By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. The book is awash with credited quotes from other authors – which is actually a distraction, making some passages feel like dissertations citing their sources. He says that the trading of dark jokes alleviates the stress and sorrow that accumulates when you’re bearing daily witness to the undignified disintegration of your fellow humans. He ignores memos on the “proper” (actually, patronising) ways to converse with residents, opening with questions like: “Is everybody having a safe afternoon? great book and account of what it is like for care workers that work in care homes and are more often than not considered the lowest form of employment.

Hannah Weatherill, Acting Head of Media Rights, Penguin Random House, said: “Pope’s memoir about his work as a carer is extraordinary – he captures the personalities of the residents, their families, and his colleagues in all their complexity with incredible empathy and humour. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. I don't think it's possible to have a black comedic view of healthcare, aka Adam Kay, and at the same time discuss an intelligent in depth analysis of the system. I'm very grateful they've taken a punt on me (a recovering Crack 'ead Quaker) and my book (a book that includes a line about swallowing boobs).It is for this reason Lonergan believes ‘twee and saccharine representations of care homes are moderately unethical’ - and why he doesn’t shy away from reporting some unpalatable truths and incidents which are, for want of a better word, ‘yukky’. Only occasionally funny, and most of the humour was in the footnotes, (and I'm not a fan of footnotes). In this book are stories of old people rid of their inhibitions by dementia, of profit focused organisations under-paying their poorly trained staff who despite all (mostly) still try and give a good standard of care, and much on the practical realities of aging - bodies that don't work as well, and support needs that rid people of their dignity.

Lonergan also has a special empathy for his clients as he has lived on the sidelines of society himself as a now-recovering drug addict. I wish Pope a major success with this polemic on the current state of some of the private health care sector. Unlike the other reviews I actually really liked the memoire style and glad he didn't shy from including his opinions and politics. We are more than our bodies, Lonergan shows, and good care helps people to maintain their dignity when their physical abilities are dwindling. The book is fine, it doesn’t give any real insight into the profession other than it’s underpaid and hard.It's subtitled as a story of a decade as a Care Home Assistant but it seems to be stuck in this really disjointed state of being part academic and part memoir. Then there’s Barry, who claims to have killed his wife, and Dennis who brags of his cruel treatment of the women he seduced while working as a bartender. The references to academic books on the subject and his philosopising went over my head and I was not sure they were not just there to make us realise how well read and intellectual he was as opposed to the majority of care home workers . No wonder he admits to the occasional impulse to push a resident out of the window and needs to take himself off to calm down in the staff bathroom.

i loved the comic angle lonergan approaches the caring profession from, and also his absolute honesty about it. Once again care homes have entered my life as my in laws are now bouncing between hospital and care homes. This no-holds-barred account shows what life inside a care home is really like, for both residents and carers. He has a wonderful turn of phrase, both serious and comic, realising that gallows humour is an essential release-valve in a demanding job witnessing decay and detachment. By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file.Having visited a range of hospitals, respite care places and care homes in recent years for my dad, plus having had my own amusing catheter experiences in hospital stays of my own, I'm kind of inured to the various icky bodily topics involved when people are not capable of caring for themselves. Definitely needs to be more books like this talking about poor pay and poor attitudes towards those on lower pay scale jobs. He did actually portray himself as the best carer in the home with the best methods and the most caring nature this did grate a little as I am sure he had more than a few moments of being human and losing the plot. Any money you contribute will directly fund more reviews, interviews and features – the sort of in-depth coverage that is increasingly difficult to fund from ever-squeezed advertising income, but which we think the UK’s vibrant comedy scene deserves.

The bottom-line watching corporate model is gaining traction, meaning less money going into actual care, and more carer burn out. He hopes that experience will leave us “better equipped to deal with illness and ageing, and able to see dementia as more than just an obliteration-in-slow motion”. While he shares his first hand experience, Pope also reflects on the state of the care system- it's over reliance on the underpaid and the risk of profit being prioritized over resident and staff welfare.The personal care work stories were as just as you'd expect patients with dementia saying odd stuff so not sure why so many reviews want more of that. In the creative industries (ergh) cultivating relationships is really important - and luckily Expectation is full of the nicest, most insightful and talented 'TV people' you'll ever find. In this memoir, he details the humorous, heartbreaking and sometimes hazardous nature of the caring profession. In the creative industries (ergh) cultivating relationships is really important – and luckily Expectation is full of the nicest, most insightful and talented ‘TV people’ you’ll ever find. I appreciate Covid came after he had left but it seems a little odd for a book about the care sector to be published in 2022 and not reference it at all.