Who is the worst boss on Bravo and why is it Captain Sandy?
Breaking down the reasons I'd rather work for literally anyone else on Bravo
Despite my many interests that some would call “more cultured” or something, I also have a fierce love in my heart for reality TV and the Bravo network. I am actually the kind of millennial that has watched Bravo since before the housewives (early Project Runway, Top Chef, and Queer Eye, anyone?) and due to the general disgust towards reality TV in most “educated” circles, I have a lot of Bravo opinions that have gone unshared.
So, where to start? What’s been bugging me in the Bravoverse lately? Maybe it’s the state of capitalism that has me thinking about terrible bosses, or maybe it’s just the fact that every time a Below Deck Med marathon is on, I come up with more reasons why Captain Sandy Yawn is, in my opinion, the worst boss on Bravo.
Well, at least the worst boss that we get to see in action—I mean, if Ramona Singer is willing to tell someone interviewing for a job with her that her outfit looks Midwest, can you imagine what it would be like to work for her? But that said, BD is a unique franchise in that a big part of the show is actually doing your job on the boat, and not just being a cast member and contributing to interpersonal conflicts to further the story. Producers basically tell you “hey, this isn’t just a tv gig” when you sign on. So, in terms of the bosses we see in action on Bravo, Captain Sandy is absolutely the worst.
A disclosure: I am unabashedly a Captain Lee Rosbach stan. No one is perfect, but Lee’s no-bullshit attitude on board makes him by far my favorite captain we’ve seen on a BD boat so far. Glenn is endearing and all, but his questionable history in the industry puts Lee on top in my book. And honestly, after a season of Captain Mark, I was fairly excited for the breath of fresh air and broken glass ceiling that Sandy promised the show, but she greatly disappointed me.
Something I admittedly like about Lee is that he understands his role on this show. It’s not a show about a yacht captain; it’s a show about the whole crew. Where Lee seems to be on camera only when it's deemed necessary by production, Sandy seems to find every way she can to insert herself into things that are none of her damn business. She’s clearly got some underlying anxiety about making sure things run smoothly, but no one wants a boss who’s always hovering over them and butting in when they don’t need to.
It’s also clear that Sandy plays favorites. Maybe she doesn’t have an active role in who stays and goes on the boat, as it’s been suggested franchise-wide that the captain’s input is relatively limited when it comes to firing and nonexistent when it comes to casting. But the second chances and allowances she gives don’t feel consistent at all, and neither do the hills she chooses to die on. After the two seasons of berating Hannah for her table décor, did you hear a single word from her about tablescapes to Katie this past season? (and just as an aside—if I am on a superyacht, I do not want mancala beads and Party City decorations on my dinner table. Why is this so hard to understand?)
She’s more or less admitted to this. It was revealed that when she signed on for Season 2, she’d seen the first season, which affected her relationship with deckhand Bobby Giancola because she’d judged him for his actions the season prior and decided she didn’t like him. This only came out after Bobby and production were like “what the fuck?” and Sandy took production’s word that Bobby was a good person.
Former BDM chief stew Hannah Ferrier has also speculated that Sandy took a similar stance on her, and the two had a notorious and long-standing tension between them from Sandy’s entrance in Season 2 until Hannah’s departure in Season 5. Although Sandy has vehemently denied this, she has also made publicly disparaging comments about Hannah, including a big jab at interior workers as a whole. Worth noting about that last part—interior positions are commonly held by women, and Sandy insists that her mission is to mentor and celebrate women in yachting.
I feel like I have to talk about Season 5 for a minute, because this is one of those occasions where I can see Sandy’s perspective. I’m empathetic to the fact that she was tied by maritime law, but how she chose to react after that was very telling to me. While they are illegal to have on board a superyacht, Sandy’s continued insistence on referring to CBD and Valium as “drugs” was incredibly harmful to Hannah and really any person who uses approved or prescribed medication to treat mental health challenges. Technically, she’s right; they are drugs, but no one who uses drugs for any reason deserves that stigma.
let’s also not forget the other party in that whole situation: Malia White, aka Sandy’s #1 protegé and where Sandy’s massive double standards come in. I want to like Malia, really, but breaking down what happened there, I still don’t understand how Sandy did not have any questions about the clearly-shown timeline of Malia realizing Hannah had unreported substances on board and Malia actually reporting it to Sandy. Malia had an opportunity to tell Sandy the next morning in the wheelhouse when they talked about Hannah’s behavior, but she chose to hold onto it until Hannah wouldn’t move cabins to room with Bugsy so that Malia’s asshole chef boyfriend could share a cabin with her.
I’ll be honest, I haven’t been in that situation exactly. But my apartment was investigated by my undergrad college’s office of residence life for illegal drug violations, and in my experience, when you come forward with someone else’s contraband you’ve found, they usually ask about a million questions about how you found it and how long you knew it was there, and you hear about it if there are any discrepancies. There is no world I’ve found where you don’t get in trouble for covering for someone else there. Maybe this happened off camera, I don’t know, but it seems wildly unfair that Malia gets off scot-free for withholding that information when all of it happened on camera.
And honestly, the way Season 6 tried to pivot just cements Sandy’s place as worst Bravo boss in my eyes. I hated the part of the first episode where, within 5 minutes, Bravo or Sandy or both wanted us to feel bad for her and she talked about “everyone [looking] back and having regrets on how they acted or what they did.” She then goes on to say she almost didn’t come back to the show, but that she did because her passion for mentoring was so strong and she wanted to be a team leader. It’s rumored (though definitely not confirmed) that she won’t return for season 7, which is probably the best possible outcome for everyone, though the (mostly) wholesome season 6 cast did (mostly) outweigh every moment Sandy came on my screen for seemingly the sole purpose of being the worst.
One thing I do know for sure? I definitely am not interested in captain sean as her replacement.