November 30
Here are the numbers; they are more or less official: graveyard has no less than nine (9) unfilled, full time positions open and MCSD, authorized for a complement of around 110, is down to 87.
And it’s not going to get any better, even though we’re hiring. Consider this: the unemployment rate in town is a tad over four percent. Now, I’m no economist, even though I do throw my loose change into a mason jar and cash it in at the machine at the grocery store every now and then, but it seems to me that if you’re around four percent pretty much anybody who 1) really wants a job and 2), is capable of holding a job, pretty much has a job.
Not only that, in addition to the South Coast opening soon, Red Rock Station is opening on the west side of town and they’re starting to hire, so even if you are looking for qualified officers (and there aren’t that many qualifications, frankly; an ability to breathe is certainly one; I’m sure there are others) there probably aren’t all that many qualified applicants floating around.
Wally and Code Four Carlin were talking about some sort of coin in briefing and how someone one of them knew had one, and, in a great example of C butting in on an A/B conversation, I chime in that I have never seen the point to paying more than face value for current, legal tender. I gave an example of me getting a buffalo nickel as change at a 7-11 one time. Some co-workers scoped it out on the Internet and said the nickel was worth 73 cents and I said no, it’s worth five cents; it says so right on the coin. Five cents. One nickel.
Code Four Carlin then goes into a very basic lesson on the whole supply and demand dynamic which is funny because while Code Four Carlin is not stupid, he does not come across as the type for whom Supply and Demand would be an area of expertise.
I was obliged to sit through a thrilling lecture on how an item is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. I told Code Four Carlin I was down with that, adding that all I was saying is that I would be unwilling to pay 73 cents for something that has “Five Cents” engraved on it.
I had hoped to exit this conversation right here, but Code Four Carlin was just getting started. He invited me to pick a figure from American history. I picked Jefferson. Code Four Carlin said let’s say I have some papers of Jefferson’s and someone wanted to buy them from me, I could probably get a lot of money for them even though they were just pieces of paper. It took him a while to give this example and he compared Jefferson’s papers to the coins he had been discussing previously.
I felt a stroke coming on, but I countered anyway that the flaw in that comparison is Jefferson’s papers wouldn’t have a government-mandated value on them like money does. Their value comes from the circumstantial value someone attaches to them. And it doesn’t count the historical value of whatever might have been written on those papers. I did, however, manfully concede a coin that was pure silver or gold would be worth the value of the metal.
I was Charlie 3 last night. I wasn’t on the floor ten seconds before I was sent to the brewery for a lost property report. Seems a waitress there had left her purse on top of the employee lockers instead of actually putting it inside a locker and she seemed surprised to find it gone after her shift.
I also spent a half-hour trying to reunite a drunk woman with her husband. I was at the sports bar, which is near the poker room, IDing a couple of whores we ended up moving out when some guests at the bar ask if I would take this very drunk woman to the taxi stand so she can get a cab to Bellagio where she’s staying. She had somehow lost her husband.
Sure, I said. That is one of my functions as a Monte Carlo security officer, escorting drunks to the taxi stand. She announces she has money in the poker room and then promptly disappears into the adjacent restroom.
I go to the poker room and the manager gives me her money and I wait for her but she’s in there so long I get tired of waiting and go in and get her but she’s not there and when I come out of the women’s can there she is sitting at a slot machine.
She was in no mood to be escorted to the taxi stand, however. She felt if she stayed where she was her husband would magically appear and she’s starting to be a hassle and I’m starting to feel that maybe the husband isn’t lost by accident.
About this time the two whores we moved out reappear, this time accompanied by their daddies. The pimps are two thuggish looking black guys who could not have stood out more had they worn neon signs saying “PIMP”.
So Bi-Bob, Schempp, Fred and myself go and ID them and even though they probably have enough heat on them to mow us down in short order they graciously allow us to move them out again Bi-Bob even reads them the trespass warning for good measure.
I go back to the drunk lady. She is talking to her husband on her cell, and I take it from her and explain matters to the husband and he agrees to come to get her even though, he noted, he had just valeted his car at Bellagio.
Here is your Henry lineup for tonight:
Henry 1 – moi
Henry 2 – Coleman
Henry 3 – X-Ray
– Indicates OT from day shift.
Lee takes the broom handle tonight. This is the slowest time of year in Vegas. The hotel crew last night didn’t have more than five calls. I know, I kept track even though I was in the casino.