"It's just awful, smelly, stinky work," says Arquilla, who is based in Cincinnati. "You know you're in a bad place when the production crew is getting dry heaves. You become nose-deaf about an hour - you don't smell anything."

"I'm not sure that some of our people were prepared," acknowledges Jennifer Bresnan, senior vice president with CBS's Alternative Programming. (That's what they call reality TV.) "Rick spends a good part of his time trying to unclog the drains and doing exactly what the Roto-Rooter guy does when he's at your house. It's not a pretty job."

Arquilla has been COO since about 2000, but had his share of tough jobs coming up. "I used to work in a foundry, 6 a.m. to 3, and it was 120 degrees by 9 a.m.," he says. "I thought that was pretty hard work. I worked in a glass factory, too, which was a pretty dangerous work environment. But I gotta tell you, cleaning sewers and grease traps is harder than a foundry or a glass plant."

He liked the idea of pretending to be an entry-level worker. "When you're COO, the title will always get in the way to some extent," says Arquilla. "It was kind of cool to be Hank Denman and just show up and do the work."

He'll still answer to Hank, in fact; it was an old fraternity nickname. "The guy who eventually became the best man in my wedding came back from a night out and thought I was Hank," Arquilla says. "No one could convince him I wasn't Hank. I woke up as Hank and it stuck. My wife met me as Hank. I was introduced to my future in-laws as Hank."

Arquilla learned more than he expected to. "You end up thinking about things you haven't thought about in a long time," he says. "I can't tell you too much about what happens, but I will say this: It was more emotionally trying than it was physically."

Bresnan was impressed with his attitude from the start. "He says at the top of the episode that because these are bad economic times, we could say boo-hoo -- or we could say, look, there's never been a better time to find out who we are as a company."

"Undercover Boss" has been renewed for a second season, although the format will change. There's been too much publicity to pass another executive off the same way.

Reality show or not, Arquilla recommends the experience for any company. "Don't hide behind your desk, behind the title," he says. "Get out there. Nothing bad can come from spending some time in the field."