The Ideal Employer!

The house-staffing agency that placed me in this new butler job asked me during the very first interview to describe the 'ideal employer' I would want to work for.

Well, okay, I wasn't exactly prepared for that. I was totally nervous about first-time employment for rich people and I couldn't just stand there and tell them the truth, now could I?  But I can certainly tell you. Does anyone remember Miss Havisham? Compared to my new highly-needy and deranged employers, she would be absolutely wonderful to work for as a first-time employer.

First, she had driven herself insane over a lost love and a cancelled wedding - but I get along well with the mentally ill considering how easy they are to relate to. And then, she became a total recluse. Which means she'll not be having any parties and few if any over-night guests.

She rattled around the house in the same old tattered wedding dress, day after day, year after year. Which means no laundry, no ironing and very few dry-cleaning bills, right? And she liked her house in total disarray, meaning little-to-no dusting, vacuuming, or moping.

In addition to all that, her dining room table with two candelabras and a petrified wedding cake was covered with dust and cobwebs. Which means to me no formal sit-down dinners or cocktail buffets in the near future, wouldn't you think?

And finally, the drapes throughout the house had been pulled closed for years - therefore no indoor plants to speak of, and no UV rays destroying the original oil paintings or fading the Persians.

As you can readily see, the advantages of working on such an estate and for such a dear lady are obvious. If anyone hears of a position like this opening up, I do hope you'll keep me in mind. Of course I'd need to give a couple of weeks notice here, with somewhat questionable references. But we can work that out.  

Thanks for stopping by this evening.
Andrew

The Butler's Tale: Locked Behind the Gates of "Richistan"!

Editor's Note:  This is the first post in a Weblog entitled "The Billionaire's Butler" begun in January 2011 by Andrew Arthur Williams.


Although the super rich have a tendency to gather in tight private enclaves, we do get caricatured glimpses of them in television, films and magazines. And there's the occasional Rolls or Bentley that pulls up next to us at a stop light, right? But what are their lives really like - on a daily, hourly basis?
 
With all their free time and money, what do they do all day long? What do they talk about? Where do they go? What do they look like when they come down to breakfast?

As head of the household staff for a super rich family, I actually live in a separate apartment here on the estate and have a first-hand perspective into the inner workings of their daily lives. I don't mind telling you I feel quite isolated at times, locked behind double gates to get into this place. Which brings me to you, and these late-night postings.

There's so many interesting, curious, and mind-boggling things about the rich I want to share. Amazing things - some stupefying, some funny. Things that inspire awe and admiration, and others that trigger disbelief, even anger.

Honestly, it's as though the super rich and the rest of us live on two different planets. In fact, in a book entitled Richistan by Robert Frank (a Wall Street Journal reporter), the author suggests the "absurdly rich'' (as he calls them) live in an entirely separate country-within-a-country, which he calls  Richistan.

So I guess I'm reporting to you tonight from within the well-guarded boundaries of Robert Frank's Richistan - embedded, as it were.

I hope you'll find this interesting. 

And thanks for dropping in.

Andrew