Hello. I’m a forty-year-old man from London, currently working as a personal assistant for the daughter of a South Asian oligarch. For the sake of her privacy, I’ll be referring to her as ‘Geeta’ and give no sensitive details about her personal identity. Geeta is currently a twenty-year-old woman in London for university, living in a penthouse with her pet dogs, along with a maid and personal assistant. I share a small room with the maid in the staff quarters within the building.
As a personal assistant, my job is mainly to serve her outside her home, which means accompanying her to classes, shopping trips, restaurants, social events, or hanging out with friends, while the maid is mainly responsible for serving her inside her home, such as cleaning or cooking. Her own maid is South Asian, and has a good relationship with Geeta and myself. Geeta is generally a kind and loving person, but is highly vulnerable to different moods. Ask me anything.
Does it feel like you are babysitting an adult who can’t function on their own?
It could sometimes feel that way, but I don’t have any negative feelings about Geeta. I’m getting paid a huge amount of money for doing fairly simple tasks, and she treats me kindly. She doesn’t have to treat me kindly, but she chooses to simply out of her own sense of good will. She rarely asks her staff for help, except for tasks in which she really needs them, like doing the laundry or cleaning dishes. That’s not her fault either. She was raised with servants all her life.