My rich Sim couple doesn't like to cook, and the butler isn't much help. It occurred to me to try starting a home business but never opening it, only using it to hire employees to clean and cook. So far it's working great. Has anyone else tried this?

I haven't tried that, but I have teleported sims onto the lot, made them selectable, and then had them do work around the house. My sim then pays for the work by my putting something into the teleported sim's inventory before making them unselectable again.

Had anybody tried if influencing a visitor to cook/clean works? I thought about trying this for a sim like Simley's.

That's a neat idea, Simley. Perhaps one could run a crop farm using the same technique?

I don't know about regular visitors, but I often have my sims influence their butler to cook for them.

I think the point here though is that, if you run a "home business," you can hire staff just like with any other business, and direct them to do things like clean and (maybe, not sure how this would work) cook for your household, without having to get new random people to come in each day, and also without having to drain your influence points... For larger households (like, Downton Abbey-esque size), just the standard Service Sims don't cut it, so having a second tier of staff to call on for normal household maintenance and care would be useful. (assuming it works the way it seems that it should.)

At least, that's how I read Simley's question...

Have you thought of having a live-in maid? You know, creating a sim, adding them to the house, and then boosting their cooking and cleaning skills? Or, you download a buyable servo and use that.

My sims are all poor and in itty bitty houses, so no... But I'm glad it works. I know you can assign workers to "tidy up," and I'm assuming you just assign a sim to "make many..." of something and yoink it from their inventory when they've made enough? Does macrotastics allow for more variety in what you can get uncontrolled sims to do?

I roll to see if my sims tend towards using influence or refusing to use it, a neutral roll means they might or might not, depending more on circumstances. I view influence more as asking for a favour (although the point about certain sims having more of a social standing makes sense. After all, your friend/mother/sister might clean your house for you if you're having a rough pregnancy, but the celebrity down the street might get a flock of people willing to do it just because "zomg they can be in his house!!").

For paying sims I use MATY's Money Order. Various amounts available, you can pick any known sim (no good relationship needed), and you can pay your service sims after they've gone home (good for the forgetful)!

For some households, having live-in staff who regularly interact with the "real" household makes sense (for instance, if you're playing a Sim inspired by Bruce Wayne, obviously you'll need a Sim to fill the role of Alfred too- and Alfred is much more than just a butler, so having him as an honest-to-goodness member of the household makes sense, even if he still spends most of his time on traditional service roles.
There are households like Downton Abbey too though, where the staff and the "real" household don't interact all that much (with a few obvious exceptions), so there, being able to hire them as help makes a lot more sense. Granted, I spend WAY more time designing lots than I ever do playing them, but if I were actually to play a lot like my Downton Abbey one, I'd probably set it up so that, in addition to the main lot where the aristocratic family lived, there was another, smaller-scale lot next door, where the staff lived. The aristocracy would hire all of the staff to work at their "home business" (a business that would sell nothing and never open, but for the purposes of OFB, a home business nonetheless), so they would still have a consistent roster of service staff, but those Sims would live elsewhere, and not technically be part of the same household.

No I haven't. In my medieval game staff are all live in sims + regular hired NPC. So my castle has 1 live in cook/governess and 1 live in guard/handyman. They also have an NPC nanny,butler and maid.

In my modern game I use playable sims whom I beam in with Christian lov's transport mirror or I use Simlogicals meeting controller. All sims show up and are controllable until the meeting is ended. I like to know exactly how much they are being paid and be in charge of the wage.

That's exactly what I've been doing. This couple (Malcolm Landgraab and his wife) have a huge amount of money right now so I don't have to worry about the cost of keeping employees around. "Tidy up" works perfectly to get them to clean. And yes, for cooking I tell them make food and then take it out of the business owner's inventory when they want to eat. I'm guessing the employees won't improve at cooking while working in other Sim households(?), so it would be best to hire someone who already has high cooking skills, though I haven't done that yet.

There are appropriate-looking maid/housekeeper type uniforms available in Ultimate Collection, probably for hotels. I put a bellhop uniform on a male employee and then set him to work as the DJ in the Landgraabs' home disco (which I added next to their indoor swimming pool). That was fun.

I have tried using "influence" on guests to get them to cook, but they usually serve just instant meals. The staff approach requires some micromanaging, but my rich Landgraabs have nothing better to do with their time!

I have thought of that. Or maybe the two ideas could work together -- a playable live-in housekeeper could be the "business owner" and responsible for managing the staff while the rich employers loaf around.

I did so once: http://enkisstories.tumblr.com/post...w-to-be-allowed
The only side-effect I noticed was Kaylynn's adopted toddler rolling a want for a customer to aquire a loyality star. Fortune sim in the making

I thought workers don't show up if the business is closed.

Even when it's closed, workers will still show up when called in and do the tasks you give them. (This allows you to clean or restock when a store is closed.) You do have to buy an open/closed sign and set it to closed. Otherwise "customers" will flood your house as soon as you start the business, even though they're not charged for anything.