Would Earthling make a great butler?

The Butler Did it!
Among the successful candidate's duties: drive the luxury cars, manage the wine cellar, pack the suitcases, serve the food. Be available, as the boss might say, on demand.

Among the successful candidate's rewards: a salary of $71,400. A bed in the house of one of Canada's richest families. The fastest cable repair he has ever witnessed.

An indiscreet member of the billionaire Rogers clan is looking for a live-in butler.

We know this because he or she placed a butler-seeking advertisement in Sunday's Star that asked applicants to submit resumés to the "Private Family Office" on the 10th floor at 333 Bloor St. E. – the headquarters of Rogers Communications Inc.

The Rogers family, explained corporate spokesperson Jan Innes, owns a private company that rents space in the building of the conglomerate it controls. Hiring a butler, she said, is a "private family matter" unrelated to Rogers Communications; she would not, thus, say which member of the family is very publicly seeking the servant.

So we will guess.

He or she could be Loretta Rogers, widow of late CEO Ted Rogers and a corporate director who lives in a Forest Hill mansion.

He or she could be Rogers' son, Edward, deputy chairman, who lives in a Forest Hill mansion.

He or she could also be Rogers' daughter, Melinda, a corporate executive and director who paid $11 million last year for a Forest Hill mansion. Or, perhaps, Rogers' daughters Lisa and Martha, whereabouts unknown.

The Star ad, titled "Executive Household Manager/Butler," describes a job as demanding as the legendary Ted. The winning candidate, a sincere person with a "polished appearance" who has graduated from both a butler training school and a university or college, will be, variously, a chauffeur, valet, event planner, personal shopper, cook, secretary, and manager of both the wine cellar and something called "household inventory."

The victorious jack-of-all-servile-trades will also possess "a high level of discretion and tact."

By hiring through the newspaper, the mystery Rogers saves a five-figure placement fee. (Charles MacPherson Associates, which runs Canada's only butler academy, charges 25 per cent.)

He or she may also be pinching pennies on the salary: $71,400, said Steven Ferry, chairman of the International Institute of Modern Butlers, is more likely to attract an inexperienced butler than a savvy veteran.

Nonetheless, Ferry said, the job is desirable. Provided, that is, the mystery Rogers is not a miserable Rogers.

"Unless it was a boss from hell," he said, "I think the butler would be in paradise, to be given that level of responsibility and breadth of service."