Saturday Morning Update

Hey gang, just wanted to give an update for those reclickers out there who come to visit on the weekends.

First of all, the sickness-cold-illness worry was a false alarm. My immune system was up to the task and I picked up no harmful germs from the inconsiderate poker players. In fact, when I got up on Friday morning, I felt better than I had all week.

But as healthy as I feel, I'm fairly pissed off, otherwise. Not only is it a very slow month in the poker room, but I've only got three days scheduled next week. And all-three days are those worthless shifts where I go in at six, don't do shiat for two hours, then get sent home at eleven when all the day shift dealers come in.

Lean times, indeed.

I haven't been playing hardly any poker lately, so my four-month streak of making my truck payment with poker winnings has come to an end. I actually had to 'earn' this last payment, and I'm here to tell ya, that sucks, especially in a slow month like this.

But the thing that really set me off today was that I got sent home two hours early, again, and we had three games and five dealers at the time. But they insisted that they had to send me home, which I thought was a bullshit move at the time.

Instead of leaving right away, after clocking out, I wandered over and sat in the back row of the race book. I like to sit there and make my football picks, and it's right next to the service well where the cocktail waitresses pick up their drinks. So I sit there and flirt and chat with my girlies because it's slow for them, too, and they'll bring me free drinks.

Anyhow, after about a half hour, I wandered back around the corner to the poker room, and I saw that there were four full tables--two limit games, a no-limit game, and the final table of the daily tournament. What made it worse is that they were suddenly so short-handed that the poker room manager was actually dealing at the tournament table! The boss NEVER deals.

Seriously, I could've stayed another half hour and got another down in, and they wouldn't have been in the weeds like they were. But the floor manager saw me standing there by the entrance, and saw the pissed off look on my face, and came over to smooth things over. Of course, his hands were tied, he couldn't do anything about it, but the fact that they're just so tight with the hours was the real irritation. And it kind of bit them on the ass this time. So he promised to call me in if it got that busy again over the weekend (I'm scheduled to be off for the next four days, but I told them to put me on call). Also, the weird casino rules prevent me from clocking back in again, too, so they couldn't even use me although I was available.

So next week is gonna suck, at least as it stands right now. We'll see what happens, but damn, I for one am getting sick of this weak-ass economy, or at least the chicken-little over-reactions to it. According to the guys that have been out here in Vegas forever, they all tell me that election years are always the worst, and that business is always weak until the election is over. So I'm looking forward to November, that's for sure.

Of course, back in July and August, there was another stretch where I had only three days of work scheduled each week, but I always managed to pick up a shift or two. It's just that right now, I'm in that irritated stage where I feel like I've got no control and I feel like I'm getting screwed. But it always seems to work out in the end. I just have to remember that and get in the proper frame of mind.

I've got my fingers crossed.

Mikey