Since she is just a fictional character, we must accept Mary Richards for who she is. In my place of employment, as incredibly attractive as she is, her way of dealing with things as a person of authority, wouldn't have lasted long. In this one the gang gone to a restaurant for Ted's birthday. The waitress is horrible. She isn't just incompetent; she is rude and disinterested. Mary complains to the manager and she is fired. Wouldn't you know it, when a job opens up at the station, she applies and Mary, rather than hire a really competent person, filled with guilt, hires her. She is worse at her job there than she was at the restaurant. Mary has to do her own work and the new girl's work. And this person simply accepts it without any gratitude. Rhoda warned her and she went ahead anyway. It was fun to watch Mary, wearing her heart on her sleeve as Lou accuses her of being jealous.
4 Reviews
Frustrating!
Rrrobert31 July 2019
This episode has a bit more negativity and unpleasantness than usual which can be hard to stomach. Even the episode title seems a bit mean.
Lou is exasperated as the (suitable) applicants Mary has lined-up for the new secretary job aren't attractive enough. Since the last two are good looking, Lou lets Mary make the final decision. (He even checks out Mary's rear as she leaves the room.) Instead of an ideal candidate Mary hires the inept waitress Randy (Barbara Sharma) who was fired after Mary complained of bad service, as she feels so guilty.
Randy is terrible at the job, but Mary covers for her. The situations are well acted - too well acted! It gets very frustrating to watch.
I felt bad for the good applicant who didn't get the job.
Lou is exasperated as the (suitable) applicants Mary has lined-up for the new secretary job aren't attractive enough. Since the last two are good looking, Lou lets Mary make the final decision. (He even checks out Mary's rear as she leaves the room.) Instead of an ideal candidate Mary hires the inept waitress Randy (Barbara Sharma) who was fired after Mary complained of bad service, as she feels so guilty.
Randy is terrible at the job, but Mary covers for her. The situations are well acted - too well acted! It gets very frustrating to watch.
I felt bad for the good applicant who didn't get the job.
Mary is too good for her own good !
ronnybee211230 June 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Mary and the crew go out for lunch and they are served by an incompetent waitress. Mary complains to the restaurant management and the waitress is fired. Mary then ends-up hiring the waitress-lady for a job at the tv station just a few days later. The waitress turns-out to be as bad at her new job as she was at the waitress job,and Mary has to fire her.
This is a decent episode,not fantastic but it is worthwhile.
See what YOU think,and let us know! 🌞
This is a decent episode,not fantastic but it is worthwhile.
See what YOU think,and let us know! 🌞
With every episode I rewatch
pmicocci-1890819 July 2021
... I gain more and more sympathy with a certain modern day movement, which I won't name so as not to atract skimming trolls. As I was growing up during the period in which this show was produced, I can personally attest that what it depicted was not overboard - it was perhaps even worse, in fact.
A boss is having his female subordinate screen candidates for a job which could only be filled by a young woman, because no real Man would take such a job, and a male applicant would immediately encounter gay panic!
Said boss rejects an apparently qualified (female) applicant because her "caboose" wasn't adequate. And Mary Richards, the pioneering single female career woman, shrugs it off and introduces a wildly incompetent candidate, who at least appears adequate in the "caboose" department, at which her boss lears, "Back her in here."
The more episodes I rewatch, the more I question, was this show really so groundbreaking, or was it just a beating-down of women starting to protest against what was such a prevalent attitude, even in the 1970s...
If anyone thinks I'm exaggerating, watch a season or two of The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show; a constant joke of the series was about how Gracie was the real moneymaker of the couple, and yet, how many episodes revolved around the purportedly ditzy Gracie coming up with elaborate schemes to bilk George out of a smidgen of the couple's money, the source of which she was acknowledged to be. Because, of course, he was the husband, and thus the lord and master of all earnings.
Granted, Burns and Allen were a decade prior to the MTM Show, but it's hard not to see how ingrained such attitudes were on all sides. In Moore's earlier series, The Dick Van Dyke Show, how many episodes revolved around Rob feeling emasculated and declaring that he was the husband and he was putting his foot down!
Anyone who tries to deny long-standing sexism, as well as other prejudices, is either being disingenuous or obtuse.
It pains me now to see that what I found funny as a teen was so blatantly awful.
A boss is having his female subordinate screen candidates for a job which could only be filled by a young woman, because no real Man would take such a job, and a male applicant would immediately encounter gay panic!
Said boss rejects an apparently qualified (female) applicant because her "caboose" wasn't adequate. And Mary Richards, the pioneering single female career woman, shrugs it off and introduces a wildly incompetent candidate, who at least appears adequate in the "caboose" department, at which her boss lears, "Back her in here."
The more episodes I rewatch, the more I question, was this show really so groundbreaking, or was it just a beating-down of women starting to protest against what was such a prevalent attitude, even in the 1970s...
If anyone thinks I'm exaggerating, watch a season or two of The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show; a constant joke of the series was about how Gracie was the real moneymaker of the couple, and yet, how many episodes revolved around the purportedly ditzy Gracie coming up with elaborate schemes to bilk George out of a smidgen of the couple's money, the source of which she was acknowledged to be. Because, of course, he was the husband, and thus the lord and master of all earnings.
Granted, Burns and Allen were a decade prior to the MTM Show, but it's hard not to see how ingrained such attitudes were on all sides. In Moore's earlier series, The Dick Van Dyke Show, how many episodes revolved around Rob feeling emasculated and declaring that he was the husband and he was putting his foot down!
Anyone who tries to deny long-standing sexism, as well as other prejudices, is either being disingenuous or obtuse.
It pains me now to see that what I found funny as a teen was so blatantly awful.
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