In perhaps the most bizzare policy initiative ever recorded Sainsbury's staff are to be trained to identify carers on behalf of the Department of Health. The idea, if that's what it can be called, is for the supermarket to find those who care for others but are unaware that is what they are doing. We asked a spokesperson for the Department of Health for an explaination; "We did think of asking people if they are carers but decided that since many of them are working class and, therefore, are an entirely different species, that this would be unproductive. We finally hit on the solution while watching an edition of David Attenborough's "Blue Planet" in which he observed strange creatures to record and understand their behaviour. David declined to partake in our versions of "Badger Watch" and we hit on the idea of training Sainsbury's staff to do it instead. This had many advantages we realised. There are a great many employees at Sainsbury's many of whom are eager to learn new skills. Most people shop at Sainsbury's at one time or another so unidentified carers are bound to turn up there sooner or later. It's cheap since these people are already being paid by Sainsbury's. Last, but not least, many of the employees are also from working class backgrounds and, therefore, will find it easier to communicate with these strange beings we call carers." We asked one Sainsbury's employee who has undertaken the training for his view; "It's not as easy as it might first appear. I remember the first person I asked "Are you a carer?" replied, "No, I'm Church of England." Fortunately, being working class myself, I immediately recognised the miscommunication and restructured the question to be more incisive. Spotting the right people to ask can be a bit tricky so I now confine myself to people pushing other people around in wheel chairs. I've sent this startling method of observation and identification to the Department of Health and they were well impressed. They said I might get an OBE - whatever that is."
Crikey!
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