I Caved to the pressure

Dear Life,

You have won this round. I admit to defeat and am waving the white flag of shame.

It's not often that I find myself in this position and, in fact, I pretty much wanted to hide it from the world but alas in the interest of being a brutally honest anonymous person on the internet I am coming clean.

There are too many things going on in my life right now that demand more attention than I can reasonably provide without burning myself out and I had to say goodbye to one of them.

So, it pains me to say this, but the fact that I would not be dealing craps and the fact that other life pressures need my attention I had to say goodbye to the casino job that I have barely gotten to know and have been pretty excited about.  I feel like shit about the decision but I know that it is the right one for where I am at in life right now.  I explained some things to HR and let them know that I hope I will be able to be rehired once life sorts itself out and I will continue to work on my dealing skills in the form of Craps, Blackjack and other random carnival games as time provides.

I felt that if I continued to work at the Casino for 24-32 hours per week and stayed full time at the retail job with some other things that are going on demanding my attention which I can only give during hours when I should rightfully be sleeping, that I would burn out and potentially cause damages that would be worse than if I just admitted defeat at this moment.

I will pull back and regroup, I will continue to study and improve and I will come back to perusing this dream once I add a bit more stability and balance into my life.

It's not the cool thing to do, but it felt like the right thing to do.

Now, so that this isn't full of depression I link you to some humor.  Visit AmazingSuperPowers to see more awesomeness.

With that I am probably going to sleep very soon and won't be waking up until tomorrow when I can wake up refreshed and figure out how to proceed from here.

I appreciate you all coming along for the ride so far and I'm looking for some insults from the peanut gallery telling me how I'm a silly Nancy boy and that winners never quit.

:)

Training Day

Survived the 1st shift.  It was an entire day dedicated to training.
Training on the company's procedures and shuffling and other fun assorted things.

Training on the fact that they don't allow break-in's on the craps game and training on the fact that pretty much every shift I work after this will be 9-5 instead of having some 7-3's.

I'm not 100% sure how I feel about that at the moment.  I went through a range of emotions last night when I learned about it.  So, I guess things will come down to scheduling for now.  I talked to the man in charge and answered his questions and told him that I was really only looking to get 2, maybe 3 days a week right now for various reasons.
Since I will pretty much only be dealing BJ at this moment I feel comfortable that it will probably happen, but time will tell.

This morning I'm feeling the drowsy, fully functional currently.
I'm curious to see how I feel after my afternoon nap - that's going to be my ticket.

Tonight I deal, my trainer will be my shadow to make sure that I don't fuck things up too royally.
It's exciting.


grrouch out

Ranting and Power Naps

So today at my retail job it was the last day of one of my friends.  This annoyed me for several reasons.  1st she is a great person to have around who has a vast knowledge of the company and how to do things and what to do in most situations.  2nd I just really like talking to her.  She has helped me a lot when it comes to staying motivated going through Dealing School and what not and she also helped to get me excited for it all again.

My problem comes here.  This store has lost a few good employees who have moved on to go elsewhere. Some to other stores and some to other companies.  The varying degree of respect that our Management team gives (no consistency) is what I hate the most.
For instance, we lost one of our best specialists.  This person would help out any department necessary, she would never refuse to help a customer, she was just an all around great employee.   When she transferred to another store there was a quick mention "Oh by the way this is She-Ra's last day, everyone wish her luck on her future endeavors."

Next went an OK employee who just happened to work in a high volume department.  He had great sales numbers but he didn't really help out elsewhere. He wasn't someone you could turn to in order to help with any issues and he wasn't likely to sell in departments that weren't within his immediate eyesight.  However when he left there was a party and a manager bought cake and ice cream, passed around a "good luck" card for everyone to sign.   Kind of a big difference in the way things were handled just because one was a big seller.

So today was the last day of my friend.  She has been with the company nearly 10 years, has been a salaried manager before and is currently a department manager.  She opened the store that we work in (over 3 years ago) and has known some of these employees for a while.  There was not a single mention of her leaving other than by some employees who are going to miss her.  Management didn't say a word. There was no card, cake nor ice cream.  There wasn't even a "we wish you luck on your future job."  Just a silent "get the fuck out of here" basically and this really disheartens me.
I'd like to think that being a member of management would have at least entitled her to have the other managers do something for her even if it was just minor like a "good luck" card.  But nothing.  Less than an hour after she was out the door one of the Senior Managers approached me and asked me if I knew that it was her last day, I said that I did.  Then he asked me if I was going to be putting in for her job and I said that I highly doubt it.

So, gone is another employee, a friend, a valuable resource for the store.  Gone with no fan fair.  I'm going to miss her presence in the store and the store is going to miss her ability to help virtually everywhere and everyone.

Now using this sentence to transition into topic number 2 for the day (huh-huh-huh-huh I said number 2)...

I got the call from the Casino that my background check had come back and asking if I was still interested in the position.  I exclaimed FUCK YEAH in my head but verbally left out only the fuck part.  I was given my rate of pay and scheduled my first week of work and other such fun stuff that technically started today.

Today I had to go to HR so that I could get some paperwork in order to get my gaming card.  Tonight I have to fill out an online application and tomorrow I have to go get finger printed.
Friday I have to turn this paperwork in with a money order for $75 (for the gaming card - it's Nevada's tax to work in the casino essentially) and because HR will not be there I have to drop it into the drop box outside their office.

(Side Story - I'm leaving the HR office and walking back to an elevator to get back to the casino area and a security guard walks by me, smiles but keeps walking.  About 15 seconds later he finally decides to actually do his job.  "Hey, you there."  I stop and turn around.  "Do you work here?"   Nope - Just planting bombs and hoping to make it out of here before they blow).

Now, because of an orientation that I have to attend on Weds I had to rearrange my retail schedule a bit.  I talked to my HR and she agree'd to let me work Saturday and take off Weds.
At the Casino I have a 2 hour HR thing on Tuesday.  I'm going to have to take a long lunch from my retail job in order to accommodate that, but I'm going to tell them I have a Dr Appt and I'm sure no harm no foul.
Weds from 9-4 I have orientation at a different casino in one of their clubs.  Then on Thursday and Friday I get my first taste of the lime-lights!  I get my first two "training" shifts where I get to learn rules and procedures on the clock at live tables. Pretty damned exciting right there.

I asked about how many days I'd normally get per week and was told 3-4 normally.  However in May, because of a big promotion they we are running, I'd probably get 4 every week because they are expecting to be busy.  Then after that it would rotate between 3 days one week and 4 the next.

So, what I'm trying to say is that I'm going to be damned exhausted.  May is going to be a killer month and the only way I'm going to survive is power naps and 5 Hour Energies.

While it will be hell until I get used to it and get used to working doubles and working 72 hours some weeks, I am looking forward to the money and being able to shed the last few pounds of debt that I currently have.

I'm hoping that I only have to do that for 2 months at the most.  There is one thing that I'm working on taking care of that basically requires me to stay at my retail job full time and once that is dealt with I can then feel free to step down to part time and make my life easier.
I'll stay part time mainly because I need the insurance.  My prescriptions are too expensive to cover on my on and I'm a fat kid with asthma - all asthmatics should have health insurance.

This was long so thank you all for reading this far.
Thank you all for coming here daily and reading the shit that flows through my fingers.
Thank you all for your encouraging words as I was going through class. After I failed my first audition.  That day my thumb broke through the TP while I was wiping.
Thank you all for allowing me into your worlds.

My life is about to change and it's pretty exciting.

Who knew Craps was so complicated

I'm starting to have a clear picture painted in my mind about why casino's are always looking for good Craps dealers and why it is the best game to learn if you want to break into the casino business.
Luckily I have played the game numerous times in the past and have taken the time to learn a lot about the game including bets that I would never just so that I could have a basic understanding of the game.

Craps is a thing of beauty to me, there are a ton of bets and there are a million different ways to play the game and different "systems" that you can use.  It's easily the most complicated game that the casino runs and for that reason being a dealer requires a certain amount of skill.  This is what I never fully comprehended until the last few days.

The one thing I now realize I failed to pay any attention to (or at least very little attention) was the order in which everything occurred.  Strange because since I started playing and falling in love with the game I'd kind of day dreamed about one day dealing it as well - you'd think that I'd pay attention and study what they were doing and how they were doing it (like when you are young and you watch your dad's every action as he is driving a car - imaging in your head that one day he'll just turn to you and say "ok, get in the seat and show me what you got) but I completely overlooked it.

Today was my first day actually dealing the game (and being the stick man) with the rest of the class and I can tell you that my first two days of class helped tremendously and I was still very overwhelmed when it was my turn.  The great thing about class is that they throw every damned thing at you that they can think of and when they can't think of it the teacher just adds some random shit in there to fuck up your day as well.
EVERYONE places every non point number in the game and everyone uses a different denomination to do it as well.  Everyone is making come bets and backing them up with different amounts of odds, people are playing the don't pass and the don't come and there are always at least 3 bets in the field.  Your playing (paying) area is littered with a ton of bets from every player and with every roll of the dice you are trying to remember routine, payouts, hand movements, chip cutting, odds, everything.  It's great.  Most crap tables don't become anywhere near as active as this practice table unless someone is on a huge roll.

This class is putting me through the paces at a rate which is kind of amazing to me and I feel like I'm keeping up fairly well even though I know I have a lot of improvements to go through.  However, I will definitely be prepared to deal a real game after she finishes chewing me up and spitting me out and turning me into a world class dealer - after that it's going to be up to my personality to shine and do the rest ..... I might be in trouble.

I can't wait for the mental exhaustion to start to fade