Hands, Cheeks...And Timing

*Another of the 'Now I Can' series from a former work place*

When you work in a place where there are regular shifts that don't rotate, you generally tend to work with the same persons. In my surveillance days, I worked just about every schedule the room had. But I must say, the most workplace 'fun' I had was during the time I worked afternoons and evenings with the duo of 'Wanda' and 'Robert'.

When fecal material was hitting the ventilation, we were a well-oiled machine, and each generally knew what the other was going to do, which made for well-organized chaos. But it was always chaos that we never came out on the butt end of.

Well, except for once...literally.

When things were in that 'calm before the chaos' mode, it wasn't unusual for idle chatter to fill the time between radio traffic and telephone calls. Any subject was up for improvisational discussion. It frequently didn't have to be something necessarily work-related.

But some of the best moments were sparked by things on the work front.

For a period of time, the female cocktail waitresses at work wore rather revealing chaps as a part of their uniform. Some, as can be imagined, wore them better than others. Some wore them MUCH BETTER than others. And over the years, the casino ran the gamut of examples, from the 10 out of 10 rated *jaw droppers*, to the *OMG..WTF was the recruiter smokin' when they hired this one..BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZER*.

In the good ol' days, we had our share of *jaw droppers*.

One evening, when the level of paperwork havoc was pleasingly light, 'Wanda' suddenly ventured off into a discussion about how hard it was to identify some cross-dressers, in the wake of talking about a story on the news the previous evening, about how a Denver cabbie was duped by a man, dressed like a woman, and claiming to be a niece of the greek Onassis family. While I made snide comments about "junk bulge and five o'clock shadow tip-offs", 'Robert' didn't contribute much initially, as he continued to casually scan the casino floor. Then, he suddenly acted all excited, and directed our collective attention to the cocktail server station at the upstairs bar, and one very statuesque, 6' tall cocktail waitress in particular:

Robert: "Look at those hands".
Me: "Whaddabout 'em?"
Wanda: "Huh?"
Robert: "Look at them (as he zooms in on her hands)!"
Me: "Yeah, so?"
Robert: "Those are MAN hands!"
Wanda: "Oh, nuh-uh!"

As 'Robert' continues to insist that this cocktail waitress has "man hands", both he and I note that this line of thinking is starting to tweak 'Wanda' a bit. So while I'm not necessarily buying his obvious gambit, I'm start to act like I'm beginning to see what 'Robert' is seeing:

Wanda: "There is NO WAY that ****** is a man! Get real!"
Robert: "Oh come ON, 'Wanda'! LOOK AT THOSE HANDS! Those are GORILLA HANDS! Man hands, no doubt!"
Me: *as serious as I can fake* "Well, y'know, I never really thought that, but now that you mention it..."
Wanda: "Oh for crying out loud you two.."
Robert: "Well, YOU'RE the one who says how hard it is to tell cross-dressers...I'm tellin' ya, look at those hands.."
Me: "Hmmm, I dunno, 'Wanda'...I'm thinkin' that 'Robert' stumbled onto something h'yar.."
Robert: "Yep! ****** is a man, and those hands prove it..."

After a couple more minutes of this, 'Wanda' gets totally exasperated, and as the waitress is walking away from the bar with a tray full of drinks, 'Wanda' takes the same zoom-capable camera away from 'Robert', and zooms it in on....her butt (from we guy's point of view, nicely enhanced by the chaps):

Wanda: "SEE?? SEE?? IS THAT A MAN'S BUTT? NO!!! THAT IS NOT A MAN'S BUTT!!!"

*Telephone rings before either 'Robert' or I can respond...I answer it*

Me: "Surveillance, (my name)"
Duty Security Shift Supervisor: "Quit zooming in on ******'s butt!"

(Note: the Security/Surveillance manager had a surveillance monitor and full-access key board in his office in those days, and the duty security shift supervisors had access to it; this supervisor liked to 'check up on Surveillance' from time to time, to see what we were doing, and the conservation continues)

Me: "Isn't me, boss..."
DSSS: "Well, then tell 'Robert' to knock it off..."
Me: "Isn't him either..." (Note: neither 'Robert' or 'Wanda' know what the call is in reference to, yet)
DSSS: "Who else is up there???"
Me: *handing the phone to Wanda* "Here, it's for you..."
Wanda: "This is 'Wanda'...."

Followed by about 20 seconds or so of 'Wanda' alternating between attempts to explain why she had zoomed a camera in on ******'s butt, and the DSSS taking full advantage of a 'gotcha moment' he'd use for all it was worth, for future tweaking.

*Wanda hangs up phone in obvious annoyance*

Wanda: *glaring*.."I cannot BELIEVE THIS...are you two HAPPY NOW?"
Robert & Me, grinning/laughing: "Uh...yeah".
Robert: "Oh, Wanda?"
Wanda: *in a threatening tone*.."What..."
Robert: "That was definitely a woman's butt..."
Wanda: *still annoyed*.."Robert..."
Robert: "..with man-like hands.."

I *duck* as an empty styofoam coffee cup goes sailing over my head, and *bonks* off of 'Robert'.
In time, 'Wanda' found the whole episode funny, too. 'Robert' and I managed to survive finding it thus from the outset...

America's Funniest (Unseen) Videos

At one time, my former Surveillance room had a compilation tape. Granted, we produced no shortage of compilation tapes for official use. But not this one. This one had nothing to do with high profile cases. Nor of accumulated gaming criminals or cheats. Not even of training aids.

No, this compilation tape was our room's official 'blooper' tape. If it was something we reviewed, and it was funny to us -- funny being rather subjective -- it was added to the 'blooper' tape.

The tape got sizeable, with the best of casino 'blooper' moments we in Surveillance had observed for found during a review. It wasn't unusual for local authorities to stop by on a "walk-thru", and ask to see the video, or show it to their colleagues.

On it, were moments to remember. Employee and guest falls that were downright comical. A guest sneaking up behind and 'goosing' a slot tech on the casino floor. A security supervisor, talking to an intoxicated guest, who tried to 'goose' him three times during the chat. An employee, in the middle of the gaming floor, picking his nose and wiping it on a slot chair. A cocktail waitress, losing her balance and her drink tray in spectacular fashion. Two drunk females, making out with each other in the lounge, with mouths full of food. A security officer watching the drop team, falling asleep on his feet and falling backward when he did so. Women exposing their chests for the band, or a bus group. And some unexplained occurrences, all attributed to "Abner", the casino ghost (for another time).

Of course, the video had it's favorite moments, as rated by room observers, supervisors, and some of the outside agencies who had the opportunity to see the 'unacknowledged' video. For instance:

- we got a call to do a review on where the contents of a strap of $50 bills had gone. The observer assigned wasn't told the whole story. So he cued it up ... and snickered ... *rewind*... guffawed ...*rewind*... LOL ... at this point, my curiosity was aroused. He cued it up again ... ROFL ...*rewind*... now the casino shift manager has arrived ... LOAO ...*rewind*. In short, the cashier put the strap of $50s in a bill counter. What it should have done was run the bills through, and verify the strap was proper in quantity. INSTEAD...when the cashier hit the button, the entire strap of $5,000 in $50s went up in the cashier's face, and all over the carousel. And yes, all of the $50s were accounted for.

- a main cage cashier fell in the cage. As SOP, Surveillance did a review for the incident report that Security had to fill out. The cashier herself was insistent that she was fine, and no report was needed. She was overruled by her supervisor. I got the review. What it showed: the cage consisted of five windows with a narrow aisle to walk thru between the cashiers and the wall where the jetsorts (for coin) were. This particular cashier was working in Window 4 at the time. She apparently decided she needed to adjust her shoe. Instead of bending over to do it, she picked up her left foot, raised it, and crossed it across her right leg, balancing on her right foot. And promptly lost that balance to the left, hopping madly on one foot trying to regain that lost balance...past Window 3...past Window 2..accelerating...past Window 1 and *KE_RASH* into the office at the end. I can only imagine how it looked to guests in the other windows at the time...

- the security supervisor called up to request a review, one he sounded rather dubious about. Seems he'd been told that an elderly woman got her head 'caught' in one of the passenger elevator doors on the second floor. The woman herself was not hurt, just embarrassed. What with the safety features of the elevators, he didn't believe her story. So I was in the process of cueing it up, just as the supervisor arrived. A rather dry-humored, laconic sort, he wasn't one to display emotion to any great degree. He almost never laughed. So I began the playback: the short, elderly woman, stooped in stature, had pushed the button for the elevator. The car to her right opened. She shuffled toward it, stooped forward. But not fast enough: the very outer doors of the elevator shut before she could enter. On both sides of her forward-leaning head. And for several seconds, there she appeared, stuck and not moving, making no effort to back away from the doors. Until a bypasser ran up and separated the doors (her head hadn't made contact with the inner doors with all the safety features). I have never seen that supervisor laugh harder or longer. The rest of us were no better off.

- when I first went to Surveillance, the arcade for minors (attached to the deli) was a sizeable affair, with about 25 arcade games in it. Of course, we had a camera to monitor the goings on therein. Our camera -- a moveable, pan-tilt-zoom one -- was parked broadside to an authentic penny arcade horse. The horse was, in the words of America, a "horse with no name". Until one night. We observed a couple and their daughter -- IDed by Security as having just turned 21 -- go into the arcade. Therein, while daughter mounted the horse, Mom put in a penny. And for the next 25-30 seconds, a display was put on for three male Surveillance observers that was nothing short of pure sexual fantasy (she did everything on the back of that horse but strip). From that night forward, the we named the horse 'Lucky'. Two observers needed cigarettes afterward.

- another carousel cashier was moving bags of slot tokens (600 to a bag, and about 33 pounds each), when she dropped one on her foot. The ten second long, one-legged dance she did, was worthy of the Three Stooges.

- what came to us as a reported fall by a patron, turned out to have been a patron who -- after some extended care, courtesy of her friendly (if unattentive) casino pharmacist -- tried to get up from her slot chair, tangled her leg with one of the chair, and fell sideways...taking two unbraced persons to her left with her. It looked just like falling dominos.

- and one fall on the escalator, where a rather obese woman lost her balance and literally 'rolled' backward, taking two people behind her down with her.

Sadly, that 'blooper' tape was not allowed to survive. Not that it could ever have seen the light of day beyond the Surveillance room...but I sure do miss the famous "Lucky" sequence ;-)