The Butler Certification System

Before the system existed, the worth of a butler was described in the feel of each household's master or of one's seniors. Change the house and the verdict changed, and an employer had nothing to rely on. The association's first act was to write out the conditions that good butlers share and to recast them in a form that an examination can check. A criterion that cannot be written is not a criterion: that is where the system begins.

—Grounds for withholding are listed too

Writing things down has side effects. Once a clause exists, a reading appears in which satisfying the clause is enough. So alongside the clauses the association keeps a list of grounds for refusal. Doubt about confidentiality, or any sign of putting oneself before the client, stops certification however high the skill.

In fixing the number of grades, the association took the employer's side, not the student's. Someone who can serve and receive guests correctly. Someone who can run a household's daily affairs alone. Someone who can lead people and design the running of a whole house. The work a client entrusts to a butler falls roughly into these three widths, and certification is cut to match. The grade names are not ranks of prestige; they are labels for what may be entrusted.

—Each grade contains the one below

A higher grade contains every condition of the lower ones. In the order of examination, therefore, even a candidate for Master is first checked against the conditions of Associate. A person whose basic forms have slipped cannot be given the design of a house.

The first is procedure: the temperature of the tea, the handling of the cup, the laying of the table. This is learned at school and fixed by practice, and it is the easiest part of the examination to judge. The second is the direction of attention. Hands may move precisely, but if the eyes have left the person, that candidate is watching the objects and not the human being. The examiner marks that.

—Confidence and restraint, in interview

The third is confidentiality and restraint. Hard to measure within the practical, so it is checked in interview and in situations slipped into the examination. How the candidate answers when asked about a client's private affairs; how they receive praise. These conditions come before technique, and a candidate who is vague here is not given a grade.

When the association hands over a certificate, I say: this is not a pass certificate. Certification is a declaration that the association takes on this person's standing in the field as a butler. If there is misconduct afterwards, that is not only the individual's failure but an error in the association's judgement. Grades are issued with that weight.

—We cannot be indifferent to the field

Because of this, the association cannot be indifferent to the field where its certified butlers work. Problems seen in the field of THE BUTLER come back to the association and lead to revision of the criteria or of the school's courses. That is the meaning of one body holding both certification and the field.

A certified butler is expected to return to the training occasions the association holds. As the age changes, so does the shape of a household and the conduct it asks for. When the criteria are revised, the voices of butlers in the field and of clients are set against each other and the clauses rewritten. The system is a living thing, and the head's work is to keep it from withering.

—Enrolment matters go to the school

Enquiries about the certification system are received below. For the content of the courses and the procedure for enrolment, please ask the school, the Japan Butler Academy.

Write out the conditions for certification and practice towards them begins. That is not in itself bad, but people appear who slip through the gaps in the table. So alongside the conditions the association keeps a list of grounds for withholding.

—Confidence comes first

First among them is confidence. However high the practical marks, no grade is given to someone who, in conversation during the assessment, speaks in detail about a previous employer. Second is restraint: if praise cannot be let pass, and is retold as the person's own achievement, that too stops the grade.

—Keeping what cannot be scored

These items cannot be scored. It was argued inside the association that putting uncountable things into a system makes it unsteady in use. They remain because we know what kind of household results from recognising people by countable items alone.

When a grade cannot be given, the person is told with the reason attached: where in the procedure it came apart, at what moment the gaze left the other person, which answer in the interview caught. Withheld, it leaves the person with no idea where to put their hand, and the next sitting halts at the very same place.

—The instructor is told as well

The same account goes to the instructor who trained them. On assessment day the instructor is the more nervous of the two, and in truth the cause of a failure often lies in the teaching. Treat it as one person's want of effort and the next student meets the same wall.

—The second sitting is short

Someone who did not receive a grade may sit again after an interval. Since each side remembers the point at which it halted, the second sitting finishes quickly.

As households change, so does the work entrusted to a butler: equipment not previously anticipated, new ways of keeping records, correspondence at a distance. When such things appear in the field, the content of the grades must be rewritten or certification drifts away from reality.

—Both sides are set against each other

Whether to revise is decided by setting the reports from the field against the voices of clients. Listen to one side only and the standard tilts either to the butler's convenience or to the client's. Only with both laid side by side does it become clear what needs mending.

—A change without a reason is not kept

A revision always carries a note of why it was made. A rewrite with no such note turns, after some years, into something no one is able to keep. The system is a living thing, and the head's work is to keep it from withering.