Notes on Novelty

My first year working in the Nevada casinos taught me that "you get out of it what you put into it." And this I have carried forward with me ever since. Despite this note of positiveness, working in a casino can be DEADLY BORING. For the guests, it is exciting, uplifting, and inspiring. For employees, it is the same old thing day after day.

During my first year, everything was new to me. As an employee I was riding the same waves as all the guests. Wow! This is fun! I wonder what is going to happen next! Right near the end of that year, I started noticing that it was the same old thing over and over again. What a drag.

Then I heard a couple of old-timers (with a combined total of 70 years in the business...) talking about things they'd seen in said years. They were swapping stories to see if the other guy had ever seen what they'd seen.

"Have you ever seen someone barf on a blackjack table?" "Oh, yeah. More than once."
"Have you ever seen one of the dice from the craps table bounce right into a buxom woman's cleavage?" "Sure, sure. Happens all the time."
"Have you ever seen the stickman get the stick caught on his sleeve between himself and the rail, sending the stick so high in the air that it took a full 10 seconds for the stick to go all the way up and then fall two feet away from a little old lady?"
"Woah... nope. Never seen that before. Have you?"
"Yep. At the Pioneer Club in 1989. We were working day shift..."

Nope, never seen that before.

That response has stayed with me ever since then. I had never heard of such an approach to any business. After that I was alert and alive for things I had never seen before. I walked in fresh every day ready to get out of it exactly what I put into it.... something new, something rare, something fresh.

This doesn't run as an "active" inner dialog for me. It is more secondary, perhaps subconscious. But when I see something rare, unique, and certainly unusual, the first thing that pops into my mind is...

Nope, never seen that before.