Butlers & Household Managers: 21st Century Professionals

by Steven Ferry

Butlers & Household Managers, 21st Century Professionals is designed to assist those seeking a new and rewarding career as a butler or the American equivalent, the household manager, as well as those seeking to employ them, whether in stately home, hotel, corporate setting or elsewhere. In the increasingly competitive and mechanistic world in which we live, service is often the only differentiator between one provider and another. Having a competent butler is one way to develop that much-needed edge. Butlers & Household Managers, 21st Century Professionals is also useful for any man or woman who would like to use some of the butler's know-how to enhance his or her own life style. The many checklists in Butlers & Household Managers, 21st Century Professionals cover every kind of situation a butler deals with and are designed, in conjunction with the chapter they supplement, to walk a person successfully through those situations and so increase his or her confidence. No amount of copying actions mechanically will make a butler, however. It is necessary to understand the point of view of the butler to then handle any given situation as a butler would. That is why chapters are provided to explain the butler rationale.

244 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 2002

Reviews

[Marina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve no intention of entering domestic service nor of hiring household staff, but I strangely enjoyed this book about working as a butler. It’s a curious mix of instruction, checklists and very random-seeming essays / speeches written by the author.
Actually ‘random’ is the word that comes to mind when reading this book.
Random?
- step by step guidelines on entertaining eg . ‘ Don a pair of white gloves and set the table in the following sequence: centrepiece, china, flowers, candlesticks and figurines. (Figurines? I can barely fit the plates on my table when I’ve got visitors!)
-two articles criticising Princess Di’s butler, a link to the Scientology website and an ill-informed comment about AIDS
- advice on discretion. ‘ If you are unpacking for another person, then leave embarrassing items, such as prophylactics and false teeth, in the sponge bag, while laying out the other items in the bathroom.‘
- casual sexism. The employer is assumed to be a man and, for example, instructions for a theatre party state that the tickets/ programmes etc are to be given to the men, while the women are given chocolates from the hostess! (In my family I’d be dumped with the programmes etc simply due to my handbag-carrying habit.)
It’s this randomness (and the total absence of possessive apostrophes) that flag-up that this is a self-published work.
But honestly, for an entertaining read, some possibly handy checklists and many fascinating glimpses into how the other half live, I do recommend this book.