My Twenty-Third Job

Well, it comes to this, does it? I'm up to date with my jobs and I don't have a new job, yet. Of course, I can only blame myself. I got discouraged and gave up looking when no offers for even an interview came in.

This journal was started when I was working at the Golden Nugget. It pretty much is about working at the Golden Nugget, which makes it odd, that this story isn't in it:

I had been at the Golden Nugget for about a week when the shift boss got another dealer for the game I was on. He said, "I like the way you deal. I'm going to try you in the high limit room....You don't care if someone swears at you, do you?" I said, "that I didn't mind at all." Actually, being the girly man that I am, I did care, but now I'm as calloused as a whore at a shriner's convention. (Is that already a saying. Damn, it's a good one. It's inappropriate. I've got to remember it.) He took me into the high limit room and put me on a game. There was no one playing at my game. It made me nervous to be in there. Someone was going to come in, bet large amounts of money and I'm going to make a mistake and be instantly fired. Little did I know, the worse thing that was going to happen was that I was going to be punched.

I noticed a "reserved" sign on my table. I asked the floor supervisor, who it was reserved for. He said, he didn't know. I went on break and people were talking about



"The Sopranos are coming in".

"I'm sorry, by Sopranos, you mean some of the people in the show."

"I don't know."

I get back from my break and it is still dead and still reserved. I was getting really nervous. It was my first time I was on a high limit game and it is going to be celebrities that I've seen once, but other people worship.

It turned out they were coming to my table and it was 5 of the male supporting cast. ("Tony" played the next day, but not on my game.) They were allowed to play anywhere from $5 to $15,000. Luckily, they were $25 players. As they were playing, a crowd formed around me. There were people crammed at the high limit half-gate, gawking at the actors. I think security was given the orders to let one snapshot be taken before the tourists were told they weren't allowed to take pictures. There must be hundreds of pictures of me, pale and nervous, in strangers photo albums.

Inside the pit, a crowd was forming as well. Besides some onlookers, there was two floor supervisors, a casino host, the shift manager, a pit manager, and one of the casino owners, Tim Poster (pictured on the right).



I felt like someone in a traumatic experience, like I was outside of my body, just observing. I did manage to make a wisecrack, which I don't remember. One of the cast said that I sounded like "fat" someone from Jersey. Seems like everyone has the surname "fat" when they are from Jersey. I was destroying them. This was the time when everyone would have liked to see someone win, but no, I was killing them. They couldn't win a single hand. The fat actor to my right dropped his bet down to $5 and made some comment. The actor that plays a heroine addict, said it wasn't my fault, it's just the cards. He turned out to be a really nice guy.

Tim Poster decided that I needed some help. Thank God! He came and took my spot for a couple of hands. He was a horrible dealer, but dealt the cards in a special way. He told all of them to bet big, stacks of green. They did. Tim then took one green chip off of each bet and put them in the dealer's tip position. He then dealt out the cards. He, as the dealer was showing a ten. He took that card and put it in the discard rack and now was showing five. He told them to hit. One of them had a thirteen and took a hit as instructed. It was a ten, so Tim moved it to the next player that could use a ten. I think, you get the picture. He did this for a couple of hands and had me take over the game.

I came back the same way that I left. I was destroying them. After a particularly nasty hand, my hand was flat on the table and one of the fat actors took is fist and rammed it down on my hand. OK, so it really wasn't being punched and it only hurt a little. I also felt it was a little bit in jest. I learned later from one of the security guards that maybe it wasn't in jest. They were talking about me for a day after dealing to them.

A month later, an officer from Nevada Gaming, came in to interview me regarding that night. It turned out that manipulating the cards into wins is a gaming violation. The interview basically consisted of how I felt about it. I said that I felt alright. Apparently, the right thing to say was that it was wrong and I felt something was going on. I figured that it was Tim Poster's money and he should be able to basically give it to the Sopranos if he wanted to. The result of this interview and other interview's with other dealers was a $150,000 fine and a letter of apology to the dealers admitting that it was wrong.

I've since dealt to sports celebrities without knowing it. Other people spotted, but not dealt to are: Alyssa Milano, Cheech Marin, Patrick Swayze, Justin Timberlake, and others I can't remember right now.

My Twenty-Second Job

Welcome to the fabulous Luxor Hotel and Casino where the only curse is fun!

Not really, the curses available at the Luxor are many and varied. One of the curses is working there. The thing that bothered me the most is that when they wanted you to work overtime, they didn't bother asking you or telling you. They just left you dealing on a game. So, 4:00 AM would roll around and you would still be there...waiting. I hated it. Also, let's say you left at 4:20. They wouldn't give you any money for that extra twenty minutes. They would only give you money if you worked til the half hour. That's pretty tight considering they pay dealers $5.15 an hour and dealers are the biggest money makers in the casino as far as employees go. Also, they can't be fired for stupid reasons like being unlucky. It's hard to be part of a group that was too stupid to unionize. Bartenders unionized and they made pretty much the same as dealers in wage and tip. Now, they get decent vacation, a better health plan and make over $14.00/hour plus tips. I should have become a bartender. The employees at the Luxor did try to unionize, but they got threatened by an unknown source through a letter circulating saying that their windows would be smashed if they did and other such nonsense. It worked. Still no union.

The last straw came when I was dealing craps. A man bought in for $60 and I gave him the money saying, "There you go sir, $60, good luck". I was the only dealer that did talk to the players and wish them good luck. All of the other dealers were pretty much depressed zombies waiting to die. The shift manager was behind me and said, "you didn't wish him good luck and say the amount." This upset me, because I did and I'm the only one that ever did. I just said, "I did though." He replied with a childish, "No, you didn't." In effect, he was calling me a liar. That really gets my goat. It turned into a little fight with a back and forth: "I did", "You didn't" and ended up with a "then be louder next time". I did. After that, I always yelled when someone bought in. I have to be pretty pissed to do something so blatant. All of the other dealers, thought I was crazy and the boxman would say that I didn't have to yell. i would explain that apparently I did have to yell. A month and a half into the job, the Golden Nugget called me and I quit happily.

On the quit sheet, there is a section called "rehire" with three boxes: "Yes", "No", and "Review". The shift manager checked "review". Of course, I will never work there again, but now that MGM owns them, I will probably never be able to get a job at any MGM property. That's more than half of the big casinos in Las Vegas.

My Deadline is Approaching

My hope was to have another job by the time I finished my list of previous jobs. I only have two to go. This is rather upsetting to me.

My Twenty-First Job

I moved on over to Primm Valley, which is right across the highway from Whiskey Pete's. The tips were better, I got better at dealing craps and the people were great. One of the major problems there was on the weekend the craps table was basically right by the band. What idiot thought of that? I had to yell my fool head off to be heard when doing the stick calls. Conversations with the customers were hard. I went home every weekend with a sore throat.

I had to get a job in town though. The drive was too much.

I guess this is time to bring up the person dying at a craps game story. One day, I wasn't there unfortunately, a man had a heart attack and died at the craps game. They were not allowed to move him so they put a sheet over him and kept the game open. The players didn't seem to mind. Another day, a woman in tears came up to a man playing and told him that their son just died. He played four more hours before going to bed.

My Twentieth Job

Well, we are winding up my tour of jobs as you can see. I'm now up to my first dealing job at Whiskey Pete's. Whiskey Pete's is on the California Border in a little casino town called Primm. It is about 50 miles from Las Vegas. I started working the graveyard shift. I was a zombie. I never slept properly and I never ate properly. They only had breakfast food available. For everyone working at night, it was their daytime, but for some reason, we were only given scrambled eggs and french toast, etc. I lost a lot of weight quickly causing my ears to close up because of ear fat loss. Sounds silly, I know, but it happens. So, I couldn't stay awake, I couldn't hear and I was dealing craps for the first time. It is a complicated game and the boxman was a complete jerk. He just loved to yell at you for anything, making me more nervous than I already was. I couldn't stand it.

One night, a man came in and told the shift boss that he had a bomb wrapped around him and that he would set it off if we wasn't given $60,000. The shift boss told him for that amount of money the guy would have to fill out a form with his name and address. The guy did. The shift boss then told him that it needed to be cleared first. The guy got nervous and left, where security jumped him. They found something tied around his waist, but it wasn't a bomb. I want to say that it was hot dogs, but I think I'm confusing this with a movie. All the while that this was happening, I was completely oblivious. I looked up and saw a lot of security guards and thought it was unusual. Other than that, I only learned about it after the fact. That's how sleepy I was. Other dealers knew what was going on. It was nice to know that the shift boss would play foot loose and fancy free with worker's and customer's lives by not alerting us to a possible bomb and also pulling the stunt with the form. Oh well, it was all in good fun and nobody got their eye poked out.

Eventually, I transferred to the day shift. Better hours, better people, nicer boxman. It was much better.

My Nineteenth Job

I worked in admitting at Mountainview Hospital as a temp job. My job was to tell people to wait for the next representative for regular suregery admitting procedures as well as aid people with their check in at the walk-in ER. To check into the ER, people had to fill out a small form with their name and what was wrong. I would aid them if necessary. Then enter the information into a computer, print out a couple of "official" sheets and a wrist band. I would put the wrist band on the patient. I was told to alert the nurse if there were any serious conditions like chest pain. One time, a guy came in and was having violent seizures. The person with them was in a panic and very upset. I went in to tell the admitting nurse and she got mad at me for bothering her. Then it seemed like she took extra long to get to the patient. The whole place was really unprofessional and the systems that they had in place were very inefficient. Of course, they asked me to become full time and I said "goodbye suckers".

It seemed like their were theme days in the ER. For example, one day we would get a lot of head wounds. Another day, we would get whiny people with the flu. There was open wound day and my personal favorite, missing digit day.

My Eighteenth Job

This really wasn't my eighteenth job. It was probably my fourteenth. I forgot to stick it in. I knew I would forget something.



I was an extra for Touched by an Angel on several episodes. I'm way in the background being a parent of a little gymnast, a cop, a person in a park, an office worker, and a lawyer, etc. Being an extra doesn't pay well, but it sure is easy work and they feed you. Anyway, my biggest role was when I was a lawyer. I'm walking down the steps and the rapist is walking up the steps. It was my biggest role because you could tell it was me and not a blurred image of me or just my arm or just my butt. What a sad, sad, claim to fame. 

While I was walking down the steps, Chris Noth, the rapist was walking up the steps.  On one take, he rammed me with his shoulder.  I just kept walking like nothing happened.  In hindsight, I should have "acted" and turned around in anger or something like that.

My Seventeenth Job

No, I wasn't in the olympics. I worked security for the 2002 Olympics. I worked 12 hours a night for 18 days in a row. That sucks the life right out of you. You would think that with the overtime, that I would have been rolling in dough, but I make more now. I had to sit in the Hallmark Pavilion overnight to make sure that the heater in the trailer with the snow globes did not turn off. They were afraid that the snow globes would freeze and break if the heater turned off. Of course, snow globes usually have a chemical in them to keep from freezing, but I wasn't going to tell them that. It was cold, but I managed to sleep for a couple hours every night. I was the worst security guard ever. I got to sit where Kristi Yamaguchi sat and signed autographs and I got to throw away her lipstick stained coffee cup. That really was the highlight of my life for about a week.

My Sixteenth Job

I worked at the University of Utah Health Sciences Center in the Pulmonary Division as a Faculty/Clinic/Academic Coordinator. Wow, that's a mouthful. This was a really good job with two problems. First, it didn't really pay very well, but the benefits were good. Second, I worked in an office with a very annoying woman that spent her days chatting online on LDS singles chats. She drove me crazy.

The head of the division was a genius that didn't believe in a lot of support staff. Basically, it meant that there was me, the annoying woman and an Administrative Manager to run the whole division of a lot of doctors. It kept me busy and the doctors were all really nice. I lucked out there. It turns out that Pulmonary doctors are the nicest of any type of doctors. Neurologists and Cardiologist tend to have god complexes. GI doctors tend to be very money conscious and would sell their grandmother for profit. I never knew that doctors' personalities could be divided by what their specialty was, but you learn something new ever day.

My Fifteenth Job

I-link was a horrible job, too. It was a small company that offered long distance services through individual salesmen that then try to get more salesmen under them. In my training, they kept insisting that it wasn't a pyramid scheme. It was. Modified pyramid schemes are completely legal in Utah. I started answering the phones and helping people with long distance service. I then became the evening supervisor and then the day supervisor. At this point, I fired a couple of people. They were warned not to call each other while at work, but they kept doing it. I was mad because everyone else was going through hell and they would talk to each other on the phone all day about how great the mormon church was. On top of that, they knew that we could listen in to their conversations. So, they were idiots as well as lazy. I don't know if I had the same situation today if I would have fired them. Probably, they were pretty bad. This is where I met demridawn, who has a few choice words about I-Link.

I then became the wholesale account manager. I worked with companies that bought long distance from us that were not part of the pyramid scheme. It was horribly disorganized and everyone that I went to for demands from the wholesale accounts had the last name of Edwards. The owner's last name was, you guessed it, Edwards. I learned that the "Edwards" referred to me as "the queer" behind my back. That didn't really bother me, but I knew advancement was not going to be possible. On top of that, the company was going to crash and burn. It was clear. And on top of that, I was suicidal every Sunday night because I knew I had to go to work the next day. Quitting this job was really one of the best things I ever did.

My Fourteenth Job

It really wasn't Direct TV that I worked for. I worked for a company that did customer service for Direct TV. This was really my first taste of how horrible a corporation could be. When I was hired, I asked if it was incoming or outgoing calls. They assured me that it was incoming only. I told them that I would only do incoming calls. They said fine.

Now, to get to work, you had to park a mile away and take a shuttle in. You had a small window of time to clock in. When you were on the phone, the second someone would hang up, there would be a beep and the next call was put through. That's fine, but you weren't allowed more than the standard 1 hour total of breaks for the day. In other words, you couldn't use the bathroom unless it was an emergency. So, it was constant calls. They also just raised their prices, so it was a solid 8 hours of people yelling at me for something I had nothing to do with or had no control over. I don't know why they think yelling at a customer service representative would help, but they tried. (Interesting side note, it didn't help. They never lowered their prices again. So, don't bother calling). This was all fine. I could handle all of that.

One day, they took my team and said that they were going to make it a collections team. In other words, outgoing collections calls. It was horrible. I hated collections and as soon as you were off a call you were to call another person. We were required to make quotas and the person with the highest calls would get a prize like a bar of "Dial" Soap for "dialing" the most. Isn't that fun? In other words, you made the company the most money in the hell of a crappy job, here's a bar of soap. I requested to be taken off of the collections team saying that I was told I wouldn't have to do outgoing calls. They refused saying that I didn't have anything in writing. I wrote an angry but intelligently written letter, suggesting that they would keep a valuable employee by simply keeping their word. I delivered it and never got a response. Goodbye Direct TV.

My Thirteenth Job

Coming back to Japan, I decided to settle in Salt Lake City. I had a group of friends there already, all in one place and I was familiar with the area. I needed a job fast, so I went through a temp agency.

I worked for Lab Corps (at least I think that was the name). It was just a room with tons and tons of boxes. All I did all day was go into specific boxes looking for specific lab reports. That's it. Not very efficient on their part if you ask me, but it was a job. They asked me to go full time when I finally did leave because I showed initiative by suggesting changes to their system. No thank you, I was ready to try another horrible job.

My Twelveth Job

This picture really reminds me of the feel of Sapporo.  (Link missing.  It was probably of a lot of snow).

I taught English in Japan for almost two years. I tried to get a job before I went, but everywhere insisted that I come to Japan first. So, I flew in without a job and without speaking a word of Japanese. It was relatively easy and I got a job at EC, Inc. EC stands for "English Circles". Training was by this jerk from Canada who made it his personal mission to make every trainee cry before training was over. I never cried and I think that made him harder on me than a lot of teachers. Word of how he treated me traveled all over Sapporo and when he quit to find another job, no place would hire him. Such a perfect example of Karma.

It really was a lot of fun and very interesting. I learned Japanese a little, which I have now all forgotten. One problem though was that they fired a couple of guys while in training for being gay.

The snow in Sapporo is amazingly deep. The siberian winds come down over the Sea of Japan and really cool of the place. It would be a lot better if they didn't have such inefficient heating. I had a little kerosene heater that I would have to keep filled. Ever so often a little alarm would go off to remind you to open a window to let out the fumes. It really seemed to defeat the purpose of heating the room in the first place. Their water heaters, however, are the most efficient things I have ever seen. You never run out of hot water, because it heats it as it goes through.

I met the top drag queen of Japan. She was one of my students. Yep, "she". She was a cute little lesbian with the drag name of Luciano. It was a real Victor/Victoria situation. She was pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman. I was told to keep it secret. I also participated in the first ever gay and lesbian parade in Sapporo. It was pretty sparse. Drag queens were in the back of pick up trucks with a boom box. Perhaps 75 people showed up and there were very few spectators and even less spectators that knew of the parade.



The sign says "Mother, your son is gay". It was from the parade.  (Another link missing.  I look great though).

Looking for a new job.

I'm taking time off. Well actually, I have Monday-Friday off this week and next week. I've used up all of my vacation. I just wanted to find another job and "live" during the day. I'm sick of working nights and going to bed at 5:00 AM. The closest I've gotten to a job is being a management trainee at Radio Shack, ugh. I've tried to get ahold of job counseling services that charge a fee, but none of them will give me a call. Am I that bad? Ugh. I'm not going to be a dealer much longer, damn it.

My Eleventh Job

This was in the field that I went to college for. I got the job before I even finished college. It was the perfect opportunity, right?

My job progressed like this:

Camera operator for the evening news
Audio/Chiron
Floor director
Technical director
Director
Director/Technical Director
Production Coordinator
Production Coordinator/Ad writer/Extra
Production Coordinator/Morning News Director/Technical Director

I was in an ad for Auto Parts Express. My wife was pregnant, in labor, and our car was broken down. I say, "I'll call Auto Parts express, they DELIVER." Then a guy in a gorilla suit comes and gives me an auto part. I rub my wife's tummy and look satisfied. This was aired constantly over late night to the point of me being recognized as the Auto Parts Express guy. It was slightly embarrassing.

Reasons for dissatisfaction. It paid about $17,000 a year. I felt it had no future. I had to get up and be at work by 5:00 AM. I had no window. The florescent lights disturbed me. The highest paid News Anchor was paid $24,000 a year. I was depressed. It was actually in Springfield when they passed the law allowing you to be fired for being gay. One of the producers would look at the TV monitor and say "fags make me sick" whenever a gay person was on. People knew I was gay, don't they gossip. Do I have to tell each person individually. Damn it, it's not a secret, please gossip.

I had to quit.

My Tenth Job

Pietro's Pizza. Their cheeseburger pizza was the best ever, working there, however, was horrible.

My Ninth Job

Yep, I was a sandwich artist at Subway. Really, not much to report here except that the store owners were really cheap. We were required to count the cups when we closed to make sure that we didn't give away any free drinks. We were only allowed to put two olive slices per six-inch sandwich, because "olives are expensive". Most of the time, I worked there by myself late at night, serving sandwiches to drunk people.

My Eighth Job

Oh my, I think that is the first time in my life that I have ever written out the word "eighth". It doesn't look right at all. I had to look it up and everything. Wow, what a strange word.


I worked for Olson Family Studios for two weeks. It was horrible. I had to call people and get them to come in for their "free" 8X10 family portrait. Whether or not they would fall for that, I would then have to try to get the names and numbers of 8 people they knew. We would then call those people saying that "so and so" referred us. Talk about an intrusion.

They had old generic beige phones. We sat at long fold-out tables and were not allowed to put the handset down. We were required to keep it on our shoulder and press down on cradle to hang up. This saved precious time in order to keep us dialing. I just didn't go to work one day. Oddly enough, they weren't surprised.

My Seventh Job

I wasn't sure if I should include this or not, but I did get money out of it. It was, however, voluntary.

First, a little background. The previous school year, I volunteered for the University of Oregon Cultural Forum by ripping ticket stubs and hanging posters. I did it so much that I became like an unofficial member of the Cultural Forum. My only payment was in the form of some dinners. I met documentary film maker, Ally Acker and cartoonist, Bill Plympton. I would be dropping names if anyone knew who these people were, but few people do. M.K. Hobson was also a member of the Cultural Forum. Overachiever that she was, she announced plans to start another film showing group on campus, Catalyst Films. This, I think, angered the Cultural Forum. They kicked her out stating that she would be spread to thin if she did two groups. I was also kicked out, basically for not doing anything besides being the best ticket ripper you ever saw.

M.K. was hell bent on revenge. She wanted to blow the Cultural Forum out of the water. She asked if I wanted to help. Of course, I actually was only in the Cultural Forum because I wanted to be around her, so of course I said yes. She made me the Co-director of Catalyst Films. We did just as she planned. We showed gems like "Pink Flamingos" and Pink Floyd's "The Wall". We were a little more "low-brow" than the Cultural Forum, but we knew what the students wanted. The film that pushed us over the top was a surprise. We had a packed theater for two shows for "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory". I mean packed. More people than I ever imagined. I was happy about that, too. I spent a while on the poster for that one, which was just a picture of Willy Wonka looking at a bubble with the title of the film in it. It was cute. The Cultural Forum was appropriately jealous. M.K. got her revenge.

I missed the last term though when I was shot.

My Sixth Job

OK, so my sister worked here first, too. I didn't work for Paul Mitchell. I worked for a distributor of Paul Mitchell products in Ventura, California. It was called Cylected Products after the owner, Cyl. Anyway, I was a warehouse worker for a summer. Really, a laid back job. The boss was one of the friends of Paul Mitchell and John Paul Dejoria and that's why she got to be their distributor in a small, insignificant area. It really wasn't run very well. Such a shame, she would take us to lunch and not really work us very hard. My sister would have to take her home from the hospital after plastic surgery.

I met John Paul Dejoria. Most people think he is Paul Mitchell, but the real Paul Mitchell died. They sprinkled his ashes on a awapuhi farm, so when you wash your hair with a Paul Mitchell product containing awapuhi, you are literally washing your hair with Paul Mitchell.