Listening, Too, Is Part of a Butler's Work

This is Smith.

I make my living overseeing ceremonies, but I also hold, in fact, one more thing: a counsellor's qualification. Today I shall speak of that work of "listening."

It may seem unexpected. A man who commands people on the ceremonial floor, quietly listening to what a person has to say. Yet I believe these two are joined at the root.

The eye that surveys the whole of a ceremony is also the eye that does not miss the change in one guest's face. Among those we serve are people who carry a quiet fatigue or loneliness they would never show at a splendid gathering. Such things are not spoken aloud. A sudden silence, the direction a gaze falls, the space between one word and the next — that is where true feeling seeps through.

Of all I learned as a counsellor, the most important was not to cut in. People seem to be seeking advice when, in truth, they often simply want to be heard. So I do not rush to an answer. I give a nod, I wait through the pause, and when the other is searching for words, I guard that time in stillness. For a blunt man like me, this was no small discipline. You hold back, hard, the urge to say something.

Sincere, and easy to talk to without strain — I am grateful when I am told as much. A man who runs a formal occasion, who is also someone you can speak to with your guard down. That two-sidedness I count as a strength of mine.

A grievance, a worry, an idle bit of small talk — any will do. For a butler, listening, too, is part of the work. Let us meet again.