06 October 2010

The Apprentice: Unionize!

I'm looking forward to the return of The Apprentice for its sixth series tonight, as I'm confident that this will be the year everything changes.

2010: the year a Tory-led government declared its intentions to lay off thousands of public sector workers, made war on the welfare state, and committed itself to cuts in spending that will hardly boost private sector employment. The year Boris Johnson proposed amending union legislation in such a way that, as he crowed to Jeremy Paxman, 'would stop nearly all strikes' from happening. Yes, 2010 will be the year in which the sixteen contestants smarten up and realize there is only one way to beat the system: unionize.

Picture the scene: the two teams are in the boardroom, and Sir Alan is beginning his inquest, inviting the team-leaders to point fingers and pin blame. But no! 'We believe in collective responsibility, Sir Alan,' comes the reply. And also collective bargaining. The contestants reveal their demands: the weekly redundancy round is to be scrapped, or everyone walks in Week 1 and there's no show. The full complement will progress through each week's task, and the prize at the end re-adjusted, so that instead of one uber-Apprentice earning £100,000 a year, instead four roles paying £25,000 a year will be created, each filled by four job-sharing Red Apprentices. That's not a proper job some might grumble, but the job-share leaves all the contestants with ample free time to pursue their real dream: turning their TV appearances into a full-time media career, with the prospect of a job on Channel 5 hovering luminescently before their eyes.

It'll never happen of course. Partly because by its very nature, The Apprentice attracts (and the producers select) not genuine entrepreneurial talent but a particular kind of sociopath and narcissist who, if they're not after that Channel 5 job, aspires instead to the safety-roped glamour of a massive corporate cocoon. Rather than embark on a genuine project of wealth-creating capitalism, they're after nothing more than a comfy perch in a huge managerial nexus.

But also because to take The Apprentice at face value, as the self-styled 'toughest job interview in the world' is mistaken. Sure, it looks like it's packed with all kinds of didactic tips not just for would-be Sugars but any feckless job-seeker. It looks like it's aimed at the upwardly-mobile aspirational go-getter.

But it's not. It's a series of object lessons for the modern neo-liberal employer. For a start, the contestants are not out of work: they're on The Apprentice. They're given food, lodging, and jobs to do, for weeks on end. They don't get told their application was unsuccessful: they get Fired.

They exist instead in that strange precarious purgatory which will be familiar to millions for whom the concept of job security has become a joke. They are the temps, aware that they can be referred back to their agency at any time on the slightest whim, personal or professional. They are the contract workers, constantly aware that a clock is ticking down towards joblessness. They are the young graduates told they have to undertake, and be grateful for, a three-month unpaid internship to even dream of a career in journalism or TV. They are - even - the architects told that yes they should spend most of their time working towards competitions which only one practice can win, because 'Have you ever taken a run to prepare for a race? Was that also not fun? Thought can atrophy if you’re not careful.'

Instead The Apprentice is an extended lecture course for employers in keeping overheads down by maintaining a minimal, quiescent workforce. Lesson 1: divide and rule. The teams compete ferociously against each other. They are encouraged to turn on each other in the boardroom autopsy. They are repeatedly broken up and re-organized to prevent bonds of friendship and understanding developing. Lesson 2: outsource supervision. The effect of the constant division and competition means the apprentices regard each other as the enemy at all times, they become a weirdly self-policing cult of mutual hatred, a kind of private-sector Stasi, desperate to note, recall and regurgitate each others' petty errors and fibs. Lesson 3: prizes are the opium of the apprentice. Days at the races, massages, cocktail-mixing classes for winning a task? Yes, you too can distract your workforce easily by throwing them treats. They look generous: company outings! Christmas meals! Drinks on Friday! But they cost a pittance relative to little HR issues like pay-rises in line with inflation. Or proper benefits. Or not telling two people in the same job they will both have to re-interview as one role is being scrapped.

Because that is what you see in The Apprentice. Not the world's longest or toughest job interview, but a long, slow, horribly diverting process by which a department of sixteen is hoodwinked by redundancy rounds into becoming a department of one.

hauntological harbinger

Michael Mayer talks about five records of personal significance here, one being Tipsy, and their 1997 record Triptease. A quick Youtube search brought up this:

Now, maybe I was slightly predisposed to think this by Position Normal featuring earlier on the list (1999's Goodly Time), but that sounds surprisingly Ghost-Boxy and hauntological to me. The rest of the album, from what I can make out, is closer to the spaceport departure lounge vibe that some Stereolab evokes: that impression of cosmonauts drinking cocktails by curved swimming pools with bossa nova on in the background. But even then it suggests a loop back through Broadcast, and Rojj's percussive touches... And it came out on Asphodel, same label as turntablists the X-ecutioners: the geist of found vinyl scraps.