A friend send me an ad for a woman in her 60s or 70s to be a paid companion to a 95-year-old lady on the upper east side. Not a nurse's aide, which she has already, but someone to brighten her life, go for walks and lunch, concerts and good conversation. "She is a very sophisticated woman," notes the child (Alex could be son or daughter) who placed the ad. Sophisticated as in wealthy, no doubt, with all the opportunities to gain that patina.
Shades of Jane Austen and spinster aunts! What sophisticated person would want a job like that? Are you expected to agree submissively to the rich tyrant? In the novels, the companion has to make her living this week so she has to be subservient. Probably not the case anymore but of course you would want to be agreeable. I don't think I could be agreeable for a living. I can barely be pleasant to my beloved husband.