The rich need more servants. How does $80K a year sound?

The L.A. Times reports:

The rich might be getting richer, but their lives are hardly trouble-free. In Southern California, there aren't enough servants to go around.

Wealthy families need more chefs to prepare their meals, more maids and butlers to serve them, more housekeepers to keep their mansions tidy and more nannies and night nurses to tend their offspring.

All this demand is putting Peggy Gardiner in a pretty position. She's a professionally trained cook, good with kids, an expert on laundry. She can do light bookkeeping and boss others around. In her last full-time gig, she oversaw a staff of six on a $15-million estate near San Diego.

"My job is like being the best, most organized wife," Gardiner says. "I'll do almost anything to make you comfortable."

Some of her virtues aren't immediately obvious. She's respectful of wealth but not awed by it. She's tight with a buck, something the wealthy always appreciate and frequently require. At 61, happily married with four grandsons and a few extra pounds, she won't be a temptation to the man of the house or a threat to the woman.

She's looking for a minimum of $80,000 a year, plus housing, health insurance, three weeks' paid vacation and what she calls "good vibes," which means she doesn't want to work for a manic-depressive again, which she briefly did in Silicon Valley.

"I won't settle for less," Gardiner says.

The division of labor.