In tune

I recently went to the workshop of a double bass maker and repairer. My friend was taking his battered bass there to see what parts might be glued and otherwise made to hold together again. ‘Can’t you clean it up whilst you’re at it?’ I asked naively, attending to the finish rather than the sound. Apparently there is value in layers of varnish and Roger is cautious. It seems to me that he’s sort of ‘reading the wood’ as he looks at the instrument, and he knows not to touch where he can’t be sure of the impact of changing something. ‘No, you wouldn’t want to do that…’ he concludes.

Waiting

The workshop is an extraordinary place for an outsider. There are pieces of instruments all around the single room, sections and strings and bridges and necks, and a pan of glue on the boil on an old camping stove. I can’t take it all in, and I can’t see how Roger manoeuvres his way through the arrangement of objects. As well as making new instruments, what he does here is to work on things produced through the craftsmanship of others, undoing and remaking them. It takes a careful eye and a trained ear, an understanding of the whole process of creating a double bass, a lot of patience and dexterity, and a kind of respect it seems to me. He’s not an old man but he’s been doing this for a long time already. Several years ago, he decided to take a break. ‘I tried being a driving instructor,’ he said. ‘I lasted a year.’ When he was doing his apprenticeship, the man who taught him had already told him his future: ‘You’ll never do anything else.’ And here he is, in his own workshop, in tune with his instruments.

Left leg

Glue and silicon, paint and varnish, grout and wood-filler. Traces on his clothes. The trousers especially tell the story of my friend’s most recent jobs. There was that shower to fix urgently in Hackney one night last week, and the bathroom to sort out after a would-be plumber with too many tools and too few skills had been let loose in Hampstead. At the ongoing job in South London, he’s supposed to be doing the plumbing and not general building work, but it’s hard to keep the boundaries firm once on-site and when the other guy is not so confident. And working on his own place in the meantime means more varnish and paint than usual.

Right leg

The photos show the sides of his trousers, where his hands reach his upper leg. The marks on them are more than evidence of what got spilt or dropped. They indicate gestures of work. And how the right side (yes, he’s right-handed) takes the strain. And how if you’re going to do stuff like this, where you can’t help yourself wiping the residue of the materials that fix and cover and generally hold things together in houses and bathrooms, well you wouldn’t want to have the wrong trousers for the job.

During a holiday spent with my five year old nephew I reluctantly began to become an authority on children’s TV characters. Nostalgically I thought back to my own childhood remembering Postman Pat and Fireman Sam. It struck me how so many popular children’s TV programmes focus solely on the area of work, a theme which has continued with Underground Ernie and Bob the Builder,[1] the latter of which this essay will focus on.

The sociology of work has a rich history of using the visual. Images are useful to us as ‘a point of access’ (Grey, 1998: 131) allowing us to see anew an aspect of the workplace or our attitudes towards work. In the case of BtB, when analysed sociologically, we can view the ideologies which run deeply within it. This kind of analysis has been done previously with the reading of children’s fiction with the claim that ‘in reading fictional representations, it is suggested, we acquire an insight into organizational realities.’ (ibid.). It is this same, often hidden, insight which I wish to gain from my reading of BtB.

Within BtB, ideology can be seen explicitly in representations of co-operation, friendship etc. which most children’s TV programs try to teach children. There are nevertheless deeper ideologies present in the ways in which work is depicted. Conversely, it is important to remember that the transmission of such messages are much more subtle than is suggested by writing them in a stark form (Grey, 1998: 146). Within this essay I am certainly not claiming that specific ideology of work has been deliberately placed within ‘Bob the Builder’ to subvert children. BtB can, however, act as an indicator for how we view or wish to imagine the world of work to be. 

Division of labour

A lack of intrinsic value taken from work has been related to the division of labour which, according to Durkheim, Marx and Weber, has been a feature of work since the industrial revolution. Although often thought about in a factory context (e.g. Hamper, 1991) the division of labour is very much present within many types of work today. I will first look at this from the perspective of the human characters and will then argue that it is the machines which are the best example of the division of labour. From here I will go on to argue that BtB can be read to show the machines to be the ultimate examples of the division of labour and that instead of them being machines which are anthropomorphised, it can be argued that they are rather workers who are dehumanised to the point of becoming their individualised job.

Bob, Wendy and Farmer Pickles are all workers who experience very little division of labour, they are all able to do almost any job they need to. The only experiences of this division between the human characters is the calling in of experts to do the job, e.g. how Bob and the gang get their work, even when it may not be really necessary (such as Little, Sneezing Scoop, 2001) where Wendy and Dizzy put in a washing line for Mrs Potts, a job that most people would do themselves.

On the whole the humans are given lots of autonomy with Bob and Wendy running their own business and having no one to answer to except for the customer. Even in relation to the customer there is a huge amount of sovereignty, e.g. Scarecrow Dizzy, where instead of giving a house a whitewash, Wendy and Dizzy paint it pink but the customer did not seem to mind, luckily.

Within BtB it is certainly the anthropomorphised machines who are the example of the division of labour. First, just by their presence since it is the division of labour which has led to the development of machines which can ‘facilitate and abridge labour’ (Smith, 1862: 20) which is exactly what these machines are doing whilst enabling the human characters to transcend this division — an idea also echoed by Weber’s Technical division of labour whereby there is specialism and the use of machines (Weber, 1947: 219). Unlike the human characters each machine has a set task to do within each project. Their skills are limited solely to that task and they are largely physically unable to learn a new skill. Each machine has been created simply for that repetitive task and no others, if a machine decides to try and change its role then this always leads to difficulties and them returning to their original role as exemplified by Dizzy attempting to become a scarecrow (Little, Scarecrow Dizzy, 1999). So although they are given human characteristics there is a strong machine mentality to this.

From here I will, however, argue that it is very fitting to read BtB from the other perspective, that instead of anthropomorphised machines that demonstrate some division of labour they are workers who have become dehumanised through this division of labour to become represented simply as machines. The idea of a worker becoming simply an extension of their machine due to the division of labour (Ritzer, 2008) is one which is as true today with computers as it would be in the factory setting. It can certainly be argued that for the workers under Bob and Wendy, who have to repeat their sole skill with a machine again and again they have simply become recognised as that skill and machine rather than a human with other attributes.

This reading can be taken further looking at the hierarchies which exist, although there is undoubtedly a hierarchy amongst the machines with Scoop unofficially at the top. The biggest hierarchy which exists is certainly between the skilled workers (the characters depicted as human) and the non-skilled (those shown as machines). The non-skilled are widely treated as children who although keen to learn have no real ability to as there is no progression between shows.

The main area in which this reading does, however, fall down is the relationship between the skilled and non-skilled workers where despite having to be guided, the non-skilled workers are always appreciated and valued. Rather than being viewed as replaceable they are seen as unique. Also despite their unskilled, repetitive work the machines do gain a sense of enjoyment from the work they produce. In the sense of BtB a value is made out of the division of labour as it enables the gang to work together. In doing so the division of labour is viewed in an entirely positive light.

Alienation

As we have seen, the division of labour is viewed in a positive way setting the scene for the lack of depiction of alienation with BtB. Of the main characters only one can be viewed as really experiencing alienation, Spud the Scarecrow.

Bob is still doing jobs for others and so in theory would have little control of the end product he creates, he is also stopped from becoming fully engaged within his work due to the outsourcing of much of his work to the machines. These would normally be seen as alienating factors. There is still a certain amount of freedom that Bob has within the work as shown when a house ends up pink rather than white (Little, Scarecrow Dizzy, 1999). However, this lack of alienation may also be linked back to the cash nexus which Bobsville has managed to escape, this has created a situation where Bob has connections with all the people he does work for. The human characters within BtB still have control over all areas of the work despite having little engagement within the actual physical activity. They are able to control and guide the machines and retain an overview of the project from start to finish.

Nevertheless, the machines appear to be engaged within traditionally alienating work. The division of labour and their inability to fully understand and engage with their work provides an image of workers who would conventionally get little satisfaction, yet the machines are shown as gaining a great deal of intrinsic value from their work. This can be read as a claim that some workers (such as these who cannot completely engage) do not suffer from alienation from such a division of labour, or that group dynamics can help to solve issues of alienation.

This is especially interesting when we consider Spud the Scarecrow, who I have claimed is the most alienated. Spud is a semi-human character who can take part in many different activities although often not very successfully. Spud is extremely alienated by his main job of being a scarecrow which he often views as boring. As such, Spud has a desire to do jobs that the machines and human characters are doing. Although Spud is shown as a liability failing in much of the work he attempts, he does show some ability beyond his set job of being a scarecrow which is more than is demonstrated by most of the machines. It remains unclear if his frustration stems from this or his lack of a community, something which both the machines and the human characters have.

What does this all tell us?

There is certainly an argument that by expressing orderliness in Bobsville and later Sunflower Valley we are attempting to protect children from the insecurities of the reality of working life, and BtB can be seen as an expression of, indeed a cultural manifestation of, certain feelings that we have about work.

The strongest reading presented here is the view of the machines as dehumanised, low skilled workers rather than anthropomorphised machines. Here BtB shows the danger of unskilled work. Only those who are incapable of learning are not alienated by this work. There is a certain condescending tone which the human characters use with the machines as though they are children, yet without the opportunity to mature that alone can tell us a great deal about the way we view unskilled, practical work within a singular area. Although the machines are shown to be happy with their position, a hierarchy between the characters is clear with Bob being placed unmistakably at the top. For most viewers in the audience that BtB is aimed at their desire is to be like Bob rather than being like one of the other characters.[2] BtB can then be read as showing issues of being an unskilled worker who experiences a division of labour, despite these workers not experiencing alienation within themselves perhaps due to a sense of unity with other workers.

For more about Bob, see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/bobthebuilder/ and http://www.bobthebuilder.com/uk/.

References

1. Anthony, P. (1977). The Ideology of Work. London: Tavistock Publications.
2. Chichester-Clark, R. (1976). On the Quality of Working Life . In M. Weir, Job Satifaction (pp. 26–31). Fontana: Fontana.
3. Clayre, A. (1974). Work and Play. New York: Harper & Row.
4. Cooper, R. (1976). How Jobs Motivate. In M. Weir, Job Satisfaction (pp. 138–147). Fontana: Fontana.
5. Grey, C. (1998). Child’s Play: Representations of Organization in Children’s Literature. In J. Hassard, & R. Holliday, Organization Representation (pp. 131–148). London: Sage.
6. Hamper, B (1991) Rivethead. New York. Warner Books
7. Little, B. &. (2005). Benny’s Back. Bob the Builder: Project Fix It . HIT Entertainment.
8. Little, B. &. (2001). One shot Wendy Series 4 Ep 5. Bob the Builder . HIT Entertainment.
9. Little, B. &. (1999). Scarecrow Dizzy. Bob the Builder . HIT Entertainment.
10. Little, B. &. (2001). Sneezing Scoop. Bob the Builder . HIT Entertainment.
11. Marx, K. (1986). The Economic and Philosophical manuscripts of 1844. In J. Elster, Karl Marx, A Reader (pp. 35–47). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
12.  Mészáros, I. (1975). Marx’s Theory of Alienation. Whitstable: Whitstable Litho Ltd.
13. Reeves, R. (2001). Happy Mondays. London: Pearson Education.
14. Ritzer, G. (2008). The McDonaldization of Society 5. London: Sage.
15. Sennett, R. (2008). The Craftsman. London: Allen Lane, Pengiun Books.
16. Strangleman, T., & Warren, T. (2008). Work and society. London: Oxon.

[2] This conclusion was drawn from a highly unscientific poll of my nephew and 6 of his friends. Of the 7 asked separately 6 identified with Bob, one with Spud. Obviously other studies need to be conducted before drawing a formal conclusion.