January 29
For reasons I am not prepared to explain, I was not scheduled for the hotel Saturday! At first, I thought, all right, that’s no big deal, maybe I’m outside or in dispatch, but no, I was slated to be a common Charlie unit! And Charlie 7, no less!
I couldn’t believe it. You’d have to go back to spring to find a Saturday when I wasn’t in the hotel. I went to 77Dwayne and said “Hey”. He said he didn’t make the schedule, a blatant lie, and passed the buck to 88Dick, which, as we will see later, is 77Dwayne’s only real talent.
I ended up switching with Fred, who was assigned the hotel instead of me. Fred hates the hotel and was looking to switch anyway.
I told 77Dwayne that from now on it was best not to fuck with the natural order. If the hotel was coveted duty, sure, I could see spreading the wealth around. But it isn’t. It takes a special kind of person to work the hotel and, frankly, most people aren’t up to the challenge.
So, here was your Henry lineup for last night:
Henry 1 – OMP
Henry 2 – Special Ed (Day shift OT)
Henry 3 – moi
Despite the fact Henry 3 is responsible for floors 2-12 inclusive, I ended up spending 45 minutes on 32 after being sent there to shut down a party because OMP was on another call and Special Ed was on 10-10. The complaint had actually come from 31-323.
I knew this would be trouble. There is no room 32-323 as there are only four penthouse suites in the 300 wing of 32. The suites are, as you might imagine, large and lavishly appointed. They have bedrooms on both ends, a bar, a large living room, a workout room complete with treadmill and weights and bathrooms every five feet. There was a time when these suites were given to high rollers, but the general public can now rent them, subject to availability.
If you think about it, a situation like this could pose a dilemma for the working security officer. Consider this: you are in a penthouse suite for a reason, either because you’ve earned it at the tables or can afford to rent it for the night. Either way, unless you are dealing crack directly from the suite you are, frankly, playing under somewhat different rules than the guest in, say, 18-213.
My own feeling was that a supervisor should be present; a grunt security officer was not appropriate.
I called dispatch. JK, Boy Dispatcher didn’t see my point. “Fuck ‘em!” he said. “Go shut it down!” I told him the rich were slightly different than you or me and I was going to discuss the matter with 77Dwayne. He said sure.
77Dwayne did see my point and, in what is turning out to be a hallmark of his administration, he passed the buck to 88Dick.
“Talk it over with him. See what he says.”
88Dick saw my point, too, and decides to call the front desk and see who we are dealing with, something I should’ve thought of. If it’s a very high roller in the suite, the hotel may well not want him to do anything but enjoy himself, in which case we’d move the guest who complained and as a token of our goodwill his night’s stay would be with the compliments and best wishes of the management and staff of the Monte Carlo.
Turns out it wasn’t anyone too important, although it was a guest paying $1750 (plus tax) for the suite. It was all code four. 88Dick and I made contact and requested they pipe the fuck down and they said sure.
I did swing shift Saturday, too. I spent the first hour in the arcade, the first time I have manned the arcade in just over a year here. When I was training on swing shift with FTO Terry the arcade was – for reasons I never really understood – an armed position and the arcade isn’t open on graveyard. But they have a desk and a chair and I spent the hour with the arcade tech, a guy named Anachaud. Since I asked, he told me he was originally from Morocco, but mostly grew up in France. He speaks English, Spanish, Arabic, French and Hebrew and holds both American and French citizenship. I had to draw all this out of him; he mainly wanted to talk about why he and his girlfriend were moving to a new apartment.