Teach
12-24-2013, 02:38 PM
No racing for the next 48 hours. I'm already going through withdrawal symptoms. Although I can't bet, I still think about racing.
Reminds me of when I was a teller at Plainridge Racecourse in MA. The year was 2005. I was hired to work on the line, either downstairs in the teletheater or on the opposite side facing the track.
My first couple weeks were training sessions. Oh, I knew all the bets. It's just that I had to coordinate my fingers with my brain. That took a while.
Finally, I was on my own. No safety net (no experienced teller working alongside to catch any mistakes).
Yet, I vividly remember the first night that I soloed. I believe it was about 6 p.m. I had just started my shift when this guy, a regular, calls out this humongous trifecta bet at Evangeline Downs. It seems he was calling out numbers faster than that fast-talking guy you sometimes see on television.
Well, to make a long story short, I blew it! I had punched out more combinations than he had called. Instead of $100 coming up on the machine, it registered $1,000. The guy immediately said, "You musta made a mistake, that's not the amount I bet on the race."
At that moment, I'm panic-stricken. Just a few days earlier one of tellers told me that she had punched out a ticket that a man called that he said was incorrect. She tried to change it, but it was too late. She had to "eat" the $200 "mistake". She said management was good about; they took $40 out of her paycheck for the next five weeks. She would also mention that some of the regulars found out about her plight and tipped her generously if they made a score. Even so, those thoughts our conversation are running through my mind as the horses are about to load at Evangeline Downs.
Well, fortunately, in the nick of time, I got hold of one of the experienced tellers. He cancelled (I had forgotten the process) the ticket about thirty seconds before they left the gate. I heaved a sigh of relief.
A few weeks later, they literally "kicked me upstairs" to work as an ADW bet-taker. To me, that seemed a lot less stressful. However, a couple months later, I quit. In large part, because my mother, then in a nursing home, was not doing well.
Yet, I'll never forget that Evangeline Downs bet. I never did go back to working as a teller.
Reminds me of when I was a teller at Plainridge Racecourse in MA. The year was 2005. I was hired to work on the line, either downstairs in the teletheater or on the opposite side facing the track.
My first couple weeks were training sessions. Oh, I knew all the bets. It's just that I had to coordinate my fingers with my brain. That took a while.
Finally, I was on my own. No safety net (no experienced teller working alongside to catch any mistakes).
Yet, I vividly remember the first night that I soloed. I believe it was about 6 p.m. I had just started my shift when this guy, a regular, calls out this humongous trifecta bet at Evangeline Downs. It seems he was calling out numbers faster than that fast-talking guy you sometimes see on television.
Well, to make a long story short, I blew it! I had punched out more combinations than he had called. Instead of $100 coming up on the machine, it registered $1,000. The guy immediately said, "You musta made a mistake, that's not the amount I bet on the race."
At that moment, I'm panic-stricken. Just a few days earlier one of tellers told me that she had punched out a ticket that a man called that he said was incorrect. She tried to change it, but it was too late. She had to "eat" the $200 "mistake". She said management was good about; they took $40 out of her paycheck for the next five weeks. She would also mention that some of the regulars found out about her plight and tipped her generously if they made a score. Even so, those thoughts our conversation are running through my mind as the horses are about to load at Evangeline Downs.
Well, fortunately, in the nick of time, I got hold of one of the experienced tellers. He cancelled (I had forgotten the process) the ticket about thirty seconds before they left the gate. I heaved a sigh of relief.
A few weeks later, they literally "kicked me upstairs" to work as an ADW bet-taker. To me, that seemed a lot less stressful. However, a couple months later, I quit. In large part, because my mother, then in a nursing home, was not doing well.
Yet, I'll never forget that Evangeline Downs bet. I never did go back to working as a teller.