Stiffs

It's been a loooooong strange weekend and I'm glad that tonight, Monday, is actually my 'Friday' night. I've got no plans for the next two days but to relax, maybe get some sun (it's warm and sunny here in Vegas--time to lounge by the pool), do some reading, maybe do some writing, but otherwise decompress for a day or two.

It seems that a bunch of the gals I work with wanted to go out on Friday night after our shift ended. No problemo, sez me. So I went out with them and we ended up staying out until 10:30 on Saturday morning. I crawled home, went to bed and didn't move until it was time to head back to work eight hours later. I feel like I somehow lost an entire day of my life this weekend. Yeah, I had fun, but I don't think I want to do it again. Next time I spend that much time drinking with that many females, I better see some nudity! Of course, I wasn't really trying--I work with all of 'em, so after around 5 am it was more like babysitting.

Saturday night, however, was a great time at work. I was making a fortune in tokes, and lost count somewhere around $850 or so on the money I dropped. A few of my co-workers were saying they did well, too. So I couldn't wait to get back last night and see how we did.

The first thing I did once I walked into the casino was to check the toke book. Unfortunately, we had too many dealers working that night and only made $140 each--kind of a letdown.

Then we followed it up by spending the evening dealing to the biggest pack of stiffs I'd ever encountered in a casino. I spent my first hour last night dealing blackjack on a $5 shoe game, and just dumped the rack to everyone. I must've given away almost a thousand dollars--I was working with my A-list material, telling jokes, keeping the game fun, but I couldn't pry a tip out of those morons for anything. I even had to tell them to tip the cocktail waitress and the gal who brought them their cigarette comps.

I can understand if somebody doesn't tip dealers, not knowing any better, but if you're going to stiff a cocktail waitress, then you're just a cheap bastard that needs a healthy dose of karma in the near future.

Fucking losers.

After that I went to pai gow, not the greatest game in the world for dropping tokes, but I usually do well. I dealt one lady a straight, two flushes, and a full house, all in a row. She had $10 on the bonus each time, so her little run made her $150 plus her regular winnings.

She didn't part with a dime, either. Hmmm...

I began to wonder if it was me, but when I got tapped out one of the floor supervisors mentioned something about nobody was tipping at all in the entire pit--the casino was full of stiffs. I went on break and heard the same stories from other dealers. It seemed like all of the good players were taking the night off. It felt like I was back at the Golden Gate.

But the worst was later on, I went to a $10 double-deck blackjack game and just gave away damn near every chip in the rack. One dude was down to his last $75 and I took him up to over $1400. Did he make a single bet for the dealer? Nope. Even when he'd get a blackjack with a $75 bet, I'd pay him $112.50 and he'd stack up the silver on top of the bet and let it ride--most folks will always bet at least a dollar for the dealer on the next hand. So when he won that bet, instead of giving him a $5 red chip for his $2.50 in silver on top, I'd give him more silver in an attempt to drop the hint. He insisted on coloring up. Another lady at the table started giving him shit about stiffing the dealers (hell yeah!) but he just ignored her and said that he only tips when he colors up at the end.

I could just tell that he was full of shit, so I made it my goal to see that he wasn't able to color up. Unfortunately, I had a stretch of two shuffles where I either got a 17 or busted every hand and just gave away all the money. Not a dime from the players, so after about a half hour of telling jokes, trying to be fun, and being a goofball, I just shut up and dealt in high gear, hoping the house advantage would kick in a little quicker. Everyone still won plenty of cash, but only the lady at third base who was calling everyone out ever tipped at all.

When Mr. $1400 finally colored up and left with his $1200 profit, he didn't say a word, but left me a buck and a half. A generous fellow, indeed.

I guess some people just don't appreciate good service.

By 1 am, I hadn't even dropped $30 in the toke boxes, the casino was dead, and so I felt like I wasn't pulling my share. So I took a couple hours of EO time and left at 2am, not wanting to dilute the already weak toke pool any further.

I've been working there for 9 months so far, and every night I've worked we've made at least $100 per dealer, usually far and above that. But I'll be shocked if we made $75 a person last night. We'll find out. Either way, it was a crummy night to end the pay period on.

Oh well--it can only go up from here. Luckily the Super Bowl is next weekend. Last year, I think the dealers made almost $400 apiece that night.

Whew!

Anyhow, thanks for letting me rant and get that out of my system. I need to get my game face on for when I head back in a few hours. Can't let one bad night affect my outlook.

Peace.

Mikey