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I'm crawling back to the casino, but not on my hands and knees. I am going back to work my 20 hours a week with a purpose. I can save every dime I make in 2019. It is possible to bank $15,000 and this will give me options and opportunities I would not have if I decided to hang this business up once and for all. This is the end game. I have to suck it up one more time.
2019 is my chance to put things right. I have to work two, ten hour days per week. The other days I will dedicate to building something. I can not walk away entirely from the gaming business till I have created an income stream. With money comes possibilities. This is my last shot.
I hope my lungs hold out. I will have to see that they do.
I don't recognize this guy. I think he is talking about the slot machines. I am sure he lives here in Dubuque and what he is saying strikes close to home. He is saying what a great many people are saying, and have been saying about the slots here at the Diamond Jo Casino in Dubuque, IA. They stink. You haven't got a snow ball's chance in hell of winning anything. The slots are cranked down so tight, they aren't even worth playing. This has been going on for years. I am glad someone actually had the guts to post something on YouTube about it.
Published on Mar 8, 2017.
Two months later ... Published on May 7, 2017
We have all been there. A couple weeks go by, or even a couple months, and you think to yourself, "there is no way I can get beat up as bad as I did the last time I was in this place." Guese what? You can and you will. Slots machines are nothing but glorified carnival games. When it comes to carnival games, you might as well toss the odds right out the window.
I've come to a major decision.
I am walking away from the casino business for the last time. I walked away twice before this, only to go crawling back because the money was decent and the job was available.
I have never been able to secure a career in any other profession but the gaming business. I don't know why exactly. I know that I am not corporate material. I am a loose cannon.
I have always marched to the sound of my own drum for better or worse. Maybe that is the one constant of my life. There certainly is little order in it.
I am a dinosaur of the past. The business is not the one I started working in 25 years ago. If you have two legs that can hold you up, you are qualified to stand behind a gaming table. You don't have to be good at what you are doing. The days of mastering the art form of dealing a roulette wheel is a lost art. The most important qualification to work the tables these days is your ability to take a $20 bill and shove it down the drop box. Showing up to take the abuse that is tolerated is also a plus. The way table games dealers are treated and spoken to is deplorable. If a customer spoke to a cashier or a restaurant worker in the same manner they speak to a casino worker, the police would be involved. Closer examination would result in that person spending 72 hours in a psychiatric ward. This is par for the course because the hard core gamblers are sick people. They are filled with self hatred and they haven't got the spine to admit it to themselves, so they lash out at others. I am tired of the hate, the stress, and the general hostile work environment of the modern casino era.
I also can not take the second hand smoke. I have been struggling to breath since I was 10 years old. I trained diligently and consistently for 25 years, working my lungs.
I swam. I trained in the martial arts. I pushed myself to the brink of exhaustion. I pushed my lungs to their extreme limits of endurance. This kept me alive.
Since my knee operation 15 years ago, I have slowed down. Hell, I have come to a standstill. My lungs have reverted to a state that I remember experiencing when I was 10 years old. I made a conscious decision then that I had to fight for every breath of air I could for as long as I could, no matter the pain. I have come full circle.
This leave of absence has been a blessing. It is hard to walk away from the only real profession I ever had. I worked hard to become the best I could be, and it has paid dividends.
I am known as an excellent dealer. Back in the old days, this distinction earned you a fair amount of respect from your peers. Today, it only incurs jealousy. This is the caliber of the people in the business now. It is more than that. People today are angry. They hate their jobs, their lives, and themselves. We all work our fingers to the bone and all we receive in return is a living wage.
I made it this far. I am collecting my Uncle Sam money. It really is not enough to live on, but I have lived on what Social Security is paying me now, and I did fine.
I have the time now to finally create a life I have some control over. I have been telling myself this since I started writing Time to Blog. It is time to make a clean break.
I have to accept who I am and what it is I want to do with the rest of my life. If I don't start working my lungs again on a daily basis, that time is short.
I will repeat myself once again; I know what I have to do. This time, the mantra is different. I know what I want to do. I am who I am regardless of what job I have or what skills I mastered. It's time to leave the gaming career behind me and remember the good times. They were few and far between. Those few times are behind me.
