000 in that,

by the time she's 18 years old,

that's gonna be a great opportunity

for her to go to college.

- Oh, man.

[laughs]

That's crazy.

That's crazy.

You just changed my life, sir.

You just changed my niece's life.

- You know, you're really taking care of a lot of people.

- I try to do the best I can.

- That's a big part of your life, really,

is to care for your family and your mom.

I was hoping you wouldn't mind if we help you

financially a little bit.

We'd like to give you $50,000

to help make the financial burden

of the things that you're doing...

♪

You okay?

♪

We'd like to help. You know what I mean?

♪

- Oh, my God. This is the best comedy ever.

- Hopefully it was worth your trip coming down here.

- Yes.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

Thank you for everything you do.

- Thank you so much.

You really just changed my life today.

You don't even know. I have to, like, call my mom.

- Absolutely. You call her.

- Thank you so much. - Okay.

- They're giving me $50,000,

and Italy's getting a college fund.

- My God!

- I swear to God! We can buy a house.

We can buy a house.

Wait, here's my CEO. Hold on. Wait, wait, wait.

Look, look, look.

- Is this...

is this your mom? - Ma, Ma.

- She's a terrific girl.

- I love you too.

[uplifting music]

- I think going undercover has allowed me to learn

about things that really can make company-wide changes.

And we're gonna work hard at making those changes.

♪

You know, I've been here for 40 years.

I certainly know I'm not getting any younger,

but I'm more confident now than ever

that the future is really bright for Clean Harbors.

♪

[heartfelt music]

♪