This paper focuses on off-stage parliamentary players, namely parliamentary aids to legislators. Following their activities and understanding their role helps to highlight two sets of rules for parliamentary action. The first set consists of the rules of professionalization, which presupposes a legislator wishing to participate in parliamentary deliberations. The second, the rules of service, apply to a legislator who is committed to his or her electorate and to being a service provider. The work of parliamentary aids also suggests a paradoxical opening of the parliamentary arena to the outside even as it remains impervious to grievances from the public.