Soft opening...

Not that anyone outside of our little group probably cares, but last night was my first night back in the "pits" after more than a four-year absence.

Pennsylvania required all our casinos to operate their tables for 8 hours of operation at a $5 min/max level, then to close all those games and show all our paperwork and operational documentation to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board for our final certification. It seems that we "passed" our inspection only five hours into our test run, which (I was told by a PGCB inspector last night) is unprecedented for the Commonwealth of PA.

More importantly to me, I found that flooring a dice section is a lot like falling off of a log... its always a bit painful, but you never forget how to do it.

My game (I was only watching one table... but it had three brand-new dealers on it, and a first-time box) managed to drop nearly $10k in cash, and that was on a $5 min/max table with single odds. It was a busy, hectic 8 hours, with a lot of people jammed onto a rather small 12' table. As with any casino opening, there was an awful lot of confusion and fix-it-as-you-go activity in the pits last night, and I can't say I'm overjoyed at some of the procedures we have adopted at this house, but I am forced by my "sinful pride" to share that, while we were closing our game last night, the computer system we used to track checks and ratings last night (a Bally's product that I have never used before but found quite acceptable) told me that my cheque count for the game (with an opener of just over $104K) was "off" at the end of the night by only $264 dollars, and that INCLUDES the whites and reds. Since it is the PIT BOSS that actually closes all the tables (one of the procedures I told you I didn't like), he is the one that discovered this, and seemed quite impressed by it... especially since the game behind me that was floored by a dual-rate pit was off on its BLACK count alone by $2800. (Not sure how you lose a whole stack of black cheques and keep your job... but hey, its a new joint)

When my pit came through last night and asked for a mid-shift "call", he didn't specify how he wanted it, so I tried to give him as much info in a small package as I could... so I wrote out my figures on a piece of paper, with the table number, time, and a win/loss over the drop. Seems I was the ONLY one that did this, and the pit was slow in getting my numbers because he was doing this himself for the rest of the pit.

Now, all bragging aside, I think I did a good job last night... but that might have sunk me. Seems I made enough of an impression with the "lead" shift boss (the most senior of the four) that he specifically asked that I be scheduled to work day shift (12-8) rather than my requested swing shift (8-4)... because that was HIS shift. Liz and I were really counting on swing for me... but we're gonna try and make this work before I approach them and ask for a swap. I have no juice at this house, so if I can generate some now, perhaps things will work out, right?

Well, at least I will get to see the kids in the evenings (eventually, when the mandatory OT runs out) and mornings... but I'm not kidding when I say that once school starts, something will have to change... we have a seven-year-old that can't be alone for the 90 minutes between his getting off the bus and the older kids returning from school.