Tag: D/s

General Notes on Picking Your Tea Selection:

Offer both caffeinated and decaf options (in case of sensitivities).

For an event, pick teas that brew in the same temperature range for ease of serving.

Making a Pot:

Heat filtered water (measure it first, or before pouring into the pot) to the correct temperature, depending on type of tea.

Warm the teapot and the cups by filling with hot water for a minute, then dumping it out. Rinsing with hot water will also work.

Place one teabag or one tablespoon loose leaves (in the strainer) per cup in the pot. (Some add “and one for the pot”, or might want more or less depending on how weak/strong they like their tea. Check for preferences.)

Pour the hot water into the pot.

Cover, and steep tea for the correct amount of time depending on the type of tea/preference.

Remove teabags/strainer.

Serving Tea:

Ask how they take it (milk, sugar, lemon, etc.). Ask first in case you need to leave room for additions like milk or hot water.

Pour the tea.

Provide the desired additions.

Note: if you already know how they take their tea, they might prefer you put in milk/sugar/etc. first.

Create a soothing environment.  Offer a basic selection of drinks, snacks, and/or entertainment.

Place towel on floor, then foot bath (check sizing) with hot water (as hot as comfortable) and desired additions. Essential oils of choice and bubbles make a traditional luxurious touch.  For serious dead skin removal, try a large splash each of vinegar and mouthwash, though beware this might stain skin and the bath. 

Remove old polish if needed.  

Soak feet for fifteen to twenty minutes. 

Remove dead skin from bottom of feet.  Foot file and then pumice stone works best.  You can also remove hairs if desired with method of choice. Work on one foot at a time, leaving the other soaking.

Use a cuticle pusher to push back cuticles, removing loose dead skin around the nail. If there’s a lot, you might want to use a cuticle trimmer. Work on one foot at a time, leaving the other soaking.

Trim, file, and buff nails. Gently clean under nails with the cuticle pusher. Keep each foot out of the bath when done with this step.

Dry, then moisturize and massage feet. Apply cuticle oil to cuticles and nails; massage in. (Make sure nails are not oiled before polish.) A gentle pull on toes and circular motions around the ball of the foot tend to be popular.  

Apply a clear base coat, two coats of desired color, and a clear top coat.  Toe separators work well here, during and for drying. Let coats dry completely before the next one; keep them thin and even. Keep common polish colors on hand.

Unlace boots. (Clean laces if desired; dust by running through hands.)

Clean boots with leather soap of choice and slightly damp cloth if needed (don’t use too much soap/make sure it all gets wiped off). 

Make any needed repairs (clipping loose threads, etc.) 

Apply leather conditioner. 

Apply layers of polish (check the color match) as needed. 

Buff with horsehair brush.

Dampen cloth slightly and use to apply thin layer of polish in circles.  With a slightly damp cotton ball, apply circular shine.  Repeat as needed. 

Use Q-tip to clean in eyelets if needed.

Relace boots in the same pattern as before (or the one that’s desired now—learn a few common patterns).

Dryer sheets placed in shoes when not in use can keep them smelling fresh.

General Notes:

Bed linens and such that are properly sized, fit the color scheme, and are in good condition go a long way. 

Remember to change/wash the linens regularly (once a week is a popular guideline); watch the care instructions.  

Having at least two sets of bed linens can save some headaches.

Don’t forget appropriately keeping the bed frame and whatnot neat too.  This might mean dusting, or handling upholstery, or something else.

Remember mattress care—rotating once a quarter, flipping twice a year if possible, cleaning it, etc.

Set the tasks mentioned on a repeating schedule.

Maybe try a light linen spray in the morning or at turndown—but remember to check on allergies and sensitivities first.

I don’t mention certain extra pieces below—but if you have a bed skirt, mattress pad, etc., factor them in appropriately.

Make sure the piece you’re handling is facing the way it’s supposed to, both in vertical/horizontal orientation and where the patterned side is; a patterned flat sheet, for instance, needs to be put on the bed face down to have the pattern facing up when folded back. Note that the side of the flat sheet with the wider hem should be towards the head of the bed.

Customize it!  Make sure you adhere to your partner’s preferences.

Daily: 

If the mattress has shifted at all, for those tossers and turners, make sure it’s lined up/back where it’s supposed to be.

Fitted sheet: evenly place on the mattress; smooth out.

Flat sheet: make hospital corners. Remember to have pattern side facing down, and widest hem at top of bed.

There are many great resources on how to make hospital corners online.  A quick Google search should get you to guides for a variety of learning types if you haven’t done it before.

Main blanket: evenly lay on top; create hospital corners if desired/possible; smooth out.

Fold down the flat sheet and the blanket so the fold lays not quite below where the pillows will be.  Neatly tuck the hem of the flat sheet under the hem of the comforter, or simply smooth out.  (This is really a preference point.)

Place any extra blankets, whether another layer altogether, or folded across the foot of the bed, or what have you.

Put pillowcases on pillows if need be (tuck excess pillowcase fabric, if any, under the pillow—check if they have a preferred side for this to be on); fluff; arrange pillows practically and attractively; try slightly propped up on the headboard.

Handle any other pieces needed.  

The Rosebud

1. Lay napkin face down in front of you.

2.  Fold the napkin up in half diagonally. 

3.  Point open end away from you. 

4. Fold the right corner up diagonally to meet the top corner. 

5.  Repeat on the left.

6. Flip the napkin over, left to right.

7. Fold the lower corner up most of the way.

8. Flip the napkin over, left to right.

9.  Curl both sides in, tucking one into the other.

10. Stand up. 

The Envelope

1. Lay napkin face down in front of you.

2.  Fold napkin in half downwards.

3. Fold top left corner to center of base.

4. Repeat on the right.

5. Flip left to right. 

6. Fold in corners evenly.  Tuck in menu, card, favor, or whatever is desired.

The Cutlery Holder

1. Lay napkin face up in front of you.

2. Fold in half upwards.

3. Fold in half to the left.

4.  Peel one layer of upper right corner back to lower left corner.

5. Flip over vertically, downward.

6. Fold lower third in.

7. Fold top third in.

8. Orient vertically and insert cutlery/whatever is desired. 

This is part of the Lifestyle Masochism series. These are stand alone non fiction/memoir examples of the lifestyle sadomasochism we practice within our irrevocable consent framework, as discussed in the explanation post “What I Talk About When I Talk About Masochism”.

…

After waiting quietly in Mistress’ office doorway until I’m acknowledged, as always, I ask for permission to masturbate.

My thought process on this is that we have sex scheduled for 9PM tonight, just like every Sunday (and Wednesday and Friday—though the schedule later changed). I’m rarely allowed to come during this, and am sometimes permitted to masturbate afterwards—but unless I do so exceedingly quickly, I end up past my bedtime, which is permitted, but means I lose out on sleep. 

So I ask if I may do so now—about an hour before I’m scheduled to go start dinner. 

There’s the usual response to this. “Why?” and all that. The usual taunts. I explain my reasoning. But I sense more coming. There’s a lot of touchiness that isn’t going somewhere quickly enough to suddenly, teasingly flatline, end with permission and dismissal, nor slowly enough to be casual and actually distracted. There’s the hand around my collar, the hand around my throat, the hand tight in my hair, the way I get pushed and pulled around disorientingly. We end up in the dungeon.  

“Okay,” she says finally. “You’ll get to masturbate. But first, go get something for me to beat you with. And the vibrator.” 

“Yes, Mistress.” It’s a common enough order, the first part at least. 

I consider options, the whips hanging on hooks. Since I’m allowed a choice this time, I ask for an informed one: “Are you going to want me to be able to hear you?” In the case of loud implements, I tend to shield my ears if I can, sometimes meaning I don’t hear her orders, degradations, whatnot. So if she wants to chat while she beats me, I’ll pick something quieter, easily spoken over, something that doesn’t invoke my ear covering instinct. I reiterate some of this. 

“You can pick something loud.” 

So I do. I pick the item I happened to think about the most recently: a belt from a bin of impact toys, and pull the Hitachi from a drawer. 

I give them to her. “I think the cord ended up in your office?” 

“Yeah.” There’s more of the push and pull and taunt routine; there’s the bookshelf shaking behind me as my back hits it. The sun is going down already, and I didn’t turn the light on when I came in; everything is cast in shadow. 

Still, this moves us back towards her office, where we started, better lit. She tells me to grab the cord, grabs her coffee and water. Gives me a little shove, points to the bedroom down the landing. “I want you in that bedroom, naked. Now, march.” 

“Yes, Mistress.” I curtsy as always and go, but again she follows quickly, and I’m still in the process of stripping out of my daily uniform, sneaking in reapplying chapstick. I make sure to shed a few items first out of habit—my slave bell pager, which got the clip securing it to my leggings broken once already when she shoved me over and into the bed to beat me. (We traded clips after that, as she doesn’t wear hers and usually leaves it on her desk.) 

“Have you been a good girl lately?” she asks me. 

“I’ve tried.” I never say yes. I never say no. I can only tell her my intentions; the rest is up to her. 

“How have you tried?” 

“I… I rotated the mattress earlier.” One of my quarterly tasks I did today. “I cleaned a bunch extra yesterday.” Before my mom and sister came over. 

“Why did you choose this?” She holds up the belt as I finish undressing. 

“It’s like…” I try to get out the tropes that it invokes for me. The handiness of it, suited to the kind of random domestic violence we try to mimic, though this particular scenario doesn’t mimic the spontaneity as well as others.

Still, soon enough I’m bent over the foot of the bed, kind of over her knee—she sits at an angle—and the belt comes hard and fast and I’m not ready for it at all; I contain my struggle only enough to prevent another strike from catching my shin, and—thoughtfully, I think—try to bury my head in the blankets enough that the neighbors can’t hear me scream.

It can’t last that long—maybe a full minute—but it feels like so much longer—and it takes me several more seconds to gulp down enough air, like I’ve just surfaced from water. Still, everything in me begs for more. I almost ask. Her hand is between my legs, stroking me. “You know, the way you acted, you’d really think you were being hurt,” she tells me, among other things that become hazy. “But you’re wet.” 

She says more; she touches me more; I don’t remember details, I barely experience it in the moment, my mind only on the belt and if and when it will come again. And it does. It’s wonderful. Everything else goes away. I scream wordlessly; I don’t cry. A stark contrast to the usual quiet and stillness, of, say, weekly maintenance discipline, the breathy counting. And if she does this long enough, I adjust and go quiet relatively quickly.

I still want more, when it once again stops and I’m once again gasping like I’m drowning. We do this enough, I bet there won’t be a mark on me later; my body’s used to it. Still.  

She strokes me again, talking about the sort of sex scheduled for tonight. Using me like a sex toy and discarding me, not seeing to my needs, kicking me out of the bed to my slave furs (my usual blanket on the floor at the foot of the bed) to be leashed for the night when it’s done. Object. Toy. Mine. 

I repeat back whatever she prompts me to, even though words feel like something that happens to other people. “Yours.” 

The belt comes one more time. Something tells me it will be the last, and I find peace with that while it’s still coming. I think I’m quieter, stiller, this time. 

“Stand.” 

I do, on slightly shaky legs. She sits up on the bed, against the headboard, legs extended and parted in front of her. “Come here.” She gestures. I sit between her legs in front of her, leaning back against her a little, while she pins my legs open with hers. She holds the vibrator on me. It’s intense and pleasant. I could come if she told me to, but I’m not begging yet, which she reminds me I will. Her hand is around my throat; she whispers horrible things against my ear and makes me say them back. “I like it. I’m pathetic. I’m worthless. Yours.” 

At one point, she turns the vibrator up again—to setting three of four. I’m at the edge; I’m over the edge, not coming, but where it’s too intense for me to come, where my body is yelling make it stop not I want to come. When I masturbate—like I’d originally asked to—I frequently turn it up to setting four well before I’m done, but I also progress slower than we are right now. I squirm, trying to get it onto a more bearable spot, but, fearing the intensity might translate to orgasming, beg as ordered. “Please, Mistress, please, may I—” It’s a little panicked and incoherent. But she grants it.

“You may.” 

I fall into a strange wave of successfully adjusting, bringing the sensation back down into makes me come range instead of make it stop, then letting it do so, pleasure hitting intensely for a long time. I finally squirm away from the vibrator again, oversensitized, as it fades. “Th-thank you, Mistress.” 

“You’re welcome, slavegirl.” The vibrator shuts off. 

I stay settled against her and catch my breath for a minute.

“If you still want to masturbate…” she begins. 

I shake my head frantically. She laughs.

I quickly hop up to get dressed, since she told me I was allowed. I slip things back on; she leaves. It’s almost time to start dinner. 

By the time I woke up this morning, I’d thought about asking permission to sleep in a dozen times. 

I’d thought about it last night, cooking dinner—stir fry style chicken in the wok, and homemade bread, which I enjoyed—in such a fog, I barely remembered the process as I hit the pager transmitter button to page Mistress and waited in, well, Waiting Position, as always at 6 PM. I’d thought about it rolling my way out of the bed after sex—pleasant, but no orgasms for me, as expected and preferred—and stumbling over to unfold my usual soft blanket on the floor at the foot of the bed. I’d thought about it every time I stirred in the night, and I’d thought about it when my daily alarm finally went off, welcoming an unusually cold, wet day. 

I hit the transmitter button. By the time Mistress came in, I was still trying to find my way to Leashing Position. I was impossibly, unusually tangled in my leash, and the blanket that serves as my bed. She helped detangle me and unclipped the leash. I shivered as the cold air hit my bare skin.  

I didn’t ask to sleep more. I figured that I could do all my required morning tasks, but, if need be, doze a little during the hour I usually reserved for writing. I didn’t want to slack on the service tasks, and I’d gotten assigned a new one for the morning last night, and didn’t want to miss my first opportunity at it. 

So I stumbled through my morning routine. Dressed in my daily uniform. Washed up. All that. I brought the sunscreen to Mistress’ office—waited silently in the doorway until she beckoned me in—and applied it for her for the first time (later, we moved this to be a part of morning Inspection, which happens after brunch). New service task complete, she dismissed me before I could ask if there was anything else I could do, or for permission to go, so, ritual cut short, I curtsied and left.

In that time, I’d also given her the required notification that I was leaving the house, so I set out on my usual morning walk, about a mile loop. The drizzle was a little chilly, but light, and in the desert, welcomed.

The house was in sight again when something else came into sight—a beautiful, bright, full rainbow, right over the house. I admired it, and walked a little faster. I quickly brought Mistress outside when I got back, but it had mostly faded. My phone camera, also retrieved from the house, couldn’t catch it. But it was awesome just to see, an extra bonus for getting up this morning.

Inside, I don’t nap through my writing hour. I write this instead, before my alarms go off for morning housekeeping and serving brunch.

The thought I’m invigorated by is choosing service. I could’ve chosen to ask to sleep in—and maybe Mistress would’ve let me—or I could’ve chosen to complain the whole way. I could’ve chosen the writing hour, and slept during potential service time later, if I did decide to nap. But I didn’t. Not that I’m perfect, but today I chose service. 

Because—even in an irrevocable consent dynamic like ours—to an extent, it’s a choice. If I want to serve, to serve well and consistently, with the proper spirit—I have to choose it. Even when I also want to sleep. Priority, not an option. Because otherwise, I’m missing the opportunity. 

That’s true of almost anything I want to do, really. If I also want to write, I can’t doze through the writing hour, either. (Though, I later rearrange this schedule.)

And submission isn’t the convenient line up of what you both happen to want—that’s a matter of compatibility—but the choice to submit, to serve, when you’re beyond the limits of the tasks you prefer, when you choose and prioritize service and obedience over conflicting desires like sleep. When you are truly submitting, not doing what you would have chosen anyway. 

And I do want to serve, and I do want to submit, and I do want to write—and so I make those things a priority every day. 

Note: This is part of the “Tales From the Butler Academy” section. Start with “I’m a Slave; Why Am I Going to Butler School?” for more context.

…

In Module 4—etiquette—I receive my first video assignment. It’s a series of etiquette drills. There are about twenty, each outlining a different tricky situation. My job is to sketch out a more specific scenario if needed (I figured this out after the first round of submissions), and film myself, as the majordomo, responding to it. The instructions emphasize, Acknowledge! Resolve! Redirect! Acknowledge the problem and how the person feels; resolve it if possible (or, state why you can’t, if it’s illegal or such); redirect so as to smooth things over (“May I get you a drink?”). They also heavily imply that you will almost certainly be asked to film several rounds of redos.

So, I write up some notes and set up in my office. My daily uniform is far from scandalous, but not the butler usual. So I basically add a blazer and play with angles. I do a quick check on my surroundings, moving the erotica novels I’ve written, for starters. Books, journals, string lights, and Polaroids remain. I place an oversized stuffed bear in the canopied hammock chair swing across from where I sit in my desk chair. What a look. I fire up Zoom on my laptop, place it on my desk, set it to record the session, and begin. I read the drill number I’m doing, sketch the scenario, and then give my response.

It does, as the instructions also warned, feel a little silly. “12A,” I read seriously. Deep breath. Shake my head. “12A,” I repeat firmly. I look at my notes. No, I can’t do this. I look up at the ceiling, exasperated. “Do I look stupid yet?” 

This is the outtake I send Mistress and a few friends. 

I finally get the first round in. Yes, there’s a lot of feedback, and a lot of redos requested. A couple are deemed simply, “Fine, pass,” and others merely ask me to take the scenario one step further. But some get admittedly hilarious negative feedback. Yikes! reads one. I think your employer’s wife (who happens to also be your boss) might slap you if you responded like that! 

Yes, well, I think, I have some news for you about “my employer’s wife”… (who happens to be me). 

But the overall theme of the feedback is needing more compassion. One issue is that I’m clinically low empathy. And there are some scenarios I think I just struggle to relate to. One sketches a scenario in which my employer is frustrated because the chauffeur has brought the wrong car around to pick them up for an important meeting, while the chauffeur has to go switch cars. I laugh about this with a few friends. Problems I wish I had. I’ve made it clear there isn’t any other staff here. 

But the thing—the thing I have to finally hit on to pass the drills—is that the scenario isn’t really about the car. It isn’t really about the chauffeur. It is about a human being having a stressful day, experiencing the straw that broke the camel’s back, and turning to their trusted majordomo for reassurance and, yes, compassion. We’ve all done it—snapped over a ridiculous little thing because of an underlying serious stressor. This important meeting is in a few minutes, and the chauffeur can’t get their job right. Okay. 

So, I need to acknowledge what happened, that it is a problem (because, minor or not, that was a mistake on the chauffeur’s part), and that the employer has a right to be upset by that, and that I will proactively handle it before it happens again, because that’s my job. And I need to do it with compassion.

It takes me three tries to pass that drill and one other. The others take one or two. But I grasp the importance of the compassion, and the how of delivering it, even if it’s still not a deep seated feeling or instinct. 

And really, the etiquette drills teach skills I need as a slave. While kink protocol can be different, the core skill is the same. Whether it’s knowing what to do when Mistress is upset over something small that is actually about something big, handling mistakes, or dealing with unruly or uninvited guests or vendors, a lot of the drills translate, either directly, or via the underlying skill.

While I turned to butler school more for hard skills and professional standards, the coursework also emphasizes again and again that as I learn each of those skills, they remain wrapped in soft skills, and need to be presented with the famous high end service touch that defines the butler industry. And at the core of that is compassion. 

So, I’ve tried to carry that with me in the four modules and life since. 

When my father died and I inherited his estate and life insurance policy, I used the assets very practically. Everything basically went into real estate or high interest savings, following the advice of those I trusted, mostly Mistress, who let me make the estate managing choices at the time; later, we married and fully merged our finances. 

My mother (my parents had divorced) was a good adviser, too, and—perhaps especially watching me flounder a little in the wake of the grief and trauma of discovering my father’s death, the shock of becoming a landlord, and the stress of handling probate court proceedings pro se—had another piece of advice: that (without going too crazy) I should use some of the inheritance to treat myself to something that was previously out of reach.

There was something I’d been thinking about, too, and I did some research, and moved money to a separate savings account, naming it “Pipe Dream”.

Butler school. 

There were a lot of other logistics, though, and the dream wasn’t attainable yet. 

I needed time to attend, not still wrapped in estate managing; there was still major work to do on my health to be fit for that kind of travel (most of them were programs of multiple weeks or months abroad); I couldn’t yet drive. The pandemic struck.

I was also very aware that I wasn’t the typical demographic, as an American woman in my early twenties, and so much else. I would need a vanilla cover story, for starters. 

Still, I dreamt and worked on what I could. I put out fires and cleared space in my life; I improved my health. In the meantime, I wrote prolifically, I published my first book, I planned to start teaching kink education classes, I grew as a slave, taking up new skills and duties. 

In January 2021, days after my twenty-third birthday and first kink education class as the presenter, I learned that one butler school was now offering an online private residence butler school course. It was a four hundred hour, one on one, self paced correspondence course, with all of the same material as a traditional butler school. This eliminated a lot of difficult logistics.

Elated—and with Mistress’ blessing—I signed up the very same day. 

But that’s enough explanation: the question I promised the answer to is why. 

Because out there in the vanilla world, there are resumes and qualifications and certifications and degrees and standards. I don’t preach these as The Answers; I didn’t even finish high school, and if anything, feel better off for it. But in the kink world, there aren’t really those Standard Items you look for on a resume. While there are big names, there’s not really a I Went To Harvard of kink. You make sense of each individual’s experience via once off classes or intensives they’ve attended, personalized training or mentoring they’ve received, skills and experience they can prove, awards and plaudits they’ve been given, community service they’ve done and involvement they’ve had, so on. And there are a lot of pros to that.

But it left me at a bit of a loss on how to feel like I’d thoroughly learned the basics of service. More than that, I noticed that a lot of “vanilla” standards and education seemed to be missing in the kink scene. It seemed like the second you were doing something in a kink environment, it was somehow different. It seemed that if you did, say, the cooking, as an act of submission to someone else, suddenly it was service, and almost not cooking. There were classes on service: how to negotiate it, service philosophy and archetypes, what is service, incorporating protocols, a few specialty items like tea service or bootblacking… but to learn even relatively basic kitchen skills, like safety standards—and certainly more advanced skills—I had to turn back to “vanilla” resources. And some people didn’t seem to understand that it was still kink/service relevant education, or why they might themselves pursue those “vanilla” cooking skills beyond the very basic, if their interest was in service. 

So I made it a bit of a mission to blend the worlds. As I blended those culinary, housekeeping, secretarial, so on, skills into my own service, I started teaching classes, presenting those skills and standards I’d had to use “vanilla” resources to learn as service skills, framed them in a kink friendly environment, included how to add the service touch, tried not to neglect the soft skills and psychology involved. I integrated that into my kink related educational and fiction writing. 

I wanted to give Mistress the best (that I was capable of), not average hard skills prettily dressed up as service, and I wanted to help others be able to offer the same. And if I wanted to offer something unique, in my service and in my writing and teaching, I had to go outside the kink scene’s preexisting norms. 

The answer remained right in front of me: a vanilla role prided for general high end service. 

The traditional butler. 

So, butler school it was.

More than anything else, I want to prove that the worlds aren’t so different after all. I feel like by taking the course, I can prove that professional, vanilla private service standards can be mirrored by “just” a kinky slave, and I’m probably far from the seemingly most qualified person in that category to do it, just someone with some determination, a dream, and a bit of luck.

Really, it is a role at its core very similar to mine in a lot of ways. Other than terminology changes (Mistress becomes my employer) and minor details (like disguising my somewhat untraditional daily uniform), my only lies in my vanilla cover story are of omission. In a lot of ways, I think my life is actually pretty accurately portrayed in my assignments. I tell real day to day anecdotes, base evaluations on my real, daily actions, service tasks, and routines. 

I try to get the most out of the course that I can that might be truly applicable—and there’s plenty that is. 

I’m currently on Module 8 of 22 about a year into the course, and plan to really pick up the pace. But I do still have a lot going on, health to consider, and the course material is a refreshing challenge, but a challenge nonetheless. 

This whole post is something I usually throw in while expanding on one bullet point in my Anticipatory Service class, but it deserves a little more, so here goes. 

I talk in that class about generating service ideas/ways to serve, and cite one source of ideas being things that the person you’re serving typically automates or outsources (whether it be home automation or technology, hiring a contractor, going to a place to have the service done, getting delivery, etc.) 

Now, this can be a great source of inspiration, as it’s something they clearly do want done and are willing to hand off. And it can be beneficial to do things yourself to really connect with your service; washing a dish by hand will typically feel more like service than loading a dishwasher, as will giving someone a massage instead of driving them to a spa appointment, baking a loaf of bread instead of buying it, or walking the aisles of a store instead of clicking buttons. 

But there are several factors to consider when deciding if you should take it on as a service task or leave it to automation/outsourcing. 

There’s typically money to be saved in “doing it yourself” (having the s-type do it) versus involving a professional. But sometimes not, if this involves renting or purchasing expensive equipment usually covered by a smaller contractor fee. Even if the money is not an issue—what about the space in your home those supplies take up? Could you maybe split the space/money involved for such supplies with a family member, friend, or neighbor? 

Or, say, if there’s a major pandemic. This may make it safer to hit buttons from home and get grocery delivery than to walk the aisles of a store yourself. But it may also make it safer to perform a service yourself at home (say, giving a haircut) than to go out and have it done.

Next, can you perform the service (or learn to) to the same standard as the professional or technology involved/can you get close enough the trade off (say, money) is worth it? Or could the alternative do this so much better/faster/more easily that it isn’t worth it to do it yourself? There may also be other factors here, like if it’s more eco friendly or healthy to use one technology or another/lack thereof. Or if there are safety factors involved that a pro could better handle. 

The person you’re serving may also simply have a strong preference on this. If you’re beyond the point of negotiating that, you’re beyond the point of negotiating that.

I think the hardest factor to judge and navigate is the trade off of your time and energy (as the s-type). Just because there’s a potential service task to be done doesn’t mean it’s the best use of your time and mental and/or physical energy. Even if it doesn’t seem like a big deal, it can still be a disruption to your focus on another task, and ten tasks that all only take three minutes actually mean a half hour of extra work: things add up, and that’s time you’re not spending on another task that may be more useful.

In my case, I’m not allowed to be truly answerable to someone who isn’t Mistress, I’m not allowed to have a job, or take on things that could interfere with her authority. Service is my full time, forty plus hours a week job; I’m the housewife, no kids, no roommates, no other partners, always on call. But I still have only twenty-four hours in a day, and only so much energy (and some of those hours do need to go to food and sleep and all). And let’s face it: most service types do have other commitments that need to be taken into account. Even I have a lot going on without traditional employment.

So we balance what it’s most practical for me to focus on.

Examples both directions:

Dishes—we’ve opted for me to do them all by hand. Right after meals, I’m required to wash, dry, and put everything away as part of cleaning the kitchen, unless there’s some special exception. Now, we do have a pretty nice dishwasher, but it still really doesn’t do as good a job consistently, and I’m an admittedly somewhat slow and ineffective Dishwasher Loader (spatial reasoning isn’t my strong suit). It’s been used a couple of times when I was ill/after a large event, but that’s about it. 

High window washing—I do the washing of the more accessible windows, but we have a lot of windows that you’d need a full ladder to clean both inside and out. It’s basically impossible for me to move such a ladder by myself, and I have balance issues: me being on it at any real height above the ground would be dangerous, especially unsupervised. But, if I arrange things with a window washing company and have them do it, they whip right through this chore with celerity I’ll never achieve, and the windows are sparkling. The money is well worth it. 

Ultimately, choosing which service tasks to take on and which to leave to automation/outsourcing is about finding that balance point, which might sway back and forth over time (ex: utilizing the dishwasher when I’m very ill). I lean towards doing everything I can myself to really get that feeling of serving directly, but I’m learning to admit when it’s not practical. 

Lots of things to consider.