(1) You may cancel what a toddler is doing so that your sim can interact with him/her.

(2) If the servant is in the same room as a sleeping family member, you may wake that family member up.

(3) You may control a sim to fix glitches and bugs, to get them unstuck from somewhere, and so on.

(4) You may control family members to call in sick or add “go to work/school” to their queue, but you may not cancel their current action manually.

(5) You may control a sim in order to have them use the birthday cake or an aspiration/career reward object.

(6) You may control each family member to take one action per day, but it must be directly drawn from his/her wants panel and you may only queue it up once. If that sim has no wants that you can act directly on, you may either re-roll that sim’s wants or skip that sim. Exception to note: If you are not using ACR, you may Try For Baby even if the adult sims don’t have that want.

(7) You may send each family member out to community lots once per week (you can send them all together, individually, or however you like). Your servant sim does not need to accompany them (and in most cases probably shouldn’t). While family members are on community lots, you may control them normally! (This is the only time you should be playing the family members themselves, but I found that it was a much-needed break from the frustration of the challenge and gave me a good chance to raise their aspiration bars and develop relationships.)

(1) Hiring other staff: You may hire a maid, gardener, and nanny if you wish! You may also call for a repairperson or exterminator if one is needed. It’s your job to ensure everything gets done, but you don’t have to do it all by yourself. You may not hire a butler, of course -- that’s you!

(2) Getting supplies and paying bills: When it’s time to stock the fridge, make sure to order groceries or go and get them. Make sure that bills get paid. If the family needs items such as new clothes or electronics, you should go and buy them.

(3) Preparing meals: Make sure that food is available for the family. I like to keep my kitchen locked (or use a non-autonomous fridge) so that only my butler sim is able to cook, then I put the serving platters out in the dining room. You may not use a buffet table.

(4) Childcare and tutoring: While you are welcome to hire a nanny, it’s ultimately your responsibility to ensure that the children are well cared-for. If the nanny is glitchy or lazy, the slack falls to you. Beyond basic care, it’s also your responsibility to teach toddler skills and help the kids with their homework (if a family member has rolled a want to do any of these things, you may use their one action per day to give it a try, of course).

(5) Maintenance and pet care: Although you are free to hire a repairperson and a maid, you may want to do minor repairs and cleaning yourself. Keep the house usable and looking nice for the family. If the family has them, remember to wind grandfather clocks and feed the fish! If the family has any pets, make sure they are clean, fed, and happy.

-> Know your place. Your servant sim may not initiate romantic actions with guests or with family members and may only initiate friendly socials with sims who are teens and younger. If the adult family members target the servant with socials, you may allow them to happen if you wish. Naturally, your servant sim is free to chat with the other hired staff and anyone that is his/her own friend or family from outside work (see “Time Off” in the rewards section below).

--> Don’t use the household objects without permission. The family’s fun stuff and comfy furniture belong to them, and you aren’t free to just help yourself. For sanity while you’re playing, it’s probably ok to have your butler eat with the family and use their bathrooms, but don’t allow him/her to use their fun objects like pool tables, bars, pianos, computers, and so on. Don’t lounge around on their couches, either. [Note: You can earn the right to use some household objects. See “Permissions” in the Rewards section below.] The only other exception to this rule is when the servant is using an object to help one of the family as part of his/her responsibilities. For example, you may use a chess board if you ask one of the family’s children to join you, since you are then teaching the child some logic.

--> Be professional. Your servant sim should conduct him/herself with dignity and respect. This means: no mean interactions toward the family and their guests, no fighting, no gossiping where family members can overhear you, no wetting yourself, no passing out, and no romantic interactions outside of your private room. Depending on the way you like to play your neighborhood and its rules/morals, you may want to limit other actions as well. Whatever makes sense for you and your sims!

--> Put the family first. As long as you’re employed in your current role, your servant sim must put his/her own life on the back burner. Having fun, fulfilling personal wants, and raising skills are fine when the house and kids are settled, but if you neglect your responsibilities to read romance novels all afternoon, you may lose your job. For the same reason, while still employed as a live-in servant, you may not operate a business out of the family’s home, get married, become pregnant, adopt a child, ask another sim to move in with you, or own a dog/cat (smaller pets are fine as long as they remain in the servant’s room).

Consider the servant automatically fired if any of the following things are witnessed by someone in the family or one of the family’s friends: The servant gets into a fight, the servant makes out or has woohoo outside of his/her own private room, the servant marries, the servant becomes pregnant and has no one else for their child to live with, the servant causes the death of a family member (for example, by starting a fire that kills someone), the repo man visits, or any of the children or pets are taken by the social worker.

Consider the servant fired if more than three of the following happen in a single week: A fire is caused by the servant, a child’s report card drops to a D, a family member goes into aspiration failure, the servant serves a scorched/spoiled meal, someone in the family becomes ill due to roaches or bad food that was left out, the family throws a failed party, the servant is witnessed by a family member doing a romantic or mean interaction, peeing themselves, or passing out.

Pay: You’ll need some way to keep track of how much money your servant has (as opposed to the total family funds of the household). I know there are various mods available to help with this, or you can keep track on scratch paper or a spreadsheet. Assume that your servant starts with a mere $500 in his/her personal account. In addition to room and board, your sim earns §1200/week and is paid every Monday.

[Note: This is based on the amount that hiring a butler costs in TS3. I found the TS2 hourly rate, when multiplied, to be a bit too steep for my tastes, but if you want to use it, it would be §3600 for the 6-day week. That might be a better choice if you don't want to play with long age spans like I have.]

You may use this pay to buy décor or objects for the servant’s private room, new clothes, fun activities at community lots (such as dining out), vacations, or buying gifts for friends/dates/relatives. Remember that you can’t use the family’s space for your own objects (though if they have an unused attic or basement, maybe they’d let you put stuff in there). Of course, you may decide to save your pay rather than spend it right away. If you save §20,000, you may quit your job and buy your own house (so you can start a family, perhaps?).

Time Off: Your servant has one day per week off (I’ve found that Fridays work well for me). This is the only day that he/she is allowed to have visitors over to the house or go out for personal reasons. This is a great time to go to the coffee shop or bar and make friends… or maybe meet someone special? Of course, if the family has young children, you’ll still need to make sure that someone is taking care of them. You’ll also need to ensure that the family doesn’t starve on your day off (so unlock the kitchen, put out leftovers, or order pizza). You also earn 1 vacation day per week, which you’ll have to track manually along with pay. If you decide to spend your earnings on a Bon Voyage vacation, count the days you’re gone as coming from these vacation days. If the servant sim is legitimately sick, he/she may take the day off without penalty and without spending vacation days.

Permissions: For each family member of age teen or older who is at Best Friends level with the servant, you may have access to one object in the house that wouldn’t normally be allowed. Ideally, this is an object that the family member has some ownership of and could theoretically give the servant permission to use. For example, if the servant is Best Friends with a musically inclined teen sim, maybe she tells the butler he can play the piano. Whatever the object is, the servant sim can only use it when no one from the family or any of their guests is using it, even if it is an object usable by multiple people at a time (such as a hot tub).

Bonuses: The family might be weird, but they’re also generous and will give bonuses to the servant on the following occasions (these are examples, so you can think of other occasions too if you wish – please share what you come up with!):

- Family throws a successful party: §200 or equivalent gift

- Child grows up well into a teen: §500 or equivalent gift

- Child or teen gets into private school: §500 or equivalent gift

- Toddler grows up well into a child: §100 or equivalent gift