My thoughts...

I had a rough day yesterday...

I'm scheduled to start at noon, running a floor relief string in the main pit (and breaking the poker room, too... no one else has the games {sigh}), and I'm looking forward to a regular eight-hour shift rapping up at 8 PM and seeing me into my one and only day off. However, one of my relief spots (a floor of "38 years experience" and a "professional card counter" who seems to make more money keeping a pit podium from running away than he does counting cards... but I digress) routinely leaves the section in such a state of disarray and chaos that I keep thinking I am doing two hours of work (his) during his 30 minute break. After the first hit, I politely let him know I'm not in the mood to babysit such a casino veteran with such a storied career... and he tells me that "he isn't paid enough to worry about the little stuff." I bite back the instant impulse to rip his head off and shit down his ignorant neck, and instead calmly and professionally remind him that he is undoubtedly making more than me and I'm not being paid to clean up his miserable attempt at supervising a table games section. He has no response, and I move on to the rest of my string.

For the rest of my stint that go around, I can SEE the man standing (leaning, actually... the guy is an easy 440 lbs, with a gut so huge his tie looks like a napkin left in his shirt from lunch) and glaring at me, until he finally gets up the nerve to call over the pit boss and let him know how "unprofessional" I was in the manner in which I spoke to him when he returned from break. He doesn't need a "local jump-up" (not sure what that is, still... even after hours of humorous reflection amongst more capable coworkers) telling him how to do a job he's been doing for longer than I have.

The pit boss, who I have grown rather fond of and often take breaks with, comes over to me smiling and wants details about what I said to the guy that got him so riled up. I give him the facts, and nothing more... really, no side bars or commentary, just what was said... because I am SURE by now that the problem is just starting and I want to make sure this guy gets his lumps before it is over. The pit seems to see I'm in no mood to joke, so he leaves me alone and says "I trust you to handle it, okay?" I promise him I will.

So, time rolls on and I come to break "Super Dave" (his most child-apropriate nickname I've heard yet). he tells me that he has been changing cards and not all the ratings might be "up-to-date", but he'll fix it all when he gets back. I smile and nod, and he goes his merry, slow and ponderous way to break.

The very first rack I look into is off by more than $4,500 in black and another $2,500 in green (and these are NOT big racks... he's WAY off), so I make a note and refuse to log into the screen until he's back. I think to myself that I am done fixing his messes, and if he wants to wait to clean it up... he can do it himself after his break and hope all is well in the meantime. It was the SECOND rack that I looked into that got my blood up, though...

I look at it and see $22,500 in purple... a perfectly normal tube, right? Nothing showing on the table inventory. ZERO. I look to the black... table shows $10,400 but inventory shows $15,900. I'm now two colors into a six-color rack and I'm showing a variance of $27,000. I double check that I am, indeed, looking at the right game (I am) and I then begin to look to see if a fill got put on that never got logged (no fill for that game), and I then look to see if a fill got put on that game by mistake (didn't happen). Could someone ON the game actually be losing that many chips? Nope... no one betting more than $50 on a $15 minimum three-card game, and no one up with chips.

I'm now 10 minutes into a 30-minute break in this section... and I don't even know what the rack count should be. My temper breaks and I simply call the pit over to explain why I am unable to floor the section properly until Super Dave can get back and make things right. He goes through all the same investigative moves I did... and can find no logical explanation for the errors, so I finish the stint in the section, making manual cards for the people that want to be rated, and running the racks off a paper inventory (because I am NOT touching the computer... no way). Dave comes back, and I ask him what could possibly cause that kind of mistake in the rack count? He says there is no mistake. I say there is... check the racks. He does, and blames a fill he missed. Now the pit is there, and says "No fills came over my desk." Dave starts to stammer and sweat, bouncing between screens and podiums trying to find out what went wrong. I tell him he has two hours to get it right, or I don't hit him on the last go around of the string, because I don't get paid enough to babysit 30-year veterans who want to be treated like professionals and not be talked down to by "jump-ups"... I only do that for people that DON'T know what they are doing and want to LEARN how to do it right from someone who does. Super Dave goes as red as a candied apple (I thought he was going to stroke out right there!) and the pit tells me to move on to the rest of the string with a very loud and inappropriate laugh.

30 minutes later, Super Dave gets called to the shift office, and doesn't come back to the pit. I see him hours later sitting in the break room with his tie (dinner napkin?) off and sleeves rolled up. I'm off today, so I don't know if I'll ever get the pleasure of working with Super Dave again (part of me does hope so... I'm not ready to let this one go, and there are MILES of gags I can get out of this episode before I'm done)... but we'll see.

The rest of the day went smoother... but it ended with me working an extra five hours of overtime because of call-offs and watching the dice game they could NOT close dump $65k in one roll, which undoubtedly cost the floor every dime in Wednesday grind they might have hoped to cache.

End of rant.