The Saga of L
It started with my break.
See, at our work, we get roughly twenty minute breaks. The catch is, it doesn't matter what time you get up there, you have to be back at the twenty minute mark, i.e. twenty past the hour, twenty to the hour, or on the hour. So basically, if the dealer taking you off the table is late coming down, you get somewhat screwed over, cos it shortens your break. Follow?
So anyway, L comes to my blackjack table to take me off, and I'm doing my last hand, and he's basically doing everything in his power to prolong this hand, thereby shortening my break. He's telling them to double and split hands when they probably wouldn't if he hadn't told them to, and it's taking fucking forever when it really doesn't need to. Never mind the fact that as dealers we're, um, NOT ALLOWED to advise the players on how to play (we can tell them the rules, but we can't give them advice obviously), and also, when you take someone off a table, you're NOT supposed to interfere with their dealing unless it's to point out, like, a mistaken payout or something. So I turn to L and in a sort of exasperated tone (this is important. It wasn't a malicious or angry tone, it was an exasperated tone) I say, "L. Man. Shut up, I'm hungry."
He gets all malignant and doesn't speak to me for ten days, which is TOTALLY fine by me, I want nothing to do with him. Anyway after that, he manages to get me alone in the hallway, and he's like "K. Can I have a word?" I'm all "ugh. What?" And he says to me in this tone like he's reprimanding an elementary schooler, "You know last week how I took you off the table and you told me to shut up? Don't do that again."
Instantly he's got my back up. Who the fuck does he think he is, to speak to me like I'm some naughty five year old? If he's got a problem with me, he can drop the fucking tone first of all, is what I'm thinking. But instead of saying anything, I just roll my eyes and walk off. His parting shot? "Next time it happens, I'm going to the shifties!" (Shift managers).
I admit, I sort of lost my rag there. If the tone hadn't set me off, the threat was like a red flag to a bull. I stormed into the break room and I spied one of the shifties, B, and I asked for a moment of her time. Five minutes later in her office I'm telling her everything, and she's agreeing with me that he was out of line, first by interfering with my last hand, then by threatening me. But she tells me that it's not the first time they've had similar problems with L. I'm still seething, but I think this is an end to it, because I'm not looking for a war.
Oh, how wrong I was.
Maybe... two or three weeks later? And I'm talking two or three weeks of solidly avoiding him as much as I can, we get stuck on two sided money wheel together. My heart sinks, because I just know this isn't going to end well. I'm on the right, which makes me the dealer who is supposed to spin the wheel and make all the announcements. He's on the left, and his job is to pay and take on his side of the layout, and shut the fuck up, basically. Of course, L being L, shutting the fuck up is outside his realm of expertise, so I've got myself a nice little echo as I try to get on with my job.
My back is up. He's standing there tossing the dolly up in the air and catching it, repeatedly, which is annoying in and of itself. But in training, G and A specifically told us we weren't ALLOWED to play with the dolly. But I grit my teeth, because I just want to get through this and not start anything. Cut to, a male patron on my side of the layout. L says something to him, which ends with "How about when I come off the table you and I go out the back for a bit of a cuddle?"
My jaw drops, but not as far as it drops when I hear what comes next. "No? How about your missus then?"
I want the ground to open up and swallow me whole. I just know that the patrons are lumping me and L together, by virtue of the fact that we're wearing the same uniform. I don't blame them, that's what I would do. I would love to be able to scream out that I do NOT condone his incredibly inappropriate and offensive words, but professionalism dictates that while on the floor around customers, employees should be presenting a somewhat united front. So, apart from the disgusted look on my face which I couldn't help, I say nothing. And all this saying nothing is starting to wear on me.
A little while later, I forget that it's a two dollar table, as opposed to a one dollar table, and I fudge a payout. "Shit," I say to myself. Note that I said it to myself, rather than screaming "SHIT FUCKITY SHIT CRAP DAMN ARSE" across the gaming floor. But L's listening. Of course he's listening, how do you gather enough mud to fling otherwise? And he says, in that smug, self satisfied, PATRONIZING tone of voice that just makes me angry enough to KILL, "Mate, that kind of language isn't cool on the table."
You think I don't know that?! I'm very sorry I slipped up!! But I just snarl to myself, and point out that his constant fiddling with the dolly is also verboten. But of course he doesn't listen to me. Anyway it escalates. He asks me if I've heard him, and I said, "You just completely ignored me, it doesn't exactly make me feel like listening to you." "So you're ignoring me?" he asks, as if I hadn't just made that crystal clear. I ignore him.
His parting shot? Like a broken record. He comes off the table and says "I hope you enjoy your chat with the shifty." Like seriously, get a new fucking hobby.
When I get taken off the table, I get told that I have to go and see the pit boss, and like clockwork, things have played out exactly as I knew they would. He's gone and narced on me for swearing, made it sound like I was cussing out the customers as opposed to the little slip that it really was, and conveniently neglected to mention the things HE said to the customers, which, IMO, were a helluva lot worse than the little cuss I let slip. So, S tells me off for swearing, which I accept, then I tell her what really went down on the table. She looks suitably aghast.
On break, I tell my friend P what happened, because he understandably wants to know why I look like I want to murder something. So I fill him in, and in the process, the rest of the people in the smoking room hear. As I leave to go back down to the floor, I shoot back at them, "this conversation never happened", because I didn't want them to go blethering back to L. Unfortunately, I realised too late that S was standing there, and realised that she thought I'd said "this conversation never happened" because I didn't want her to know what I was talking about.
(I have to admit, I hadn't even thought about her. I just didn't want word to get back to L, because the last thing he needs is more ammo.)
After my next table, I get told to go see the pit bosses. Again. And this time we're in the shifties office, being told that we're acting like a couple of five year olds (which I also admit to, but point out that I was completely and utterly provoked. What was I supposed to do, stand there and let him shit all over me? HELL to the NO.
L is all malignant because I apparently was rude to him, and I am furious because he was continually undermining me in front of customers, and in this job, it is hard enough for a girl to keep control of a table. Once you get undermined, you've lost the table, and can forget about control for the rest of your time on that table.
L gets told not to do it. I get told not to swear. We both get told not to act like five year olds, and to avoid each other, and we both get letters to that effect. I leave the office seething, because I can see the look on L's face, and it's so fucking smug I just want to crush his fucking trachea with my thumbs, nice and slow. Even now, almost a month removed from the incident, it still makes my blood boil thinking about the smug look on his face.
The next night I get a message from him on Facebook. The subject line reads "im [sic] a douche" and I apologize for the run on nature of the text, I've changed nothing but the names.
Hi k,i want to apologise for my behavior the other night,i feel really bad about the whole thing.within the world i like to think there is a kind of harmony,and i distrupted to that harmony.and here we are in xmas and i do something so mean like that.i didnt do it out of malice.i ws a bit annoyed is all,i was trying to help and i felt hat you were being rude to me in return.i think if i was going to try and solve this myelf i should have sought a better solution.so i fully understand if you hate me from this day further,an u can delete this email and never have to worry about me again if you like.but i just wanted you to know how sorry i feel.aslong as you know how sorry then i can take the rest of it.as long as you know how bad i feel,reallt bad i feel then i can take the ret of the crap that i get for being such a sad and stupid person.i dont have anything against you as a person.i dont think i can get your forgivness now.other peoples feelings matter and i should always remember that and think before i do anything.im a very flawed person.i try not to let it show.but it comes out.
you have been very honest with me about stuff that has happened to you .and i swear i will never tell anyone anything you told me.i would never do that to anyone.thats not the type of person i am.my childhood was very strange as my mum moved around alot,we moved to greymouth for a while when i was 10,but at some time over there she had a mental breakdown,and one day i came home and she had sold all of our stuff.then she thought i had lead poisoning and we went to a doctor at 4am in the mourning before she attacked the doctors car,and so i spent some time in foster care for a while.it took a while for our family from chch tracked us down and got social services to move us back to chch.that was a very sad time for me.after that i had to live with my other family members for a long time.thats something i havnt told anyone and its all true.i want you to know how sorry i am,and i want you to know that you can trust me.so im going to trust you with this,but i understand if as i did if you want to break that trust.the only other way i can think to say im sorry is to buy you something.so if you have something you want for xmas,because i feel so bad and so guilty i will buy it for you.i dont care what other people think about me but i care what you think about me,and i accept they will be very angry thoughts for a while.im very sorry,and i want you to know the sincerity of that.
From L (oh and here he used his full name, instead of the short form he goes by).
This only made me angrier. If I accept this "apology" then I basically validate his use of his allegedly hard childhood as an excuse for his current douchebaggery. I mean, are we not adults? Who among us HASN'T has shit go down in their lives? We live and we LEARN, and though I feel sorry for him if this is indeed truth, it doesn't give him the right to knowingly act like a fuckwit then bust out the "bad childhood" as an excuse. I'm sorry, but if you're self aware enough to use it as an excuse for why you act like a douche, you're self aware enough not to act like a douche in the first place. Oh and as for the "this is something i haven't told anybody" bullshit, it really IS bullshit, because I've had no less than three people come to me and tell me to let up on him because of this shit that he's had happen to him. For something he's supposedly only told me, it sure got around fast all by itself.
If, on the other hand, I refuse to accept his apology, that makes me the bad guy. "Oh, K, she's such a bitch, look at what L has been through and she won't accept his apology." And finally, if I say nothing, I've let him have the last word, and my pride will not let that rest easy. But this last was the course I chose, and my pride still grumbles at me about it.
I spend the time between then and a couple of nights ago studiously ignoring and avoiding him. I might anger quickly, but I'm not stupid. He's stupid, malicious and frankly DANGEROUS, the way he takes words and actions and twists them to get people in trouble, and for what? I honestly don't know if he genuinely feels threatened, or derives some sort of pleasure from it, or what. All I know is, I want no part of it, and I definitely want no part of it.
There is a woman, T, who has been teaching me Russian, and this becomes important. For two entire shifts, every single break was taken up by her teaching me new Russian words, except for one break where we were talking about cuss words. She was teaching me Russian swears, and saying how this one is really bad, this one not so much, and I was pointing out to her that the "really bad ones" when translated to English, were words that had lost most of their bite through overuse. Then she asked me (and N, who was sitting with us at the time) what the worst swears in English were. I told her, the C word, which I won't type because I refuse to use it. Of course, to explain it to her, I had to say it, and who should overhear me but L.
I didn't find this out until later, when on my only break without T, L cornered me and started in on me. "If you've got something to say to me, say it to my face, don't fucking talk shit about me behind my back!" I'm understandably confused, because as far as I know I've only been avoiding him, like I was told to. Besides, like I said, I've been learning Russian for two nights straight, it didn't leave a lot of time for anything else. So I respond with "What the fuck are you even talking about?" and walk away. I later found out from N (who was friends with L at the time) that when we were talking about swears, L heard "C is the worst word, L is a C." Which is so patently untrue, I'm still boggling over it.
N and L discussed it, and N stuck up for my innocence, because hello, she was part of the conversation and she knows damn well he wasn't even mentioned. L isn't convinced, and that brings me to now. I'm scared. If he decides to go to the shifties again on the strength of what he thinks he heard, I could be in a lot of trouble, because as last time shows, they're not exactly quick to take my side, even when I'm being shat on. They're busy and really not in the mood to deal with petty shit, and I get that, I do. But if he goes tattling again, they may well just discipline me officially for calling him the C word, without even listening to the story. Of course, I've got T and N who can attest to the fact that what he thinks happened, never happened, but there's no guarantee that the shifties will even let me get that far explaining myself. And frankly, I resent the fact that because of L, I might even HAVE to explain myself. Hence the point of this epic ramble, I wanted everything documented in case I have to refer back to it.
I highly doubt anyone got all the way through this, but if you did, can you please leave a comment with advice or words of comfort? They would be greatly appreciated because I'm pretty rattled at this stage! :)
See, at our work, we get roughly twenty minute breaks. The catch is, it doesn't matter what time you get up there, you have to be back at the twenty minute mark, i.e. twenty past the hour, twenty to the hour, or on the hour. So basically, if the dealer taking you off the table is late coming down, you get somewhat screwed over, cos it shortens your break. Follow?
So anyway, L comes to my blackjack table to take me off, and I'm doing my last hand, and he's basically doing everything in his power to prolong this hand, thereby shortening my break. He's telling them to double and split hands when they probably wouldn't if he hadn't told them to, and it's taking fucking forever when it really doesn't need to. Never mind the fact that as dealers we're, um, NOT ALLOWED to advise the players on how to play (we can tell them the rules, but we can't give them advice obviously), and also, when you take someone off a table, you're NOT supposed to interfere with their dealing unless it's to point out, like, a mistaken payout or something. So I turn to L and in a sort of exasperated tone (this is important. It wasn't a malicious or angry tone, it was an exasperated tone) I say, "L. Man. Shut up, I'm hungry."
He gets all malignant and doesn't speak to me for ten days, which is TOTALLY fine by me, I want nothing to do with him. Anyway after that, he manages to get me alone in the hallway, and he's like "K. Can I have a word?" I'm all "ugh. What?" And he says to me in this tone like he's reprimanding an elementary schooler, "You know last week how I took you off the table and you told me to shut up? Don't do that again."
Instantly he's got my back up. Who the fuck does he think he is, to speak to me like I'm some naughty five year old? If he's got a problem with me, he can drop the fucking tone first of all, is what I'm thinking. But instead of saying anything, I just roll my eyes and walk off. His parting shot? "Next time it happens, I'm going to the shifties!" (Shift managers).
I admit, I sort of lost my rag there. If the tone hadn't set me off, the threat was like a red flag to a bull. I stormed into the break room and I spied one of the shifties, B, and I asked for a moment of her time. Five minutes later in her office I'm telling her everything, and she's agreeing with me that he was out of line, first by interfering with my last hand, then by threatening me. But she tells me that it's not the first time they've had similar problems with L. I'm still seething, but I think this is an end to it, because I'm not looking for a war.
Oh, how wrong I was.
Maybe... two or three weeks later? And I'm talking two or three weeks of solidly avoiding him as much as I can, we get stuck on two sided money wheel together. My heart sinks, because I just know this isn't going to end well. I'm on the right, which makes me the dealer who is supposed to spin the wheel and make all the announcements. He's on the left, and his job is to pay and take on his side of the layout, and shut the fuck up, basically. Of course, L being L, shutting the fuck up is outside his realm of expertise, so I've got myself a nice little echo as I try to get on with my job.
My back is up. He's standing there tossing the dolly up in the air and catching it, repeatedly, which is annoying in and of itself. But in training, G and A specifically told us we weren't ALLOWED to play with the dolly. But I grit my teeth, because I just want to get through this and not start anything. Cut to, a male patron on my side of the layout. L says something to him, which ends with "How about when I come off the table you and I go out the back for a bit of a cuddle?"
My jaw drops, but not as far as it drops when I hear what comes next. "No? How about your missus then?"
I want the ground to open up and swallow me whole. I just know that the patrons are lumping me and L together, by virtue of the fact that we're wearing the same uniform. I don't blame them, that's what I would do. I would love to be able to scream out that I do NOT condone his incredibly inappropriate and offensive words, but professionalism dictates that while on the floor around customers, employees should be presenting a somewhat united front. So, apart from the disgusted look on my face which I couldn't help, I say nothing. And all this saying nothing is starting to wear on me.
A little while later, I forget that it's a two dollar table, as opposed to a one dollar table, and I fudge a payout. "Shit," I say to myself. Note that I said it to myself, rather than screaming "SHIT FUCKITY SHIT CRAP DAMN ARSE" across the gaming floor. But L's listening. Of course he's listening, how do you gather enough mud to fling otherwise? And he says, in that smug, self satisfied, PATRONIZING tone of voice that just makes me angry enough to KILL, "Mate, that kind of language isn't cool on the table."
You think I don't know that?! I'm very sorry I slipped up!! But I just snarl to myself, and point out that his constant fiddling with the dolly is also verboten. But of course he doesn't listen to me. Anyway it escalates. He asks me if I've heard him, and I said, "You just completely ignored me, it doesn't exactly make me feel like listening to you." "So you're ignoring me?" he asks, as if I hadn't just made that crystal clear. I ignore him.
His parting shot? Like a broken record. He comes off the table and says "I hope you enjoy your chat with the shifty." Like seriously, get a new fucking hobby.
When I get taken off the table, I get told that I have to go and see the pit boss, and like clockwork, things have played out exactly as I knew they would. He's gone and narced on me for swearing, made it sound like I was cussing out the customers as opposed to the little slip that it really was, and conveniently neglected to mention the things HE said to the customers, which, IMO, were a helluva lot worse than the little cuss I let slip. So, S tells me off for swearing, which I accept, then I tell her what really went down on the table. She looks suitably aghast.
On break, I tell my friend P what happened, because he understandably wants to know why I look like I want to murder something. So I fill him in, and in the process, the rest of the people in the smoking room hear. As I leave to go back down to the floor, I shoot back at them, "this conversation never happened", because I didn't want them to go blethering back to L. Unfortunately, I realised too late that S was standing there, and realised that she thought I'd said "this conversation never happened" because I didn't want her to know what I was talking about.
(I have to admit, I hadn't even thought about her. I just didn't want word to get back to L, because the last thing he needs is more ammo.)
After my next table, I get told to go see the pit bosses. Again. And this time we're in the shifties office, being told that we're acting like a couple of five year olds (which I also admit to, but point out that I was completely and utterly provoked. What was I supposed to do, stand there and let him shit all over me? HELL to the NO.
L is all malignant because I apparently was rude to him, and I am furious because he was continually undermining me in front of customers, and in this job, it is hard enough for a girl to keep control of a table. Once you get undermined, you've lost the table, and can forget about control for the rest of your time on that table.
L gets told not to do it. I get told not to swear. We both get told not to act like five year olds, and to avoid each other, and we both get letters to that effect. I leave the office seething, because I can see the look on L's face, and it's so fucking smug I just want to crush his fucking trachea with my thumbs, nice and slow. Even now, almost a month removed from the incident, it still makes my blood boil thinking about the smug look on his face.
The next night I get a message from him on Facebook. The subject line reads "im [sic] a douche" and I apologize for the run on nature of the text, I've changed nothing but the names.
Hi k,i want to apologise for my behavior the other night,i feel really bad about the whole thing.within the world i like to think there is a kind of harmony,and i distrupted to that harmony.and here we are in xmas and i do something so mean like that.i didnt do it out of malice.i ws a bit annoyed is all,i was trying to help and i felt hat you were being rude to me in return.i think if i was going to try and solve this myelf i should have sought a better solution.so i fully understand if you hate me from this day further,an u can delete this email and never have to worry about me again if you like.but i just wanted you to know how sorry i feel.aslong as you know how sorry then i can take the rest of it.as long as you know how bad i feel,reallt bad i feel then i can take the ret of the crap that i get for being such a sad and stupid person.i dont have anything against you as a person.i dont think i can get your forgivness now.other peoples feelings matter and i should always remember that and think before i do anything.im a very flawed person.i try not to let it show.but it comes out.
you have been very honest with me about stuff that has happened to you .and i swear i will never tell anyone anything you told me.i would never do that to anyone.thats not the type of person i am.my childhood was very strange as my mum moved around alot,we moved to greymouth for a while when i was 10,but at some time over there she had a mental breakdown,and one day i came home and she had sold all of our stuff.then she thought i had lead poisoning and we went to a doctor at 4am in the mourning before she attacked the doctors car,and so i spent some time in foster care for a while.it took a while for our family from chch tracked us down and got social services to move us back to chch.that was a very sad time for me.after that i had to live with my other family members for a long time.thats something i havnt told anyone and its all true.i want you to know how sorry i am,and i want you to know that you can trust me.so im going to trust you with this,but i understand if as i did if you want to break that trust.the only other way i can think to say im sorry is to buy you something.so if you have something you want for xmas,because i feel so bad and so guilty i will buy it for you.i dont care what other people think about me but i care what you think about me,and i accept they will be very angry thoughts for a while.im very sorry,and i want you to know the sincerity of that.
From L (oh and here he used his full name, instead of the short form he goes by).
This only made me angrier. If I accept this "apology" then I basically validate his use of his allegedly hard childhood as an excuse for his current douchebaggery. I mean, are we not adults? Who among us HASN'T has shit go down in their lives? We live and we LEARN, and though I feel sorry for him if this is indeed truth, it doesn't give him the right to knowingly act like a fuckwit then bust out the "bad childhood" as an excuse. I'm sorry, but if you're self aware enough to use it as an excuse for why you act like a douche, you're self aware enough not to act like a douche in the first place. Oh and as for the "this is something i haven't told anybody" bullshit, it really IS bullshit, because I've had no less than three people come to me and tell me to let up on him because of this shit that he's had happen to him. For something he's supposedly only told me, it sure got around fast all by itself.
If, on the other hand, I refuse to accept his apology, that makes me the bad guy. "Oh, K, she's such a bitch, look at what L has been through and she won't accept his apology." And finally, if I say nothing, I've let him have the last word, and my pride will not let that rest easy. But this last was the course I chose, and my pride still grumbles at me about it.
I spend the time between then and a couple of nights ago studiously ignoring and avoiding him. I might anger quickly, but I'm not stupid. He's stupid, malicious and frankly DANGEROUS, the way he takes words and actions and twists them to get people in trouble, and for what? I honestly don't know if he genuinely feels threatened, or derives some sort of pleasure from it, or what. All I know is, I want no part of it, and I definitely want no part of it.
There is a woman, T, who has been teaching me Russian, and this becomes important. For two entire shifts, every single break was taken up by her teaching me new Russian words, except for one break where we were talking about cuss words. She was teaching me Russian swears, and saying how this one is really bad, this one not so much, and I was pointing out to her that the "really bad ones" when translated to English, were words that had lost most of their bite through overuse. Then she asked me (and N, who was sitting with us at the time) what the worst swears in English were. I told her, the C word, which I won't type because I refuse to use it. Of course, to explain it to her, I had to say it, and who should overhear me but L.
I didn't find this out until later, when on my only break without T, L cornered me and started in on me. "If you've got something to say to me, say it to my face, don't fucking talk shit about me behind my back!" I'm understandably confused, because as far as I know I've only been avoiding him, like I was told to. Besides, like I said, I've been learning Russian for two nights straight, it didn't leave a lot of time for anything else. So I respond with "What the fuck are you even talking about?" and walk away. I later found out from N (who was friends with L at the time) that when we were talking about swears, L heard "C is the worst word, L is a C." Which is so patently untrue, I'm still boggling over it.
N and L discussed it, and N stuck up for my innocence, because hello, she was part of the conversation and she knows damn well he wasn't even mentioned. L isn't convinced, and that brings me to now. I'm scared. If he decides to go to the shifties again on the strength of what he thinks he heard, I could be in a lot of trouble, because as last time shows, they're not exactly quick to take my side, even when I'm being shat on. They're busy and really not in the mood to deal with petty shit, and I get that, I do. But if he goes tattling again, they may well just discipline me officially for calling him the C word, without even listening to the story. Of course, I've got T and N who can attest to the fact that what he thinks happened, never happened, but there's no guarantee that the shifties will even let me get that far explaining myself. And frankly, I resent the fact that because of L, I might even HAVE to explain myself. Hence the point of this epic ramble, I wanted everything documented in case I have to refer back to it.
I highly doubt anyone got all the way through this, but if you did, can you please leave a comment with advice or words of comfort? They would be greatly appreciated because I'm pretty rattled at this stage! :)