February 1
The new MCSD uniform made their debut last night, and, history will record FTO Terry was the last one to wear the old uniform. He stayed over for some graveyard OT and didn’t bother switching.
When you consider we went from black pants and a white shirt to black pants and a white shirt, we sure got a lot of crap from our co-workers. Especially from the slot techs who a couple of months ago switched to these really gay pink/apricot-ish shirts. Most of the cracks had to do with people giving us their ice cream order.
Most of the guys, led by Bi-Bob and Redneck Randy, griped left and right about them. This is not because the uniforms are all that bad, they’re really not, but because morale is going down faster than a whore with the fleet in and we would probably whine about raises right now.
First, there is the ongoing problem of our chronic short-handedness. We are getting tired of having only seven or eight Charlie units every night. There are simply not enough people to cover the casino with the manpower we are accustomed to and there are times when there is only one available unit in the casino and from time to time there aren’t any at all. Usually, this isn’t really a problem; I mean, this is a pretty routine job but sometimes it isn’t and there is going to come a time when something goes down and there simply isn’t any backup. Also, there is a lot of OT and people getting tired of working seven or eight shifts every week.
Some relief is on the way, and even that is causing problems because it appears some officers are being stolen from the Golden Nugget, where the Director of Security used to work, and that they will not be starting at the bottom the MCSD pay chart ($10/hour) nor will they be subject to the seniority-based shift-bid system and will be immediately placed on swing shift.
Even though this is still officially a Rumor, and a two-day-old rumor at that, it is having a noticeable effect on the guys. Now, in any military or paramilitary setting, such as MCSD, there is going to be some grumbling. Life could be a bed of roses and we would whine about that persistent nice aroma; that’s the way it is. Redneck Randy could’ve personally selected the new uniforms and he still would’ve found something to whine about and the EDR could produce roasted whole foie gras and Kobe beef every night and we’d complain about the rich menu. But the guys were really taking it out on the new uniforms last night, more so than they deserved.
I do miss the utility belt though. I ain’t gonna lie to you. It was a big part of the Reid/Malloy fantasy.
We also got new nametags. They are similar to the old name tags except the Monte Carlo logo is a tad bigger and the top hat and cane are gone. Plus the backing is magnetic.
February 2
The new, improved EDR debuted last night. The food wasn’t noticeably better, but there appeared to be more of it and it was more or less fresh and there were cute little stickers on the sneeze guards showing, in the form of colored apples, how often we could indulge in each item. A green apple meant the item could be enjoyed anytime, a yellow item could be enjoyed in moderation and red apple items, apparently, will kill you instantly.
It was painfully slow in the hotel. If we had more than a handful of calls I’d be surprised. After X-Ray and I rolled on a crying baby complaint on 17, I took him to the carpenter’s office in the 100 wing, which he had never been to before. There is a sweet executive’s chair, along with two other chairs in there and I let X-Ray have the nice chair and within 30 seconds he was snoring. He was even oblivious to radio traffic and I let him get a good 15 minutes in before waking him up.
Crying baby complaints are touchy. On the one hand, you want the guests to know their baby is causing a ruckus. On the other hand, for Pete’s sake, it’s a baby and you can’t just tell it to shut the hell up. So you go tactical and pretend you’re there to help.
“Uh, ma’am, we were just walking past and we heard your baby crying. We were wondering if there was anything we could do to help?”
There never is, except maybe stuff some socks in the kid’s mouth, but they appreciate your concern and they get the message that others are being bothered.