A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A BUTLER
Celebrity clients, outrageous requests and encounters with the Mafia are all part and parcel of working as a butler and butler trainer, discovers
Butler and butler trainer extraordinaire Simeon Rosset tells all
Working as a butler for over 20 years and running his own butler training academy has seen Simeon Rosset work with some of the world’s richest and most famous people, in some of its most glamorous locations. So, what exactly has the butler seen? Working for celebrities such as Kylie Minogue, Luciano Pavarotti, Bono, Cliff Richard and politicians including Tony Blair and David Cameron is part and parcel of the job, as are some of the outrageous requests that go hand-in-hand with working for the super-rich.
Watching a Russian Oligarch dancing naked on the roof of his Lamborghini and diving for rare sea urchins at the behest of his employer are just some of the weird and wonderful experiences that come with being a butler. ‘I once had to arrange a private jet to take a punnet of tomatoes from Italy to the UK,’ Simeon tells me. ‘Each tomato was probably worth thousands of pounds.’
As well as dealing with these requests it’s essential that a butler can stay calm under pressure and Simeon has had his fair share of practise in that department. ‘I once had to negotiate prices with the Sicilian Mafia,’ he tells me. ‘We arrived on a superyacht in Sicily and it was just like something from a Scorsese movie. There were all the guys in suits with black Mercedes and they’re there to make sure all of the guests are safe and enjoy their stay. Obviously, there’s a fee for this. They’re all very polite, very handsome, very cool guys, but at the end of the day you know that you have to pay the fee. However, my clients, who are billionaires and are used to being very powerful and in control, asked me to negotiate the fee and pay them less. The negotiation didn’t work, the Mafia don’t negotiate! It wasn’t even a huge amount of money to be fair.’
Despite running a busy academy near Glasgow and training around 3,000 butlers over the last six years, Simeon still works regularly. ‘I think it’s really important to carry on working as a butler,’ he tells me. ‘Otherwise, all that you can train is a snapshot in time.’ Avoiding becoming outdated and keeping up with all of the technology that his clients require is of the utmost importance and enables Simeon to do the job well.
Simeon trains butlers to work in hotels and private homes. But what exactly does it take to be a good butler? ‘A good butler has got to be really adaptable,’ says Simeon. ‘What you see in the films, when you’ve got this Remains of the Day style butler who does exactly the same thing every day, is actually not at all true.
‘We’re constantly adapting to new situations. Our clients come at us with all of these requests; one day they need something impossible taken somewhere else impossible, the next day they’re late for their jet and you need to rearrange flights. You don’t have time to worry about it, you just have to do it. You need the right aptitude. I can train anyone the skills, but you have to have the right way of thinking.
‘I once had to arrange a private jet to take a punnet of tomatoes from Italy to the UK’
‘The reason for employing a butler is simply to make your life better,’ Simeon explains. If you’re already thinking that his sales pitch is working, then just imagine having someone to worry about all of the little things that you’d rather not? The joy of having a person who puts out the right bin on the right day, knows when your car is due an MOT and books it in, if you have guests coming arranges what they will eat, where they will sleep and how they will travel. Freeing up all of this time allows you to concentrate on the important things, like enjoying life to the full or focusing on your business without worrying about life’s little details.
‘For the rich and super-rich money is not an issue,’ Simeon says. ‘They’re not short of money, but they are short of time. The demands on our time are much harsher than they’ve ever been. So, employing a butler is basically buying yourself time, which is a pretty valuable commodity.’
These are exciting times for butlers in Scotland. Simeon believes that the upsurge in staycations and more people working from home is seeing an unprecedented demand for good staff.
‘I feel that here in Scotland – more than in England, because I speak with friends who run similar companies in London, and they’re still very much in the doldrums – this is a bit of a golden age for butlers. Demand is through the roof.
‘There’s been a shift to old school luxury and country houses, places with a bit of space around them. People have realised that they would rather spend £5 million on purchasing an estate in Scotland than on a flat in London, which seems obvious to me. With your large estate in Scotland, you need staff.
‘You can’t just live in it on your own, because it takes too long to clean it and run it. And you don’t want to leave it unattended for six months of the year. I’m seeing it as a shift, which is very good for those of us living in Scotland.’