WHY DEALERS CAN'T BE HUMAN
By Frank Scoblete

I had to bring my wife to the emergency room last February. While she was being treated, I had the opportunity to watch the doctors and nurses in a real ER deal with patients who were, at times, not just sick but sickening. One drunken guy, who kept complaining that he was having chest pains, wouldn’t let the doctors examine him. He was abusive and smelled something awful.

Not once did any doctor or nurse lose their tempers and do what I wished to do –throw his ugly carcass into the street. Not once did one of the professionals working that ER room say to this obviously creepy piece of dreck: "Why don’t you just go somewhere and die?" I was amazed that they were able to take this beast’s abuse and act calm and professional. They finessed him into finally allowing them to examine him – and save his ornery life to boot! These emergency room folks were, to put a very fine edge on it, not at all human. Their responses were incredibly calm and contained.

And that is just what we expect from all our professionals, isn’t it? Cool, calm, considerate reactions to hyper-charged people and events. Do you want policemen who panic in scary situations (leave that to the rest of us)? Do you want surgeons losing their cool when something goes amiss inside Mr. So-and-So? Do you want teachers who flip out when confronted by the appalling ignorance and incredible arrogance of the youths they teach? Of course not. When Miss Jones confronts little Timmy Terrible about his behavior, we want her to be reasonable and controlled; we don’t want her wielding an axe and cleaving little Timmy’s head in twain, do we?

Dealers at blackjack and craps tables are in the same situation as other professionals, yet many of them have not been prepared properly to take the "heat" of disgruntled, grumpy, nasty, drunk and exasperating players. They either learn to deal with these behaviors while on the job, thus advancing up the chain of casino-dealer jobs from break-in joints to plush pleasure palaces, or they develop a "reactionary" personality and get stuck somewhere in a dead-end dealing job where they fester and fume. And let me tell you I have witnessed dealers and pit personnel who were the antithesis of cool professionals many times in my casino-playing career.

There are some casinos that are notorious for their nasty dealers and even nastier pit personnel. Players coming into these places to play at these tables...

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