Have your people call my people

Have your people call my people. That toss off phrase reminds me of a little boy in a café we happened onto in our travels. I was standing at the cashier’s counter looking out the window at a man working in a field when the proprietor’s son noticed my idle gaze, pointed to the man and said, “That’s our person.” Captivated by the thought, I turned to Joel and said, “I want one!”


Now, I don’t want to own people. I don’t even want to manage people. I want staff. Maybe that’s why I so thoroughly enjoyed Masterpiece Theatre’s recent offering, Downton Abbey, which featured a “family enduring for generations and its staff, a well-oiled machine of propriety”. I figure a well-oiled machine should be able to manage itself. The Earl of Downton Abbey put good people in place and let them run things. I could do that. Here is what I think I need:

Technical staff – my techweenies; at a minimum I need a personal photographer to snap and post my photos, a webmaster to keep my social networks up to date and a scribe to record points in my weightwatchers tracker system – that is a time consuming!

House maintenance staff – over and above the garden and housekeeping chores, I really could use the services of a plasterer, painter, rough and finish carpenter and handyman with plumbing and wiring skills on a pretty regular basis.

Personal maintenance staff – here is where the serious overhead occurs. I’m thinking a dietician, a chef, a fitness trainer, a shopper and a dresser who will not let me leave the house thinking my midnight blue jeans are really black and pairing them with the wrong socks and shoes.

Design staff – a personal interior decorator to advise me on what shade of purple I should use on the accent wall in the bathroom I’m redecorating. It is so easy to make a mistake.

Business staff – in addition to the obvious, the finance manager and the bookkeeper, I would like some clones and drones – people who can stand in for me at meetings when I double-book myself and do volunteer work when I over commit.

I know what you are thinking. I haven’t addressed the expense of maintaining such a staff. Watch enough Masterpiece Theatre and you know that the great houses crumbled under the expense of such maintenance. That’s the oil required to keep the machine running. I’m just going to have to depend on the salesman at Orchard Supply Hardware to help me choose the right shade of purple.