Short blog, because I need to get to bed soon. The first week of roulette training is almost over, and we've done so much. My fingers are so sore from cutting chips and pushing stacks of chips. T_T Although, funny thing happened today: I saw Paul dealing at a table to some of the other trainees, and so I went over and asked him to give me some chips, too. He pushes 6 stacks of chips (6 x 20 = 120 chips) towards me, but I tell him that I'm going to bet it all on 0 and he laughs. He spins the ball, and it lands on 0, winning me $14000 (Crown pays out 35:1 for straight-up x $2.50, since we usually pretend they're $2.50 tables), if only it was real.
The training itself is pretty intensive. Not only are we learning to manipulate chips (picking them up, "feeling" for a stack, drop-cutting, sizing-up), we're learning to spin the ball, and calculate pay-outs - and it's only our third day of training. T_T I'm getting better at chipping, but the calculations are bad. :( I never had to learn my 35 or 17 times tables, but I'm getting to know them now. Plus, we're also trying to learn picture bets now (there are certain patterns that we have to memorise, so that we know the pay-off just by looking at it), so even more to memorise.
Enough about the work though, I mostly wanted to talk about the people. I did say last time that I wanted to be more involved with the people that work at Crown, especially since I never really got to know anyone at Safeway, and considering Crown employs over five thousand people, how sad would it be if I couldn't make a single friend there (Rangers doesn't count, since I was friends with him before I started there, and he works in another department)? So on our first day of roulette training, the only three girls who were there (apparently the people who got selected for roulette training were the ones who are good at maths, which nearly made me fall of my chair, since I'm one of them - but since guys are said to generally be better at maths than girls, it would make sense that there were more guys there, though most of the math geeks I know are female, oh well), said we would band together and help each other out, so I've spent almost all of my time hanging our with them. They're both really sweet, but sometimes I just get the feeling that every third time they open their mouths, feminism gets set back another 5 years. I do enjoy spending time with them, but I still feel like a bit of a pretender, since they spend a lot of time talking about clothes/shoes/fashion, and I just kinda make generic statements. =/ They both like to cook and bake though, so I really enjoy talking to them about baking. F gave me an awesome idea for cookies.
Anyway, the part that has kinda been grating on my mind lately is how much I've been trying to fit in - even going to the extend of jaywalking. The path from where we train and where we eat isn't all that great if you want to cross at the lights, so if we want to eat enough during our meal breaks, we usually have to cross in the middle, without lights, but before we did that, we'd have to wait at this intersection with slow lights. At first, everyone was happy to wait at the lights, so I was fine, but then it got to the point where people didn't want to wait, and so they'd just cross at a red light. It's not something I'd do, but I found that if I wanted to stay with the pack, I had to as well, otherwise I'd be left far, far behind. So I did. It felt so bad. =( A part of it was because I didn't really want to get left alone, as it was dangerous - I'm starting to get paranoid that I'm going to be mugged or stabbed or something in this area. Most of it though, was because I didn't feel comfortable enough with these people to tell them to wait with me at a red light, or explain to them that I didn't cross at red lights. I was afraid that they'd think I'm weird and walk off without me.
It's a bit strange, but I've found that because I know they'll cross at red lights, I'm a lot more comfortable with crossing in the middle of the road (where there are no lights) now than I would be normally. Still, I feel as though this person that is sitting there with people, and laughing with them isn't the real me, and soon they're going to discover that. There is one good thing though - the oldest guy in our group is awesome. He knows so much stuff - he was head chef somewhere, and also worked as a pastry chef, so I'm learning lots of baking tips from him. He told me that if I want to ice a cake, I should get a tablespoon of apricot/plum jam, half a cup of water, and boil it until it has reduced by half its volume, then coat the cake with that until it sets, then ice the cake and it should be nice and smooth. The jam/water thing shouldn't change the flavour of the cake at all. I really enjoy talking to him, he knows so much, and I want to know it all, too.
Wow, longer than I thought, I should really get to bed, I'm so tired and my fingers want to fall off.
The training itself is pretty intensive. Not only are we learning to manipulate chips (picking them up, "feeling" for a stack, drop-cutting, sizing-up), we're learning to spin the ball, and calculate pay-outs - and it's only our third day of training. T_T I'm getting better at chipping, but the calculations are bad. :( I never had to learn my 35 or 17 times tables, but I'm getting to know them now. Plus, we're also trying to learn picture bets now (there are certain patterns that we have to memorise, so that we know the pay-off just by looking at it), so even more to memorise.
Enough about the work though, I mostly wanted to talk about the people. I did say last time that I wanted to be more involved with the people that work at Crown, especially since I never really got to know anyone at Safeway, and considering Crown employs over five thousand people, how sad would it be if I couldn't make a single friend there (Rangers doesn't count, since I was friends with him before I started there, and he works in another department)? So on our first day of roulette training, the only three girls who were there (apparently the people who got selected for roulette training were the ones who are good at maths, which nearly made me fall of my chair, since I'm one of them - but since guys are said to generally be better at maths than girls, it would make sense that there were more guys there, though most of the math geeks I know are female, oh well), said we would band together and help each other out, so I've spent almost all of my time hanging our with them. They're both really sweet, but sometimes I just get the feeling that every third time they open their mouths, feminism gets set back another 5 years. I do enjoy spending time with them, but I still feel like a bit of a pretender, since they spend a lot of time talking about clothes/shoes/fashion, and I just kinda make generic statements. =/ They both like to cook and bake though, so I really enjoy talking to them about baking. F gave me an awesome idea for cookies.
Anyway, the part that has kinda been grating on my mind lately is how much I've been trying to fit in - even going to the extend of jaywalking. The path from where we train and where we eat isn't all that great if you want to cross at the lights, so if we want to eat enough during our meal breaks, we usually have to cross in the middle, without lights, but before we did that, we'd have to wait at this intersection with slow lights. At first, everyone was happy to wait at the lights, so I was fine, but then it got to the point where people didn't want to wait, and so they'd just cross at a red light. It's not something I'd do, but I found that if I wanted to stay with the pack, I had to as well, otherwise I'd be left far, far behind. So I did. It felt so bad. =( A part of it was because I didn't really want to get left alone, as it was dangerous - I'm starting to get paranoid that I'm going to be mugged or stabbed or something in this area. Most of it though, was because I didn't feel comfortable enough with these people to tell them to wait with me at a red light, or explain to them that I didn't cross at red lights. I was afraid that they'd think I'm weird and walk off without me.
It's a bit strange, but I've found that because I know they'll cross at red lights, I'm a lot more comfortable with crossing in the middle of the road (where there are no lights) now than I would be normally. Still, I feel as though this person that is sitting there with people, and laughing with them isn't the real me, and soon they're going to discover that. There is one good thing though - the oldest guy in our group is awesome. He knows so much stuff - he was head chef somewhere, and also worked as a pastry chef, so I'm learning lots of baking tips from him. He told me that if I want to ice a cake, I should get a tablespoon of apricot/plum jam, half a cup of water, and boil it until it has reduced by half its volume, then coat the cake with that until it sets, then ice the cake and it should be nice and smooth. The jam/water thing shouldn't change the flavour of the cake at all. I really enjoy talking to him, he knows so much, and I want to know it all, too.
Wow, longer than I thought, I should really get to bed, I'm so tired and my fingers want to fall off.
