Butler Blog

Back at it

2008-01-09T15:09:00.000-08:00

After a long absence, I'm back. After an amazing birthday party for the boss we are back to business as usual. I'm contemplating making some changes with the housekeeping staff, moving a few around to keep things live. All of the housekeepers are doing well, keeping themselves busy and keeping the house looking good. There is always room for improvement, but things are well. I just thought today that I need to make a profile of each bedroom in the house. Keep things like towel color and preference, bed size (most of the beds here are custom size), and any other pertinent information that may be relevant to giving the highest level of service possible.

Leadership Lessons Learned

2007-02-11T19:38:00.000-08:00

"Good leaders explain what they want their team members to do in a way or language that they can understand. Miscommunication is always the fault of the leader."

I often find myself and others upset that someone didn't understand what we wanted. It is our (managers, leaders, etc.) responsibility to make sure that what we want is clearly communicated to our subordinates. Sometimes this means using a different language, sometimes it means writing our request on paper, what ever it is make it clear to the person RECEIVING the direction.

Marble Floor

2007-01-31T08:39:00.000-08:00

The pultice that was applied to the travertine floor worked! All of the coffee stains came up and the only problem now is that the area that was treated is now cleaner than everywhere else. I'm sure that it will soon match the rest of the floor. The pultice stayed on the floor for 3-5 days (some sections were applied at different times). In other news, all is generally well at the house. There is a lot of movement among the principals now, so we're all on our toes. I'm working on clarifying the job responsibilities of each of my housekeepers. We have a meeting on Friday and we'll work on it then.

Stone floor cleaning

2007-01-25T12:57:00.000-08:00

We have a stone floor, unfilled travertine. It sustained damage over the holidays during our big party from espresso grounds. We had a company set up an espresso station for our guests, but they did not protect the floor. Consequently, there was damage to the floor. I got a company to come out to work on it and they have put a "pultice" on the stone to sit overnight to absorb the stain. It is a gray paste that stays wet during the process. I'll follow up on the outcome.

Another Busy Day

2007-01-23T13:09:00.000-08:00

Today has been quite busy. We had a large rug re-installed in the main hallway. It is a combination of 3 rugs sewn together to make one long runner (40 feet in length). It was quite a process getting it as straight as possible. The rug itself is not quite straight, so it proved more difficult than expected. We had to have movers here to move a very heavy marble table in order to put the rug down. It took about an hour to complete, just in time for a little lunch. We had just 3 people and it was very brief. Unfortunatley, the guests had to run before they got a chance to eat dessert, but they did enjoy their salad.