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By Root 461 0

approaches to work found in the histories of Protestant and Catholic thought. In Catholic dogma, the definition of noble work had mostly been limited to that done by priests in the service of God, with practical and commercial labour relegated to an entirely base category unconnected to the display of any specifically Christian virtues. By contrast, the Protestant worldview as it had developed over the sixteenth century attempted to redeem the value of everyday tasks, proposing that many apparently unimportant activities could in fact enable those who undertook them to convey the qualities of their souls. In this schema, humility, wisdom, respect and kindness could be practised in a shop no less sincerely than in a monastery. Salvation could be worked out at the level of ordinary existence, not only in the grand, sacramental moments which Catholicism had privileged. Sweeping the yard and arranging the laundry cupboard were intimately related to the most significant themes of existence.

Pottier animated the Protestant ideal. His manner drew attention away from what he was doing in favour of how he was doing it. His approach suggested that there might be a continuity, rather than an insurmountable barrier, between work at the top and bottom of the ladder of meaning – and that many of the talents exercised in the most exalted tasks were no less likely to be found inside a steel hangar reverberating with the sound of dough-mixers and chocolate-coating machines.

9.

Partially undermining the manufacturer’s ability to assert that its work constituted a meaningful contribution to mankind was the frivolous way in which it went about marketing its products. Grief was the only rational response to the news that an employee had spent three months devising a supermarket promotion based on an offer of free stickers of cartoon characters called the Fimbles. Why had the grown-ups so churlishly abdicated their responsibilities? Were there not more important ambitions to be met before Death showed himself on the horizon in his hooded black cloak, his scythe slung over his shoulder?

Yet before ridiculing the Branding Director of Savoury Biscuits, or for that matter the Special Events Manager who had signed off on the tinned assortment featuring Prince Philippe and Princess Mathilde of Belgium on its lid, it was wise to remember that at the heart of biscuit salesmanship lay an imperative which was undoubtedly both urgent and simple enough to qualify as meaningful – namely, survival. Workers were occupied with the ancient task of trying to stay alive, which simply happened to require, in a consumer economy overwhelmingly based on the satisfaction of peripheral desires, a series of activities all too easily confused with clownishness.

Despite a few years of healthy profits, United Biscuits’ balance sheet was perennially vulnerable. Following the closures of all local steel, textile and coal industries, the area around the factory had some of the worst unemployment figures in the European Union, and accompanyingly high rates of crime and suicide. Any miscalculation in branding or manufacturing techniques, or a sudden increase in the price of wheat, or an irregularity in the supply of cocoa, could at a stroke wipe out a section of the workforce, who would be unlikely ever to find adequate labour locally again. Pottier knew what responsibility he shouldered for his people. He expressed particular concern at the predatory behaviour of his main competitor, the misleadingly cosy-sounding LU brand, owned by the gigantic French Danone Group. The two enterprises regularly locked horns like stags fighting to the death over a limited habitat, in this case, the ten or so metres of the typical biscuit-aisle in the supermarkets of Northern Europe. Their respective sales teams waged sly campaigns to steal each other’s market share. Every product which United Biscuits made in Belgium was imitated by LU: its Delichoc, a butter biscuit coated in chocolate, faced off against LU’s Le Petit Écolier; its plain butter biscuit Gateau went head to head with LU