Quote:
Originally Posted by CupOfSalt
Dealing is incredibly stressful. It kills your back and shoulders, you deal with drunk, sometimes straight belligerent and rude people constantly.
You need a thick skin but sometimes players take advantage of this and really push the limits.
People cough and sneeze on you. You interact with people who think you are responsible for them losing money. They are miserable and incredibly negative towards the dealer.
Any player who thinks dealing is "easy" doesn't have a clue how much focus, attention, and energy dealing requires. They're probably the same type of person that thinks we're just "throwing cards around".
There are plenty of more stressful jobs. Dealing poker you get to hang out with people playing a game and having fun. Just about any mistake you make, even though it might make someone angry at you, is usually easily corrected. It's not like your mistakes as a dealer will have as when a nurse, doctor, police officer, or airline pilot might make. That's a different kind of stress altogether.
On the other hand...
When you're at the table, you never get to take a mental time out. When I used to work in front of a computer for a living if I got distracted I could just sit back, take a minute or two to clear my head, and then get back to focusing on my job. You don't have that luxury when you deal cards. You can't just take a quick bathroom break or grab a cold drink whenever you want. Sometimes you deal 8 or 9 straight tables without a break. That's 4+ hours when the players demand that you be on the ball and keep the game going smoothly and quickly without any errors.
Forget about having a normal schedule. Throw your old social life out the window. Oh, all of your friends are going to a concert on Friday night? Yeah, I'll be at work. But, hey, if they schedule a concert for Tuesday at 11 AM, count me in, because that's when I'm not busy. I haven't had a weekend off in about 5 years other than when I've been on vacation. I often work 12 hours and get home at 3 AM, knowing that I have to be back at work at 1 PM the next day.
Many of the players are disgusting. They don't wash their hands or cover their mouth when they cough. Players who are too sick to go to work are happy to come play poker and sniffle for 30 minutes while they sit next to you. Every table has 2 or 3 players who are positive they know the rules better than you do.
Do you ever take a 60 minute lunch break at your job? By the time the push goes through I'm happy to get 20 minutes to run to the bathroom and then cram as much food down as I can before I'm due back at the next table.
Yes, dealing is basically an easy job. There's no e-mails. There's hardly ever a staff meeting. When I finish dealing my last hand of the table I forget about it and move on to the next table. When I finish my last hand of the night I forget about poker altogether and just go home. There's never any "unfinished work" like a report that's due the next day or a client presentation that I have to finish. But just because poker dealers don't have the type of stress at their job that you have at your job, don't think that they're taking it easy while they pitch cards to you.
I'm grateful for the tips that I get. I know that there are people out there who work with their hands in a field or on a construction site who make less money than I do pitching cards. But I've never once considered that I might be overpaid for what I do.