Blue Haired Fury

In the gaming industry, I'm considered "Back Of House." Under normal conditions, I do not deal with "guests" at work. I usually only interact with employees. And even then less than a third of all employees have any kind of computer access.

Today, I learned why I don't deal with guests. I made the heinous mistake of walking the gaming floor in the middle of a massive, prolonged outage. Because one of the gaming-related systems was offline, the guests could not use the ATM-like kiosks (there are almost 40 of them on the floor) to cash out. They couldn't get their money without going to a cage, waiting in line, and getting a flesh & blood person to cash them out.

In the 21st Century, old ladies are no longer patient. They do not want to wait to get their hard earned money. They do not want to have it counted out three times and then handed to them one bill at a time. Old ladies want a quiet, efficient, blazingly fast MACHINE to spit out their money out on-demand.

As soon as one of them learned learned "the computer guy" was on the scene, they flocked down on me like a pack of vitriolic harpies. It was a bitter, acid-filled, one-sided conversation. The angry masses berated me for my lack of skillz and my inconsideration for forcing them to suffer the indignitity of manually cashing out.

They put curses on my children. They openly chanted and prayed for my quick, painful demise.

All I could do was nod stupidly and say, "Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry. Yes, ma'am."

I'll never go down to the gaming floor again. I fear the blue haired fury.