A Park Avenue member of New York’s prominent Wilpon family has launched a high-end boot camp for Manhattan maids and nannies who have “weaknesses” in their work.
Servants to the wealthy can be sent next Sunday from 1 to 6 p.m. to Park Avenue mom Jill Wilpon’s Chorz housekeeping camp — where lessons include “table setting,” “understanding the workings of a Manhattan building,” “how to work your Cres-tron” home automation system or “load your washing machine” and even “keeping the best linen closet.”
“People tell us, ‘My housekeeper doesn’t even know how to set a table,’ ” explains Wilpon, whose father-in-law is Ken Wilpon, the developer cousin of Mets co-owner Fred. “A lot of [housekeeper] candidates say they know how to do things,” but “they don’t know the difference between convection bake or broil.”
Even worse, nannies “from Tibet or Nepal don’t understand the infrastructure of a building. They don’t understand that a doorman will help you with a taxi.” Many can’t use Uber, she said.
Wilpon, the Ivy League-educated founder of staffing service Chorz, whose “majority of clients” live on Park or Fifth avenues, will offer about eight slots per Sunday at her camp at $150 apiece.
“You’ll ask someone, ‘Do you know about fine finishes?’ ” says Wilpon, “and they’ll say, ‘Yeah, we use Endust.’ Endust is from the 1970s!” Today, it’s all about “green clean” products. And there can be “glaring weaknesses” in maids’ routines. Some do not know the difference between “a paring knife and a regular knife.” Ouch!
But are domestics resistant to spending a Sunday schlepping to Manhattan to learn the difference between a Viking and a Miele range? “People are open to it. There’s not one person in this country who isn’t looking to educate themselves, or do a better job,” Wilpon says. “If they’re not, they don’t belong in this country.”
Before launching Chorz in 2011, Wilpon, who is married to banker Lyle Wilpon, spent more than 20 years in executive search and corporate staffing, including at Goldman Sachs.