Tesco Boss Defends ’20,000 Jobs For The Price Of 8’ Promotion

This is what 100 jobs look like to Mr Brasher

Retail megalomaniac Tesco is being uncharacteristically defensive today, in the light of widespread scepticism which greeted its boastful prediction that 20,000 glorious jobs would somehow be magically created by the opening of two wardrobe-sized Tesco Express convenience stores in Peebles and Renfrewshire.

“No, really, these are 100% genuine jobs on offer,” insisted a sweating CEO Richard Brasher. “We’ll need two till operatives, an assistant manager and a shelf-stacking apprentice in each shop. That’s four jobs across two stores, making a total of 8 - and they’re full-time-equivalent, so that’s actually 400 part-time jobs. Across two stores, remember, so that’s 800. Factor in the turnover as students come and go in September, and you’ve got 1600, i.e. 3200 beteween the two. Then there’s replacing all the staff who retire, die in harness or get the sack for not licking the floor clean enough - that’s easily another 3200 per store, which I’m sure you’ll agree makes a subtotal of 6400. Obviously, these in-store jobs also require support staff at head office – another 6400 – not forgetting, of course, the same number of warehouse employees.”

“So, er, I make that 19,200,” coughed Mr Brasher, as he hailed a passing taxi and jumped in through a window before it stopped moving. “That’s near as dammit, surely? The other 800 posts probably involve existing staff going on some noddy training course for an afternoon or something, which I’m sure you all agree is a job in itself.”

“Every little lie helps,” he called shamelessly, as he sped off to steal forty-seven fucking pence off you for a loaf of medium-sliced chipboard and call that ‘Value’.