Sleeper

I hate Sleeper. He's a middle-aged-going-on-senior homeless man who sleeps in people's doorways and under cars and stuff. One time in the deli across the street I opened the fridge to take out a Vitamin Water and I saw him sleeping on the other side. I got nothing against homeless people--in fact I'm pretty passionate about the issue--but this guy's just a dickwad. Home or no home.

He's been kicked out of the branch by security like a dozen times. There's a No-Trespass order on him. He harasses customers and employees. But he won't go away. I think he's trying to get arrested. Jail's no different than sleeping in the stairwell only it's got better food and some company.

He usually makes bets for other customers too lazy to walk the ten feet to my window. They pay him a few bucks out of their winnings. He steals my tips when they ask him to tip me, but I don't say anything because it's weird asking a guy to tip you. Damn Sleeper. Also, he steals from them when he gets the chance. He's always asking me for quarters, too. That's annoying.
There's a lot of customers I get along with and a lot I don't. A lot of the ones I don't usually have some redeeming qualities. Not Sleeper, though, he's just a homeless dickwad and he makes the job that much more miserable.

You may ask why we put up with customers like this, especially the ones who aren't legally supposed to be there. It's not for their patronage--in Sleeper's case we're much better off without him. But I learned early on it's easier to just take their bets and their money in the ten seconds it takes than to argue with them for ten minutes and then listen to them curse you out for the rest of the shift. It's not exactly turning the other cheek--it's more, rolling your eyes and then taking your frustrations out on a blog nobody reads.

P.S. Late last night I saw a customer picking his nose--really going at it, like up to the knuckle. Later on, when someone asked him how he always wins so much, he said it was luck. "I can't pick horses. I can't even pick my nose." I hope you appreciate the irony as much as I did.

So you want to bet at OTB...

The Belmont Stakes is coming up (Saturday, June 7) and Big Brown could become the first Triple Crown winner in decades, so horse racing has been thrust in the spotlight even more so than the usual May. The Triple Crown (the Kentucky Derby, the Preekness and the Belmont Stakes) and to a lesser extent October's Breeders' Cup are the biggest races in the sport and they bring in hundreds of millions in bets. A lot of these bets, if not most, are from normal people like you and me, people who can't even be called casual bettors.

The one thing I don't wanna do with this blog is scare anyone away from coming to an OTB. In fact, I recommend it. Like I've said earlier, it's a human safari and there's an interesting culture to be observed. And while I wouldn't recommend getting out of the car and kicking a lion in the sack, I would recommend participating in this culture, even if just once. So this is for anyone thinking about going and betting the Belmont Stakes, and for anyone who isn't and should be.

And they can seem scary. Anything unfamiliar can really, but it doesn't help that there's outbursts of screaming and cursing and more angry Asians than the climax of The Deer Hunter. Usually it's more subdued, a constant rumbling of under-the-breath swears, kind of like putting all those angry pedestrians from Grand Theft Auto into one small room. And if you come on Derby day it's gonna be a lot more crowded than usual, with the regulars getting frustrated at the long lines. If you've got a regular behind you, he's going to sigh audibly, turn around and roll his eyes at whoever is paying attention to him (no one), sigh again but this time more of a grunt, and finally go 'Oh come on!' or 'We gonna bet here or what?' Ignore this. While the company sucks up to and wants to please these regulars for their constant income, you casual bettors give us most of our profit. Plus, he's just a lonely asshole and there's probably three hours to the big race anyway. He's not your problem, and don't let him deter you from betting.

And when I say betting, I mean like five bucks. Twenty most. Don't go crazy. You don't know what you're doing, first of all. Horse racing is one of the hardest things to gamble on--despite those carefully crafted odds, it's a crapshoot and you're probably not going to win much, especially in the long run. The thrill isn't winning it's hoping you're going to win in that intense two minutes of racing (that's why the sport has lasted so long--imagine compacting all the thrills of the Super Bowl into 100 seconds.) Some of you will stay after the race and bet a few more. Usually you're the winners of the big race and you think you're an undiscovered prodigy and are about to win thousands more. Usually you lose everything you won and then some and then go back to doing whatever you usually do on Saturday night.

Don't be afraid of us, the clerks, either. Derby days are exciting for us. We like to dress a little nicer than usual and we bring in big sandwiches and lasagna. It's refreshing to see new faces and new customers who don't hate us yet, and it's fun to talk down to you and feel special that we know so much more about something (anything) than you do. So usually we'll be on our best behavior, and very nice and helpful (despite it being one of the most intense and stressful work days for us.) It may seem a little complicated--all the different bets and combinations--but it's really pretty simple and you'd get the hang of it if you did it more than one afternoon. But we will walk you through it and make sure you get what you want and lose the way you're supposed to. Just don't come to the window and say "This is my first time." It's annoying. We know it is, we can see you coming a mile away. And I know you're just saying it so we don't think you're an idiot, but you all say it, every single one of you, to the point where my eye twitches when I hear you say it. Don't say it. It's been a long day.

Oh, and don't ask how much the bets come to. This is an interesting phenomenon. In almost every other commercial transaction, the customer will see how much they owe on the register screen, but the clerk will say it out loud anyway. Maybe because we have to do it a thousand times a shift, we don't do it. The register tells you how much you owe, but we never tell you out loud. The regulars know this and just look at the screen and pay (usually they've calculated it in their heads already.) But most new customers will just stare at me with a blank face, a twenty or a hundred dollar bill in their hand. It takes me a few seconds to realize this isn't a contest. You're waiting for me to tell you how much. It's right there on the screen, just read it. It's been a long day.

'Celebrities'

Work at an OTB long enough and eventually someone there's gonna mention one of the celebrities who bets at their window. Usually within the first two to three minutes of working at an OTB, actually. Then after about two to three seconds of conversation, you're disappointed by how your co-worker defines 'celebrity.'

Sure, a few A-listers have graced us with their presence but for the most part they'd rather go to the tracks themselves in a private box with champagne and gold-plated binoculars. I apologize if I've gotten carried away.

But the celebrities who are regulars at NYC's branches aren't typically as high-profile. We've got a few supporting Sopranos castmembers, a legendary stand-up from the Chappelle show, a famous and controversial sometimes-Hollywood-writer-director, and more stand-ups but this time Jews from the Catskills. I haven't met all of them, but from what I've gathered, most of them are dicks. Maybe not the Black comic--he might just be racist--he seems to be a gentlemen to the women of his own race and just a dick to me, but I guess that's okay considering what the men and women of my own race have done. But generally speaking, their assholes. Which isn't surprising--they're just regular people, who love horse-racing like Ben Affleck loves baseball and Spike Lee loves basketball, and as we've established most horse-racing fans are assholes. So it really has nothing to do with their professions.

I'm exaggerating a little, but just a little. However, it's our reactions that are more interesting. The employees' that is. They may not be A-list but they're still more famous than we are, and they're all we've got until the ghost of Seabiscuit walks through the double doors. One guy I know keeps one of the actor's account information taped on the inside of his window--just there to look at, like an autograph. His account information. And it doesn't even say his name, it says his character's name. I guess thats slightly less creepy than a lock of hair. Or slightly more.

Even I've locked up. When I come across some of these fantastic and renowned writers, I'd love to talk shop with them and tell them I've won awards and ask for advice. But they don't want to be bothered, they just wanna get their bets in before post time. At least that's what I tell myself. It's probably more my fault I can't treat them like a typical customer (i.e: like crap.) At least I don't memorize their account information, though, right? Right?

Maybe in the long run it's because they're special, even if only by a little, and by coming to where we work and using us to get what they want, that makes us feel a little special. And when you work a mundane city job day in and day out and deal with customers and a general public who don't appreciate you and even look down on you, it's nice to feel special once in a while.

The Good Ones

We don't hate all the customers. There's a lot of decent people who just have gambling problems. (Just kidding of course, every ticket has a number for Gamblers' Anonymous on it just in case they realize how they've ruined their lives mid-race.) Instead of playing the Lotto everyday, they do this.

Decent is the word, here. Not normal. I don't think you can be normal and stay in an OTB parlor for more than a few minutes. Just like I don't think you can be normal and work at an OTB parlor for more than a few minutes. It's like being an astronaut, only less glamorous. No normal person is gonna shoot himself into the dark unknown at thousands of miles per hour. No normal person is going to sit at a window all day while being cursed at, spat on, cursed at in Spanish and spat on again.

Here's a couple of the good ones:

Well, good relatively. He's a nice enough guy, I think he's a cop but don't quote me on that. Very nice to me and some of my co-workers. Asks politely, tips, doesn't get mad if you screw up a bet. But the man hates Chinese people. In New York, but especially in my district of Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan, a lot of the OTB family is Chinese. Customers and employees. So this guy stands out. While this maybe-cop is decent enough to me and the Jew employees and the Puerto Ricans, he's a total asshole to the Chinese guys. Curses at them, yells at them, blames them for losing. Jury's still out on how he treats Black employees.

Another decent customer I met early on in my career. He came up to the window and was very quiet and soft-spoken. Rare in the OTB. "Hey, how's it going, friend? Yeah, that's good, that's good. Say, could I get a five dollar exacta on the 4 2? Thanks a lot, man, really appreciate it." He'd walk off to watch the race on one of our many flatscreen TVs. I'm thinking, if only all the customers could be like that. The race starts. Suddenly, I hear, from the very same guy, "Come on you motherf***ers!!! Ride that sh**! Ride that sh**! Your mother's a hairy cu**! Ride that motherf***king sh** you c**ksucker!!!!!!!!
What can I say? People love this sport.

The third guy was a young, pleasant Black businessman by the World Trade Center. Never cursed, never yelled. But one time his penis was hanging out of his fly. The whole thing. For like a half hour. He must've known, felt a draft or something. So there's decent guy number three, with his junk for all the world to see.

Mumbles

Mumbles is one of the customers from Brooklyn. He's in his fifties or sixties. I mean, he could be in his forties or thirties, with alcohol aging him an extra decade or two, but I doubt it. Though, I wouldn't be surprised. Mumbles falls into a small but significant category of bettors--the drunks.

As in the man is always drunk. Daytime, nightime. Sundays, whatever. Pissed drunk. I'm not sure if his distinct way of incoherent speech is reinforced by a disease or stroke or lisp or whatever but I definitely know the drinking is a huge part of it.

Can't understand a word he says. He's always mumbling and he's always shaking. Can't call him Shaker though, that's someone else. So he's Mumbles. And I never know what the hell he is betting.

He is an angry drunk, as well. Not the 'I love you, man' variety. More like the 'I hate you man, and I'm going to kill you, and sue your company.' Literally. The last few weeks now he's been telling me and the other clerks to expect subpoenas anytime soon. His lawsuit? He's suing the company for calling security and ejecting him from the branch. He was ejected because he was, that's right, drunk, and the disorderly that usually goes with it. We're not holding our breaths for the subpoenas. If we're holding our breaths at all, it's because that smell of whiskey is getting to us.

Once I had just punched in and was counting my money to start the night shift. He flipped out on me because I couldn't take his bet, saying I was too lazy to work. This was like five seconds into starting my shift. The rest of the night, he stood on the other side of the glass, cursing me out and screaming at me and telling the other customers, over and over again, that I was a 'communist' and a 'disgrace to this country.' He really let me have it. For four hours. Didn't let up for even a bit.

The next day we were fine, he even tipped me a few bucks. You'll see that this is a recurring theme in the customer-employee relationship. Instant forgiveness. Though in Mumbles' case, the brain cells in charge of remembering that Monday probably didn't make it to Tuesday. But for the rest, they forgive out of necessity.

The customers aren't just the lifeblood of the corporation-- they're the lifeblood of the culture. But maybe more poignant is this relationship between the customers and us, the employees. In many ways, it's like an unhappy marriage. The hostility between us is thick. There is passive-aggressiveness, and aggressive-aggressiveness. There is constant bickering, frequent arguing, and occasional fighting. There is accusations of communism. But at the end of the day, we're still there for each other. We need their money. They need us to push the buttons on the machine.

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.