Introduction

First things first: I've never really read a blog before let alone write one, please excuse any crudeness in my evolving style. And I don't need to be condescending or elitist there--I've never read blogs for a specific reason. I find individual lives extremely interesting, and with my addictive nature my life would be consumed with absorbing as many personal rants, anecdotes and musings as I could until my eyes dried out and my pixels burned out. This... fascination... with individual lives is why I took so unexpectedly to my job--not my addictive nature, though that's another story. As a writer, and just as an observer of the human condition, the OTB is a school like no other.

What is Off-Track Betting? Everyday there are literally hundreds of horse races going off all over the globe, and every race is being bet on. You could go to the track and pick a winner and make some scratch, but that's one track, and it's usually a drive out. The OTB is exactly what it says-- a location where you can make some bets and watch the races on TV. They're everywhere, and not all affiliated.

What do I do at the OTB? I take your bets, punching them into a computer and handing you a ticket just like I would with a lottery machine. I work for the New York City Off-Track Betting Corporation. I'm what they call a Per Diem (Latin: by the day.) I fill in for people on vacation or calling in sick, hopping shift to shift, branch to branch, across the five boroughs. However, I usually keep within Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan.

I've been there just over two years though to most of my co-workers I'm a rookie. Most of them have been there since the 80s if not the 70s. It says something about this job that people are so reluctant to retire.

This blog has one main purpose and that is offer a window inside a culture that, although right out in the open, is pretty much in the shadows. Most people don't dare step into an OTB parlor, and they don't know what they're missing. It's a regular human safari. Usually, more like a zoo.

I got a notice in the mail today, informing me that in six weeks the NYC OTB will be shut down and me and my fifteen hundred co-workers will be laid off. The reasons and politics behind this are complicated and eventually I will touch on them, but this isn't about that. It's about the days past, not the dark ones coming. To show you something you probably wouldn't have seen otherwise. Isn't that what most blogs, what most writing in general is for? I'd like to give my fellow co-workers as well as my loyal and diverse customers a voice. Even if not one person reads this (the OTB co-workers and loyal and diverse customers not being a Blog demographic) I will feel better knowing these words exist somewhere, even if hidden deep within the intangible regions of the world wide web.

One final note: if you know me, my defense of such an institution might be contrary to my passionate ideals and convictions. But what is life if not a serious of contradictions?

Welcome to my job, and right now my life. It's pretty off-track, and I hope that's what makes it interesting.