Third Shift, March 22nd 1900-0245

Shift 3 1900-0245

I was called in early for this shift. There was no explanation why, but I imagine it was because of a sick call. At the site orientation everyone there was told that the amount of sick days taken by casino employees is approximately double the national average. This, I imagine, is due to two things: Stocking graveyard shifts with employees is difficult in any business that pays as poorly as the casino industry and also because the constant handling of chips makes dealers much more susceptible to illness. The chips pass through many hands every day and are not cleaned regularly. This means that they are very prone to picking up saliva, grease, sweat and whatever else the twenty people who handled that chip that day happened to have on their hands. However, according to a health and safety orientation given on my first day the most common contaminate on the chips is urine. I don't know where that information comes from, but tt is not uncommon to have chips fused together by some dark greasy substance that has the consistency of earwax and the look of snot. Because of this people at the casino wash their hands religiously. I heard a woman advising a new dealer that if she didn’t soap down her hands every time she started a break she could expect to be constantly getting urinary track infections. This didn’t strike me as fear mongering, not only because the patrons of aren’t exactly the Howard Hughes type but also many of them keep their chips in their pockets and have the habits of playing with them constantly, rubbing them around their hands like stress relievers. I have had to handle piles of chips that were warm and moist to the touch.

I had come into this shift with the intention of being more forceful with customers and being more direct with keeping them inline. For the previous two shifts I had allowed gamblers to swear and argue at the table, which is something I, as the dealer, am supposed to stop. So decided to regulate the table with more authority. I did not get a chance to test out my new customer service strategy. I think because I was on an earlier shift the customers were not the hardcore gambling type. They took their losses with much less strife than the people I had dealt with previously. Also, it seemed like I was paying out a lot more than usual and people don’t seem to go on tilt if they are losing their money slowly. Even though the people were not as angry as I hoped they would be they still were anxious to blame me when things didn’t go the way they wanted. During streaks of losses passing people would ask the players if the table was any good and they would reply ‘This dealer is no good, he is unlucky.’ or something to that effect. Whenever this happened I cheerfully responded telling the customers that it had nothing to do with me. This always seemed to annoy them. They would stare at me saying nothing waiting for me to deal the next hand that they presumed I had taken the time to arrange. But because of the slower rate of losses the players were going through no one swore at me and the behavior was mild at best.

Today the profit shares were paid out to the employees who invest a portion of their pay cheques into Great Canadian Casino stocks. GCC offers their shares at three quarters of the cost to employees who have been working with the company for over three months. The amount of money an employee received apparently not only relies on the performance and profits of GCC but also on the amount of hours and types of jobs you perform for the company. I am still unclear on how the plan works, but the consensus in the break room was that everyone got screwed over on their shares. One of the people who was much more vocal than the others was a white woman (one of the few who work the graveyard shift) who said that on the previous pay out she only been contributing for one month received around $40 dollars. For this year she had been contributing for the full year and was only paid out $210. Everyone else seemed to have a similar situation and on every break there was lamenting about how poorly the employees were treated and how miserable the company was.

There was a photocopied newspaper article posted in the break room about the difficult year the casino industry had just experienced. A spokes person for GCC stated that due to weather, lower return per bet and other unexpected circumstances the profits from the previous year were down. This was also something I had heard stressed by the higher-ups during my various training sessions. Many people were trying to convince my fellow new dealers and me that the casino industry in BC was not a surefire cash cow, despite all we had heard. This attitude was not present with the dealers or lower level supervisors, but people who had more status in the company were very defensive about the business and were always quick to point out how hard it was to operate as a casino and how integrity was the most important part. It is always reassuring when someone directly informs you that they have integrity.

The woman mentioned above was particularly outspoken about this and almost everything else that she spoke of. She was friendly and seemed very nice, but she talked like someone who was trying to do a stand-up comedy routine, swearing constantly and spewing off terrible lines about nothing. She addressed me as ‘new guy’ and when she asked how I liked the job so far I told her that I was finding the graveyard shift difficult.
“Yeh, tell me about it. Graveyard shift licks dirty ass.” She replied.
The conversation ended there.
Even when no one was listening she was shouting monologues into the air about how horrible the job and pay was. Whenever she could she would chime in on other people’s conversations. Two of the dealers started talking about their girlfriends and she started immediately.
“Women are fucking crazy and I know, I am one of them. Sometimes my boyfriend will be like ‘You’re fucking weird’ and I’m like ‘I know. I’m a girl’ and I am always doing weird shit. Women are fucking crazy, you shouldn’t deal with them.” All of this was rattled off like a speed freak.
She often walked out of the room still talking only to reenter talking about something else.

The rest of my shift was uneventful and slow.