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Last price: Chapter Thirteen
Alex meets Ganga and the Moon God; Ganesh summons his inner Roger Waters
Empowerment was the word that Alex reached for. It was a good word. In the world of social care, it was a sacred word. And perfect for this occasion. Empowerment meant allowing people to do things for themselves while allowing others to sit back and watch them fuck-up while drinking that well-earned cup of tea. As Ganesh’s father, Alex surmised that it wouldn’t be right to take over. For the sake of his self-esteem, Ganesh needed to own this project. Ownership, that was another good word. The plan to emancipate the elephants — its conception and implementation — would be Ganesh’s. Anything else was disempowerment and a lack of ownership. And this was offensive to the creed of all care workers.
Risk-taking — another sacred word. Assess the risk, record it and ensure that everyone signs up to it. All this is essential if the care worker wishes to avoid standing in front of a disciplinary panel when all that empowering blows up in his face, as it surely would at some stage in his career. Be generous and share the blame. But Alex scrubbed the idea out. No risk assessment would be done in this case. It was way too risky. Alex had no idea what kind of plan Ganesh was concocting. And doing an assessment of all the involved risks may force him to revise the decision allowing Ganesh to just get on with it…
