Bonehead move of the day

Anyone wonder why I haven't mentioned work on my blog in a while? Two words: Burn Out!

Yep, I'm officially burnt out. If you've read any of my postings over on the T2V board lately, you're probably aware of my disgruntlement (is that a word?). Apparently, some of my fellow dealers are aware as well. Chris attended a party the other night and ran into some of the dealers from my casino. They knew that Chris and I were roommates and actually mentioned how bad of mood they've noticed that I've been in lately. I haven't mentioned much of my rantings to anyone but Chris, so I suppose its getting obvious.

What does this mean for a casino dealer? Unfortunately, its a slippery slope. The main overriding factor for my particular case of burn-out are dropping toke rates and the stiffs who are causing our tips to drop. This can snowball. Lower tips=lower money=disgruntled dealer=unfriendly dealer=unhappy players=lower tips! Full circle!

Sometimes I can rant about my job and have bad days, but for the most part I enjoy dealing and I enjoy dealing at my current casino. However, I've noticed 2 very bad warning signs lately that I'm in more than just a rut.

1. I am increasingly rooting for an empty table. Harking back to my days on graveyard shift at Sunset Station, things on that shift were so slow that I would sometimes KILL for some action....ANY action. Now, I just silently root for players to run out of money and leave to give me some peace and quiet. I realize that no players equals no tips, but I'd almost rather have a boring day than a lucrative day right now.

2. I am not really looking forward to going to work on days that I'm scheduled to deal craps. This is a BIG WARNING SIGN! Craps is by far my favorite game to deal. When you deal craps, you deal it the whole day (you don't switch to other tables).

Part of me says that I have no room to complain because I do have a fairly solid job during the worst recession since the Great Depression. Some of my fellow dealers work two jobs and they don't seem to complain much (maybe 'cause they're too tired). I'm still part-time, which means I don't work 40 hours during some weeks.

The fact remains though, I'm burnt-out. Right now, due to weird scheduling, I am in the middle of working 10 days out of 11. My only day off recently has been this past Friday, which ironically, was the best tip day in a month! And the next three days before my next day off are weekdays with NO craps shifts. That means my next three days will probably be dealing to cheap stiffs on the $5 blackjack tables or the chain-smoking losers on the Let It Ride tables. Great choice!

All of this has caused me to have some brain farts recently. I'm finding that I'm making more mistakes on the tables and having to call over the floor supervisors more often. I'm doing this NOT because I'm a bad dealer, but because my head usually isn't really in the game or I'm just simply bored off my ass dealing to $5 minimum players. Here's a little secret.......surveillance doesn't give two s**ts about $5 blackjack tables. The surveillance department at my casino also has to supervise an entirely different casino that neighbors ours, and they have much bigger fish to fry than checking to see if I accidentally paid someone $5 on a push. It seems like I could royally screw up 10 hands in a row on a $5 table and nobody would notice.

The title of this post refers to my head being in the clouds yet again on Sunday. Near the end of my shift, a former student of mine from Bowling Green stopped by my table to say 'hi'. I talked him into waiting around about 30 minutes until my shift was over so we could walk the Strip a little bit and catch up. After my shift, I stowed my uniform in my locker and hurried back down to meet him waiting at the bar. He'd never been inside the Venetian or Wynn before, so we walked north on the Strip for a while. Right as we were about to enter the Venetian, my cell phone started ringing and it was Chris calling. For a split second I didn't know why he'd be calling.....until I remembered that we carpooled and I drove!!! Ooops!

One obvious nice thing that I've been doing lately to relax is hiking. Unfortunately though, I haven't gotten a chance to go out for over a week due to working on the weekends. To go on a good hike, it has to be with Danielle (for safety reasons) and our days-off just don't match up a lot. Hiking is also part of the problem though. The times that I have been able to hike are days where I go back to work the next day. Ideally I'd like to use the day-after to recover physically. I'm usually sore and physically beaten on those days at work right after hiking for 6 miles or so at 8000 feet!

So, it goes without saying, I need a vacation. I just need to somehow plow through these next three days before I finally get a couple days off. Then there'll be 3 more days of work next week before Danielle and I fly back to Ohio for some much needed R&R. Next Wednesday is our flight into Columbus, and here's what is on docket for our trip:
1. Spend a day with my sister since she's taking a day off work
2. Spending TWO whole drunk-filled days at Comfest in Columbus!
3. Attending my nephew's birthday party.
4. Taking a boat out to Kelley's Island in Lake Erie and just hiking around the island for a day.
5. Going to Cedar Point Amusement Park (America's Roller Coast)!
6. Going at least 9 days in a row without hearing a slot machine, dealing to a chain-smoker or hearing the words "winner, winner, chicken dinner!"