Tag: butling

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Letters to the Editor Newsletter

The Modern Butlers’ Journal, December 2019, Letters to the Editor

PostBoxLetters to the Editor

“I wish to express a huge thank you to both Modern Butlers and Mr. Herman! Thank you for having Mr. Herman in your monthly Journal. I’m a house manager taking care of a huge estate in Beverly Hills that has more silver and brass in it than any other house I have ever taken care of. I was at my wits end dealing with all this silver, I knew I needed to be able to appreciate it more and have some affinity for it. I contacted Jeff for a pep talk about how to go about taking care of all these precious metals.  He was so gracious with his time. I was just amazed at all his help. His website is a huge resource everyone should know about. Mr. Herman saved me from watching hundreds of hours of You Tube videos that might have contained wrong directions. I got straight, precise and exact information I needed from Mr. Herman. He helped me to preserve the silver and is making me look good at doing my job.” KW 

Ed: Thank you so much for the feedback—we always appreciate hearing how the MBJ has been of use and I will make sure that Mr. Herman receives the good news, although I am sure you expressed it to him in person :-). We very much appreciate him, too!

# # #

[A LinkedIn correspondence] “We need good trainers and consultants such as Steven Ferry, Chris Anthony, Neil Shorthouse, FIH Roy Cheng in Malaysia.”  DS

Ed: As with Neil, I thank you for the kind words, David.  Also, your words “…big luxury brands and names are struggling due to leaders often hiding behind the desks and not checking on standards” are spot on.

This, in my view, is in part due to the amalgamations of brands that have occurred into super chains and the focus on the bottom line as investors have taken over ownership over hoteliers. 

To counteract this, we have formed dna-qa.com as a complete revolutionizing of the approach to QA, including the introduction of emotional and guest engagement skills. I believe these points, plus the need for proper training that you mention, to be critical.

And if we are to be honest and recognize the elephant in the room, the increasing lack of a hiring pool as dropping educational and moral standards push those coming into the workforce away from the notion of work and service. This is a huge issue that we, as a profession, can overcome in part by making hospitality more appealing, but which really requires a systemic change in education as a whole and in moral standards in particular. There are solutions for these two issues, too, but they have yet to gain widespread traction. It all starts with recognizing that these properly stated problems do exist, though.

# # #

Continuing the letters with Alex Parker for his article on Batman’s Batman:

“I’m also interested in the cultural image of a butler–the way it was this universally known figure of wealth and status at the turn of the 20th century, at least going back to Jeeves from P.G. Wodehouse. (Who, I learned from Wikipedia, was actually a valet.) So when they created this comic book character in the 1940s who was a rich playboy, it just seemed obvious that they’d need a butler character. These days, though, you don’t see it often in books or movies, at least that I can think of. Even though, as you point out, the profession has been growing since the 70s. If you have thoughts on this, please let me know.

Ed: Butlers serving playboys or single adventurers is not a recent phenomenon. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Passepartout  for instance. They are a valet, housekeeper, butler, confident, driver, cook etc. rolled into one. They are variations of butlers managing estates and households, and these go back a thousand years in England—their reputation based on being of service to royalty, nobility, and the extremely wealthy and powerful, who need a discreet and effective right hand man they can trust to manage their personal affairs and act as sounding boards and even advisors, while offering no attitude, or need on the part of the employer to deal with their off-at-hand opinions or vexations. 

Would you have replied with anything substantially different?

The Institute is dedicated to raising service standards by broadly disseminating the mindset and superior service expertise of that time-honored, quintessential service provider, the British Butler, updated with modern people skills, and adapted to the needs of modern employers and guests in staffed homes, luxury hotels, resorts, spas, retirement communities, jets, yachts & cruise ships around the world.

Categories
Letters to the Editor Newsletter

The Modern Butlers’ Journal, November 2019, Letters to the Editor

PostBoxLetters to the Editor

“I thoroughly enjoy your monthly newsletter and I look forward to each new issue – congratulations on a job well done, it’s truly a wonderful resource for all of us.” JG

Ed: Comments such as these make it all worthwhile, thank you.

# # #

“I always learn so much from your newsletter and am so grateful for its existence. I was saddened by the gossiping backbiters that exist in our field. The ‘too little too late”’ [mentioned in the last issue] was not lost on my perceptions of an undutiful human being.

“My contracts are very clear about confidentiality. I suppose it is an ethical character flaw to put an employer in a scandalous light. Are these colleagues looking for a small payout, notoriety maybe? I am not sure. Who would want to hire someone who wasn’t a trustworthy individual to their last principal?

“Though I prefer to put my principals in a positive light, I would and I have had to report abuses that I have encountered and witnessed. I am skilled enough to know I can find another position—which I have done because of sexual harassment, but I don’t sue, I leave.” DS

Ed: Many thanks for sharing your experience and thoughts in support of the key qualities of private service professionals

# # #

Continuing the letters with Alex Parker for his article on Batman’s Batman:

“I see Alfred as kind of the quintessential or stereotypical British butler—he is always uniformed, polite, reserved, seems to work full-time to attend to every household need, lives on-premise, and is essentially a member of the family. Do butlers like this still exist in North America, or the world? If not, how has the role changed?

Ed: Yes, butlers definitely still exist who are quintessential butlers—or in America, they are generally called Household or Estate Managers. The role requires that one have this attitude and approach, otherwise one cannot be of real service and also be accepted in the family as a resident alien—I just came up with that term, being one myself as a Green Card holder before I became an American citizen, but it has some applicability in the domestic environment—and perhaps also in the world of Batman.

Would you have replied with anything substantially different?

The Institute is dedicated to raising service standards by broadly disseminating the mindset and superior service expertise of that time-honored, quintessential service provider, the British Butler, updated with modern people skills, and adapted to the needs of modern employers and guests in staffed homes, luxury hotels, resorts, spas, retirement communities, jets, yachts & cruise ships around the world.

Categories
Letters to the Editor Newsletter

The Modern Butlers’ Journal, October 2019, Letters to the Editor

PostBoxLetters to the Editor

“Might I use your Code of Ethics as a basis for Service Learning at our college’s Humanities Department? It works so well for our Service Excellence commitment.” EMV

Ed: “Of course, we wish you success with the implementation.”

“Thank you so much—we are not butlers, but we serve as well!” EMV

Continuing the exchange with Alex Parker, who was seeking information for an article he was writing about the new lead character in the Batman movies—the butler:

“Just from the little Internet research I’ve done, I’ve read that the profession has grown in recent decades as the number of wealthy households has increased, but the role has become more technical, almost more like being a computer engineer. Am I understanding this correctly, and do you have any further thoughts on this?”

The editor’s response:

“The role has grown in numbers, having almost disappeared in the 1970s. Various new waves of the wealthy have been created over the last half century (dotcom, Arabs, Russians, Chinese, techies, et al), all of whom have seen butlers as (a) an expected status symbol and (b) a necessity if they are not to end up running their own estates and having to personally deal with staff the whole time—better to hire a butler to take care of these matters and focus on the great games to which great wealth opens doors. Having strangers in large houses to care for them is a given, so it makes sense to hire those who are attentive, intelligent, and trustworthy, whom you can count upon to be there for you because they are loyal and know you inside out—no explaining to do, they present things you want without your having to ask for them.

“And yes, as technology has grown in our lives, so too has the butler’s role required that he or she be able to manage complex technical systems and gadgets. Does that make them system or computer engineers? Not at all. Anyone thinking so should persuade their butler to take a leave for a month and bring in a computer engineer to be the butler: Both parties will be glad when the month is up. I have trained extremely intelligent computer geeks to interact with CEOs of transnational companies. The training was very successful, but their being butlers at the beginning of the course was a complete non-starter—they know how to communicate with bits and bytes (more than I do, to be sure), but talking to real people? Oh no!

“A butler is first and foremost a private-service professional who knows how to manage a house and the principals, guests, staff and vendors in and around it. He has secondary skill sets, which vary depending on the needs of the employer, and these can include chauffeur, chef, golf partner (who knows how to lose by a small margin), and these days, an operator of certain digital systems and equipment.

“However, when you have techies who know a lot about bits and bytes, commanding billions of dollars, they sometimes make the mistake of transposing their work environment and technology into their private house. They seem to have no idea that a house is a home, not an extension of their technical systems. No amount of AI robots and software can substitute for live, intelligent, and genuine butlers. Make their job easier? Yes—where the technology is not buggy and a distraction. But homes are meant to be warm and welcoming, not clinical and business-like. Anyone pushing this AI angle as the great breakthrough in our lives that will do away with the bother generated by humans might want to review the movie Cast Away and the hopeful but hopelessly inadequate relationship between Tom Hanks as the lead character (Chuck Noland) and his one-and-only companion, Wilson.”

Would you have replied with anything substantially different?

The Institute is dedicated to raising service standards by broadly disseminating the mindset and superior service expertise of that time-honored, quintessential service provider, the British Butler, updated with modern people skills, and adapted to the needs of modern employers and guests in staffed homes, luxury hotels, resorts, spas, retirement communities, jets, yachts & cruise ships around the world.