Spirit of Aquai

I was so disappointed when the Mohegan Sun casino in Uncasville, Connecticut changed their website to make their job offerings more accessible, because I had planned to blog about it. Before, they made people who wanted to look at their job listings go through a seven step process. You would have to click a button that said “Can you continue the Spirit of Aquai Continue” after each step. What was funny is that they never explained who or what Aquai is;

Thanks to the Internet Archive’s WaybackMachine I was able to find a copy of the old version of Mohegan Sun’s site so that I could write about it.

My second favorite step is step 4, “Grooming Standards,” where they asked you to agree to “bathe” and “brush teeth daily” and “use an effective deodorant.” (And, remember, this is just to look at their job listings.)

Now, I can understand why the Mohegans might want to insult the white man, as I’m sure the white man has fucked them over pretty well, but my family came off the the damn boat at Ellis Island. My family was way too busy being fucked over by gentile white men to fuck over a Mohegan. There is no reason to insult me like this personally; my family never did anything to fuck over a Native American. (It is arguable that my being here is an invasion of their turf; however, I have been trying desperately to get out of this asshole country for my whole life and have not been able to afford to do so, so, again, I am not responsible for fucking Native Americans – I cannot help that I was born here.) Furthermore, the Mohegan tribe has profited off of me by taking 10% of my poker winnings and from collecting the many two dollar blinds I have posted in order to immediately get into poker ring games. They were not just insulting a potential employee, they were insulting a customer whom they have made money from. It’s just not cool.

My favorite step is step 6, “Your On-Boarding Journey Begins…”

They said in this step:

“If selected, the map below represents what your on-boarding journey will be. It outlines the steps you will travel through, from the time an offer is presented, to your 90 day follow-up orientation.”

They showed you the map below:

Notice in this map how you start in Northwest Connecticut and must make a long, arduous, non-linear journey to Southeast Connecticut.

Do you see what this is? This is an allusion to the Trail of Tears. They are symbolically telling us that they want to make us pay, just as we made them and their Native American brothers and sisters pay.

In step 2, “Core Values,” the first core value they listed was “Blowing Away the Customer.” I don’t think this is a good value to strive for. As a customer, I never want to be blown away. It makes me nervous when people are too enthusiastic about pleasing me. I just want to get what I paid for and have people act courteously and professionally, that’s all. I’m pretty sure that this is what most people want.

After you had agreed to all seven steps, they gave you a few crappy job listings and did not post salaries or benefits. In the current version of their website you no longer have to go through the seven step process in order to get to the job listings, but they still don’t list pay or benefits. There is no mention of the Spirit of Aquai either. I guess that didn’t go over very well.

I don’t recommend working at Mohegan Sun or its neighboring casino, Foxwoods, because, although they have finally instituted no-smoking sections, you’re still inhaling a lot of the second hand smoke from the smoking sections, which are not properly sealed off. You’re just getting less smoke. I would put my money on both places being toxic from second-hand smoke, and you don’t want to spend thousands of hours of your life in places like these. Maybe they are good employers. Who knows? But whatever they pay is not worth the physical suffering and monetary costs of emphysema and lung cancer.

I never play against the house, so can’t really judge Mohegan Sun as a casino, other than it being smoky and tremendously tacky, as the building is designed to look like a giant wigwam. If you’re interested in poker, Mohegan Sun actually has a superb poker room with very professional dealers. The problem there is finding a full-ring table. I think the reason why this is is because they operate too many tables at once. If you are like me and you hate playing short-handed games, you are better off playing poker at crappy, zooy Foxwoods, with its abominable dealers, tasteless large-breasted waitresses with breasts hanging out all over the place (while you don’t see any nipple, there is more breast to be seen from these women, then three completely naked breasted women combined – it’s simply garish), and gimmicky, waste-of-hard-earned-money Bad Beat Jackpot (which also encourages idiot players to be river rats in hopes of hitting that asinine Bad Beat Jackpot, which nobody ever really wins because you probably have a better chance of being struck by lightning.) At least you’re pretty guaranteed to get good action at Foxwoods.