← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Zoroaster
Thread ID: 8349 | Posts: 8 | Started: 2003-07-22
2003-07-22 14:53 | User Profile
[url=http://slate.msn.com/]http://slate.msn.com/[/url]
Jeeves Goes to War Why is the Pentagon sending soldiers to butler school? By Tom Anderson Posted Wednesday, July 2, 2003, at 2:53 PM PT
Somewhere in Iraq, a young soldier is handing his three-starred boss a bottled water on a platter, or pressing the general's uniform, or serving his dinner guests dessertââ¬âfrom the left side, of course.
The military has always provided personal assistants to top brass: There are 300 "enlisted aides" who cater to three- and four-star generals and admirals. But now the Air Force and Navy are sprucing up their service by enrolling some aides at the Starkey International Institute for Household Management, the country's premier school for domestic help. The Pentagon, in short, is now training butlers.
It's true that not everyone in uniform can be a special forces commando. Still, the notion of sending soldiers to butler school hearkens back to the Pentagon's bad old days of $640 toilet seats.
Mary Starkeyââ¬âthat's Mrs. Starkey to youââ¬âstarted the eponymous institute in 1989 after nine years of running a staffing business for butlers, cooks, maids, and nannies. Students live at the school's Denver mansion for anywhere from a week to two months, where they learn skills such as silver polishing, flower arrangement, and cigar etiquette, as well as household management training, according to the school's course catalog. The school has published five texts on household management and has more than 600 alumni serving in wealthy households worldwide. Starkey grads work at the White House, the Pentagon, and the vice president's residence, a school official says.
It's no surprise the military chose Starkey: Mrs. Starkey has applied robotic discipline to managing manual tasks. Her trademark "Starkey Household Management System" is a perfect cross between Jeeves and boot camp. She demands that her trainees keep meticulous records of their employers' wishes, so service is seamlessly customized. "If a household is not following a system, it's always in crisis mode," she says. Mrs. Starkey urges students to create a "service matrix," which enumerates how the tasks should be handledââ¬âfrom the employer's diet to the bathroom cleaning regimen.
The Army trains its own servants at its advanced culinary program at Fort Lee, Va. But the Air Force and Navy supplement their basic enlisted aide training with the butler schooling at Starkey. The Navy started at Starkey in 2000, and the Air Force sent its first troops last year. "Within Department of Defense, or the Air Force, there currently is no school to teach all aspects of household management, and Starkey International is the service industry leader in this type of training," says Air Force spokeswoman Jennifer Stephens. "In order to make best use of the tax dollar, we look to utilize existing commercial practices where nothing like it exists in the service, rather than creating those in-house."
The Starkey training does not strain the Pentagon budget. Together, the Navy and Air Force probably won't spend even $100,000 for Starkey classes this year. The Air Force plans to send a dozen students to a special one-week class at Starkey it recently developed with the school. Also, three veteran airmen will take the school's standard four-week, $6,400 course. Neither the Air Force nor Starkey will say how much the one-week course costs. The Navy Supply Systems Command in Mechanicsburg, Penn., will send 10 sailors to Starkey this fiscal year.
Mrs. Starkey, 54, will discuss the finer points of household management passionately, but won't make a peep about her military work. "We just don't talk about it in public," she said. "Our clients are confidential for security reasons." Yet Starkey's Web site says it is "the official Household Management school for the military enlisted aide program."
Starkey's military grads also are mum on the subject, citing the same preposterous security concerns. "Things are tighter than ever and security considerations are higher than ever," replied one Navy vet who trained at Starkey when asked about the school. Is he afraid Iraqis will sneak in and replace dessert forks with fish forks? Is he worried al-Qaida will booby-trap his shoe polish kit?
It's more likely that Mrs. Starkey and her military alums are silent for fear of drawing attention to what is, fundamentally, a boondoggle. In recent months, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has been pushing for a leaner, meaner, and probably less Jeevesier military. In a June speech at the National Press Club, Rumsfeld said, "To have 320,000 military personnel doing jobs that are not military tasks is not a good thing for the department."
It's hard to imagine that Rumsfeld believes that planning a formal dinner party is a "military task." He couldââ¬âand he shouldââ¬âstop the Starkey training tomorrow. But, oh, how the generals would complain! After all, where else can you find good help these days?
2003-07-23 05:30 | User Profile
Many of these top generals are nothing more than pampered, glorified bureaucrats. The sort of weasels that howl for super-expensive crap weapon systems then go to "work" on the boards of the contractors when they leave the "service".
:dung:
2003-07-23 10:07 | User Profile
You got it, N.B.. These pampered generals, like feudal lords, must have their squires. Is there something holy here? The warrior chief plays god, perhaps, magnificent in his authority, commanding wretches and fools, all cannon fodder for freedom, democracy, and greater Israel.
-Z-
2003-07-23 14:27 | User Profile
When I was an egalitarian universalist feminist going through Officer Candidate School, I was HORRIFIED that officers sent their junior enlisted off for coffee or on errands, and they even called them by their last names alone! I determined, being the "good' person I was, that I would NEVER turn any of my enlisted into servants, and I would ALWAYS call them by their "rank" (such as it was). It would ALWAYS be Seaman Smith, Seaman Apprentice Jones! I would retain their dignity!!
Then I got into the actual working Navy. I was swamped: I literally didn't have TIME to get up from my desk and go to the coffee machine! I didn't have TIME to go find the Chief I needed to talk to. And I had LOTS of very junior enlisted hanging around who needed to be kept out of trouble! I came in 2 hours early (before "working hours") and usually stayed a couple of hours late. I missed lunch most times (till I got smart and started sending an enlisted person to go GET it for me! ;)
And it became common sensical -- if the Navy was paying me pretty good bucks to get my work done -- which work only I could do -- and they were paying a lot of folks minimum wage to hang around and wait to be told what to do, then it was a clear waste of the Navy's money for me to go get coffee and leave some of the work that needed doing undone; or for me to 'cushion' the unemployed enlisted from doing whatever work needed doing -- even if it WAS bringing me coffee so I could be coherent enough to do the work I was needed to do!
I actually support teaching enlisted aids butlery: the senior officers have to -- are REQUIRED to -- throw parties (command functions) and entertain civilian honchos and and local magnates and foreign dignitaries. Their wives were NOT "hired on" to be their social directors, and expecting them to be able or willing to throw a massive high-class party for a hunge number of important folks is just silly. In ANY military, the junior ranks do the scut work. That is part common sense and part goad. If young, underpaid, and untrained enlistees want to get away from the cooking, cleaning, painting, and other 'servant' work, they need to study up, and get qualified in a technical skill!
And for those who WANT to be cooks and butlers, and provide support to senior folks -- and it's a valid career line! -- then it's appropriate for the military to provide that training! :th:
2003-07-23 18:29 | User Profile
Avalanche,
You're full of it. I was never in the Navy, but I do know it has Petty Officers and Yoeman. If these folks had been doing their jobs, you wouldn't have been so swamped. Generals should have aides, but there's no need for butlers. Seems to me you have a big ego.
-Z-
2003-07-24 02:48 | User Profile
I was never in the Navy,
Obviously. <_<
** but I do know it has Petty Officers and Yoeman. **
If you HAD been in the Navy, and had any idea what you were writing about, you'd know that "petty officer" is the enlisted equivalent of 'rank' (i.e., there are multiple 'grades'); and yeoman (note spelling) is a JOB CLASSIFICATION!
** If these folks had been doing their jobs, you wouldn't have been so swamped.**
If you HAD been in the Navy, and had any idea what you were writing about, you'd know that shore units generally are short-staffed with both Chiefs and Petty Officers. They're more needed at sea, and so they're more USED at sea! (More of them at sea = fewer of them ashore.)
If you HAD been in the Navy, and had any idea what you were writing about, you'd know that generally, 'administration' of a unit is managed by the officers and chiefs and such administrative ratings (ratings = job classifications) as are assigned.
If you HAD been in the Navy, and had any idea what you were writing about, you'd maybe have thought to ask if a tugboat division in a small shipyard had ANY adminstrative personnel assigned -- and you'd have been told no.
If you HAD been in the Navy, and had any idea what you were writing about, you'd know that having no adminstrative personnel assigned means there was no one to help with the adminstrative burdens of running a 60-person division. The 4 chiefs I had were quite busy managing the sailors (and occasionally their families and/or drinking problems), maintenance and repair of the three tugboats for the division and one police chaseboat for the shipyard, the billeting facilities for our sailors both at the tugyard and on the base, the discipline problems, and whatever other jobs were dumped on us by the shipyard, to which we were subordinate. I had the problems of adminstration, scheduling, counseling, training, testing, managing a tug overhaul (4-hours drive away from the shipyard we were at!), managing the rehabilitation of the police boat, PLUS the assorted SLJO ("sh*tty little jobs officer") tasks dumped on ME as one of the the junior officers in the yard: Are you at all familiar with United Way Campaigns? Putting on dog and pony shows for visiting locals and officials? Arranging holiday festivities and scheduling sailors to act as ushers at changes of command and arrivals of bigwigs and visits by the Tall Ships on Fourth of July weekends, and running Christmas Charity efforts -- and if you HAD been in the Navy, and had any idea what you were writing about, you'd know these were NOT volunteer jobs, these were assigned and you'd d@mned well better do 'em up really well, cause if you DIDN'T it appeared in your fitness reports, which were a part of determining whether or not you got promoted! (No attaboys for doing it well, a massive awshit for NOT doing it well!)
PLUS I had an every-four-days rotation as Tugmaster -- which meant I spend a good portion of the day out ON the tugboat moving barges, oil rings and occasionally ships. PLUS I had training duties for the new tugmasters-to-be. PLUS I had a twice-a-month SHIPYARD watch, which was 24 hours in the OPS center (i.e., a day away from the place I needed to be to get most of my work done).
If you HAD been in the Navy, and had any idea what you were writing about, you probably would have kept yer mouth shut on matters about which you obviously have NO IDEA!
** Generals should have aides, but there's no need for butlers. Seems to me you have a big ego.** Seems to me you have a big mouth!
2003-07-24 10:52 | User Profile
Narcissism gives the power of beasts to twits, dingbats, and former female naval officers, who would turn sailors into valets so they could feel important.
-Z-
2003-07-24 13:57 | User Profile
Ah, I notice you have no SUBSTANTIVE reply.... Good ad hominum though, sounds almost semi-educated. Did you have to look up what narcissism means?