Will Deal for Food....

.....or One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer!

Yep, I'm currently among the unemployed.

Gaming Layoffs

I worked on Monday and Tuesday of this week, and on Wednesday we were called into a meeting to give us our walking papers. I can't say that it came as a complete surprise, but it still sucks nonetheless. Since I no longer have to worry about weirdos showing up at my table there, I can now announce that I've been working at Sunset Station Hotel and Casino out in Henderson the past 9 1/2 months. As you can probably guess, I am none too happy with Station Casinos incorporated right now. So if you decide that your gaming dollar would be better spent elsewhere, you would not get any argument from me!

Backing up a little though, word came out about 2 weeks ago that Red Rock and Green Valley Ranch (both Station properties) laid off their extra-board dealers, so of course I was worried that it would get to Sunset sooner or later as well. There ended up being about 11 of us who got the axe, and believe it or not, almost all of them had about the same amount of time in at the property or MORE!

There are about a million pessimistic things I can say right now, but I don't feel like clogging the blog. So if there is any kind of silver lining, it is that I have dealt for only one year now and have plenty of experience with dealing to black chip action (and some pink) and have been stroked by the worst strokers in town at the craps table. If I had gotten more hours per week at Sunset, I'd be a really damn good dealer right now. Even without the hours, I'm still pretty confident in my mad skillz!

So at this point I'm back in the job hunt. At last count, there are about 16 properties in town that have a dealer position listed as open. I've already applied to about 12 of them. The final four are places that I would rather not have to step foot in and would be a last resort if a few weeks go by without a bite. I also believe I have an "in" at a place on the Strip. It's not the best place by any means with tokes being about $30 less per day than Sunset, but if I could get in there, they would put me to work (something Sunset never seemed to do) and my paycheck would actually be bigger than what I've gotten used to these past 10 months. The person I'm supposed to "see" has taken a couple unexpected days off these past 2 nights. So I've made a trip all the way down to the Strip twice for nothing.

But let's make things even more interesting. Before all of this went down, I met a nice little lady who I've been out on a couple of dates with already and we have plans to go to the Las Vegas Wranglers game tomorrow night on our third date. She "seems" okay with my situation so far, but we'll see how long she stays interested in a jobless guy. I also have to awkwardly ask her if she'll mind tagging along with me tomorrow after the game while I try to track down my elusive Strip connection.

But that's not all!!! My parents are flying into town on Monday, and will be here for a whole week! I'm putting them up at Fiesta Henderson, which I really think they'll enjoy. It does annoy me a little that they're staying at Fiesta (a Station property), but their comfort and enjoyment is more important than the qualms I have with my former employer. THANK GOD I talked them out of booking at Sunset, which was their original plan.

Although the fact that I'm not working will free up time for me to spend with them, I'll also be in the middle of a job search. Also, to be quite honest, my parents were really the only two people out of ALL of my friends and family who didn't really understand why I moved to Vegas to deal. So I'll have to be very proactive in explaining to them that this current situation will NOT suddenly make me want to move back to Ohio for some reason (can you tell I have yet to tell them).

So wish me luck. With my parents in town, etc., don't expect a ton of blog posts for the next week or so. I will try to stop in a keep y'all updated though.