Family looking for butler?

[RaistlinZ]

I saw this posting on Craigslist for a "houseman". I had to laugh at some of the requirements for the job:

A family is looking for a live-in houseman.

*Our houseman needs to be....
Male (because lifting heavy things & using strong power is required in some tasks)
No children accompanied
Accompanying wife is fine, but she needs to do a housekeeper's job in our house. She can't live in our house and have her own job.
No pets accompanied except well-trained dog for outside and in a houseman's room, not allowed inside the house.
Age 28-55
Responsible to watch and protect the house
Legal resident of the country
Have a driver's license & a car
Flexible in working hours (less than 38 hrs a week, but the working hours could be anytime of a day and week as when we need him varies everyday)
Not a party person (He cannot invite anyone to our property. He can go out.)
Quiet
Serious
Full-time at this job at our house. No side job is accepted.
Length of the position is as long as possible. But at least 6 years at this position is required. <WTF?>

*Our houseman needs to be able to do all of the below.
Handyman's job (repairing anything broken inside and outside the house)
Plumber's job (fixing sprinklers in the garden, fixing toilets, fixing pipes in the walls and underground etc.)
Driver's job (taking family members to restaurants for dinner and driving them back home around midnight everyday, driving the mistress of the house around the town for her errands at daytime, must be in suits & provided uniform and with good manner)
House cleaning (cleaning marble floors, cleaning high spots with ladder etc.)
Assistant's job (making arrangements related to house management, using the Internet for research, managing and be in charge of the house when the family is out of town etc.)
Electrician's job ( changing bulbs, repairing broken electrical lines, fixing AC)
misc. jobs ( daily small requests given by the mistress of the house)
Responging to our calls from both inside/outside our house anytime of a day (When he is not called or no tasks are requested, he can take a break anytime of a day)

*Our houseman is given....
1 bedroom apartment with private bathroom, closet, private kitchen with refrigerator/freezer and seperate entrance from the house's main entrance, on our property. The apartment is connected to our house.
Free rent & utility
Monthly compensation

Apply for the position by e-mail.

Location: Beverly Hills
Compensation: rent & utility paid + $2300 a month
Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
Please, no phone calls about this job!
Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

 

[Noobtastic]

Seems like a pretty sweet deal, considering the room and utilities paid in addition to a paycheck (about 27,000 annual I think. Too lazy to grab MS calculator) A decent apartment in BH is at least 1k a month w/o utilities. The only beef I can see is the 6 year commitment. I'd make an attempt to downgrade that. Contracts are big no-no, especially in this kind of job. You never know when something make come up or your offered a better job but cannot accept because your tied up (leaving would probably result in financial or legal penalties. These people have lawyers for every law on the boo.

Also - avoid sexing the trophy wife....err...mistress.

 

[jagec]

Not such great pay, given the 6-year commitment (presumably with no COLAs). I figure that it ends up being comparable to a $40k job once the free rent and utilities are included. That said, I bet you wouldn't have a good deal of work on any given day, so in a sense it would be a good slacker job.

 

[Noobtastic]

Originally posted by: jagec
Not such great pay, given the 6-year commitment (presumably with no COLAs). I figure that it ends up being comparable to a $40k job once the free rent and utilities are included. That said, I bet you wouldn't have a good deal of work on any given day, so in a sense it would be a good slacker job.

40k a year is pretty d@mn good for someone without college education or cannot use their higher learning degree in today's market.

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: Noobtastic

Originally posted by: jagec
Not such great pay, given the 6-year commitment (presumably with no COLAs). I figure that it ends up being comparable to a $40k job once the free rent and utilities are included. That said, I bet you wouldn't have a good deal of work on any given day, so in a sense it would be a good slacker job.

40k a year is pretty d@mn good for someone without college education or cannot use their higher learning degree in today's market.

In that area, average pay is quite a bit higher than most of the country. Plus, you don't really get much chance to spend it.

 

[LS20]

Originally posted by: Noobtastic

40k a year is pretty d@mn good for someone without college education or cannot use their higher learning degree in today's market.

what about health care? 40k is nothign for being someone's bitch 24-hr a day. one would rather be a slave to a restaurant from 8-5 and go home, than having to fix the gutter one minute, powerhosing puke from the garage the next, and then chauffering little kids to dinner at midnight wearing "suits & provided uniform and with good manner"

oh, and for 6+ years.
thats degrading

 

[rhino56]

hahaha you couldnt get me to do that for any amount of money. pompus ass beverly hills shopping on a jcpenny budget

 

[kranky]

Of course, they can't make anyone stay for 6 years. They can ask, and that's all.

That isn't very much money for a 24/7 job masquerading as "less than 38 hours a week". I notice they say the person can go out, yet must respond to calls at any time. Can't have any guests over, ever. Having to drive people back from dinner around midnight every day.

It should be obvious from the general tone of the ad that they are demanding people who would probably say "I need you to work 8 hours today. 6-8 AM, 12-2 PM, 5-7 PM and 10-midnight."

Anyone who has that impressive combination of skills could probably get a job paying a lot more than $27K + rent. I'm not willing to call it a $40K job just because the free rent happens to be in an expensive area. It's still not money in my pocket.

 

[LS20]

Originally posted by: rhino56
hahaha you couldnt get me to do that for any amount of money. pompus ass beverly hills shopping on a jcpenny budget

http://www.ehow.com/how_110745_hire-butler.html
http://www.tandcr.com/services/butlers.html

 

[Epic Fail]

you can easily make more as a driver with better schedule than this, do they expect the butler to pilfer to make up the difference?

 

[ponyo]

Originally posted by: kranky
Of course, they can't make anyone stay for 6 years. They can ask, and that's all.

That isn't very much money for a 24/7 job masquerading as "less than 38 hours a week". I notice they say the person can go out, yet must respond to calls at any time. Can't have any guests over, ever. Having to drive people back from dinner around midnight every day.

It should be obvious from the general tone of the ad that they are demanding people who would probably say "I need you to work 8 hours today. 6-8 AM, 12-2 PM, 5-7 PM and 10-midnight."

Anyone who has that impressive combination of skills could probably get a job paying a lot more than $27K + rent. I'm not willing to call it a $40K job just because the free rent happens to be in an expensive area. It's still not money in my pocket.

I agree. The required skillset are insane and made me laugh. Someone with those skillset isn't going to work as on call 24/7 slave. They're going to be making $100k+ a year working as a handyman contractor. Heck, you can make $30k a year easily just working as maintenance tech for office building or apartment complex and that's only 9-5 job without having to clean, drive, baby sit, and deal with degrading bullshit from these people.

 

[StageLeft]

Anyone who has that impressive combination of skills could probably get a job paying a lot more than $27K + rent.

Of course you're right. The guy has to not only be the mistress' bitch (his uniform is probably just briefs and a shirt with tie or something), but also a plumber and electrician, real skills that can get real money.