I've been checking out the job posts over on the casino that I used to work at.

https://caesars.hodesiq.com/Default.aspx

It's the Hammond Horseshoe property. It was called Empress when I worked there. I worked there in 1998. Almost 20 years ago.

The pay has barely changed. I still remember what I made. $7.25/hour. That was for setting up for and cleaning up after parties. One of the lowest jobs in the company.

I see that "beverage servers" are making $10/hour "plus tips". I think that these are cocktail waitresses. Perhaps in these more enlightened times, men can do the job too. And I'd imagine that the skimpy outfits are no longer used. For the best, really. Most of those women didn't have the body for it. Middle aged housewives and shit.

"Cleaning services attendant". $9.25. This isn't quite what I did. This looks more like a straight up cleaner sort of job. But it's close. In 20 years, the pay has gone up $2.

All of their dealer jobs are experienced only. They pay FIVE DOLLARS AN HOUR! Plus tips. Is this even legal? What's the minimum wage in Indiana? It was like $5.25 when I was working there. Yeah, it's $7.25. I don't know how this can possibly be legal.

A valet (not sure if the job exists in the UK...parks cars) is advertised as $11.50 - £13.50/hour. "Oh, that has to be $11.50 but still, that's okay, I guess."

No. Big lie. Read on and it says $6/hour. And the "toke rate" is "generally $5.50 - $7/hour". I don't know what a "toke rate" is. How many cars you park is my guess.

There's also tips, it says. But then it says, "tips are not guaranteed and you should never solicit for tips".

Let me Google "toke rate". Seems to be a casino term. I guess it's like pooled tips. The tips are pooled together and then everyone gets an even share. Yeah, I had that at that job but it was never much and one asshole was regularly stealing the tips. Even after they caught him, he wasn't fired.

Coat check attendant makes $6/hour. How is this going on? I vaguely remember waitresses being allowed to be paid less than minimum wage because of tips. But valet parkers? Coat check attendants? It's ridiculous.

These people are making LESS money than I made 20 years ago at the same establishment. That tells you how bad America is doing.

It's like I went to a pizza delivery message board a few years ago. Everybody was complaining about how little money they were making. So I said, "What are you guys talking about? I made 100 bucks a day easy"

But no, it seems that that's no longer the case. They talked about how the company would take half their tips, they didn't get gas money, they were getting paid entirely in tips, stuff like this.

It's a real regression. I mean, 20 years. I remember as a kid buying a pack of like 10 Tootsie Pops for $1 and my father saying, "When I was a kid, these were five cents." I think he meant for the whole bundle.

Let me check Foxwoods out. This was the casino I worked at a few years later. Made $8.25/hour doing security. What scumbags. They don't put the wage. For any jobs. Sometimes it's just the low-wage jobs that they don't put the wages for. Perhaps this means that all of the jobs are low-wage.

There's some reviews here:

http://www.indeed.com/cmp/Foxwoods-Resort-Casino/reviews

What I find remarkable is virtually everyone marveling over the "free" one hour lunches. Or sometimes two 30 minute breaks. This should absolutely be a given. But even in the UK, I've worked in shitty places that didn't pay for lunch and/or gave you a 30 minute lunch.

Wait a minute. Are they even talking about getting paid for that hour or do they mean the free food you get for lunch? I think it's the latter. Yeah, the food was free. And I do remember this being a big deal for everyone. I can't remember if the lunch hour was paid or not.

How sad that free food is a big perk. At the rate the country seems to be going, soon you'll be working for just food.

What else? Check that mental place out. What did I make there? $11.25/hour, I think. Yeah, this has gone down. It's $14.00/hour but I remember checking this a few years ago and I remember it being $15.50. Because I rememer thinking, "Well, that's not bad and it's keeping up with inflation". But no, $14? To work in that place? No way.

According to the Internet Archive, it was $12.75 in January of this year.

And yeah, I was right. In April 2014, it was $14.50 - $16.

In addition to reverting to the old pay, they also reverted to the old job title. When I was there, it was "behavioral therapist". When they were paying $14.50-$16 it was "mental health assistant". Now that they're paying shit wages again, they're back to "behavioral therapist".

Let's see what the reviews are like. Wow. These positive reviews have to be fake.

Yeah. Anyone giving more than one star is fake. Yeah, this guy gets it: "A lot of expectations for very low pay. Cameras are watching you 24/7 this company acts paranoid." It seems that things haven't changed. Including the pay.

This guy seems to suggest that it was shut down. Is that right? Not according to Wikipedia or the company website or anything I can find on Google.

I guess that's it. Oh wait. It's a long shot but maybe the substitute teaching job will be advertised. Well, it is and it isn't. The job is listed but no information.

So...what else is going on? Got a replacement cord for my phone today. Came in the mail. Works great. My old cord had a loose connection. You'd have to wrap the wire around the phone in order to get it to charge reliably.

Have a good game of CK2 going. Started in Sienna, Italy. My plan was to do nothing. Just stay as count of Sienna for the entire game.

But after 150 years of this, it started to get boring so I pressed a ducal claim that my wife had. So when she died, my son became the duke. Then I decided to press claims for any member of my dynasty that might benefit, either immediately or upon the previous ruler's death. Soon, I had about two dukes and two or three counts from my dynasty, all in Italy. They would come and go depending on whether they managed to have sons or not and sometimes shit would get revoked.

Then the plague came and killed the king of Italy (actually Lombard). And since it was elective monarchy, I was elected king thanks to all of these claims that I was pressing for members of my dynasty. I got in by just one vote.

Then I started going to town with revoking duke titles from non-dynasty members and giving them to my sons. I guess because the plague was going on, people were hesitant to revolt because your armies just take huge attrition during the plague.

Anyway, this king of mine was old when he was elected and he died after three years of the plague. But because I put my sons as dukes (I had about four sons) my oldest son was elected next king. And he was like 24 at the time.

So that's where I am now. I also have about four sons but am younger so can revoke titles more slowly, more safely. I gave two of my sons dukedoms. Two more to go. There's only about three dukes who aren't members of my dynasty at this point. The other 7 or so are dynasty members.

I've also managed to increase centralization and crown authority. The previous kings were all weak because there were regular crown authority decreases due to faction demands, some of which I took part in as a duke. I was trying to get it to the bottom level. But now as king, I'm trying to get things strong. The only things the council can vote on at this point are imprisonment (which is useless) and war (which is also useless because I don't plan on declaring war until every county in Italy is ruled by a member of my dynasty...which will take a generation or two).

Then after that...I don't know. Take over the Papal states. Maybe try to get the Byzantians out of southern Italy. Perhaps not possible because they currently have three times as many troops as we have. But maybe they'll have a big revolt. Unlikely, though. Byzantium never breaks up. But who knows. Could restore the Roman Empire. And I never used the "fabricate claim" thing. That's the first time for this. It's fun. Adds a challenge to the game.