More short sided thinking by management

[olds442jetaway]

Stuff like this happens in almost all big companies. Last night at Mohegan Sun is just another example. Wife and I had just sat down to enjoy a late summer drink on the house at the buffet. Our usual and very pleasant waitress was there. When we started to order, she stopped us and said she was sorry that the blender in the buffet bar wasn't working. I initially accepted her response and we ordered instead a couple of Mango Tangos which did not require the blender. It kind of bugged me though and I casually asked her how long the blender had been out. She said over three weeks. At that point right after dinner, I decided to pursue it a little further. I spoke with the buffet manager who I know and is very nice and he explained things this way." We are waiting for a hard to get part. I have notified upper management and that is all I can do. Other guests have been very disappointed as well. " I said why can't you folks for now just take one off the shelf from your giveaway stash and use it until the commercial one can be fixed, or even better, just get a new commercial one. Of course he said he didn't have the authority to do that and upper management had decided to just wait for the part to come in. In the meantime, the casino has disappointed countless summer visitors and who knows what effect that had on their gambling day and also feedback to others who might be thinking about going to the the casino. I know this is a small item in the overall picture, but to me it is such short sided thinking by the higher ups. I was a troubleshooter for 35 years before retirement 12 years ago and believe me, if I was in the position at Mohegan Sun, that would have been taken care of that day or next. Edited to add....I just thought of one more thing. Those blender drinks run 9 bucks a pop and most patrons don't qualify for the free ones. I wonder how much lost revenue they had just in the last 3 weeks from those drinks. I bet more enough to pay for a new commercial blender!! Anyway, I just checked and they can be bought for just two hundred bucks and up. The correct solution would be to replace the broken one, wait for the new part, fix that one, and keep it as a spare for the next time something like this happens which of course it will.

[FAA]

A ton of red tape at the Sun, and of course most other venues. Drinks are such a huge profit center that I would not want that spigot turned off longer than an hour. The Mango Tango recipe I read did require a blender, so you got lucky with that. I only order one drink per session myself, and they are free at the bar. I should definitely avail myself of the opportunity more!

[DaBurglar]

Olds, I one hundred percent agree.     I am dumbfounded at how all these LARGE casinos (especially in AC but also your mOHEGAN, FOXWOODS AND EVEN SOME VEGAS PROPERTIES)  are operated......the so called "executives" in charge are clueless, CLUELESS and seemingly could care less about "the little things"......I have found that the higher tier managment positions in most casinos are filled with people who literally were at the bottom of their MBA classes, who are lazy, shallow and not very bright.   Running a casino is not rocket science, but running a casino in an EXCEPTIONAL, well done manner which leaves your competition in the dust and ensures a healthy bottom line month after month requires someone with COMMON sense, Business chutzpah, excellent customer service and operations skills, and most important a HIGH energy, outgoing personality and style......this is a rare enough combo of qualities to be found in a person and would (and should) command a hefty salary and compensation package.   But alas, most of the casino big wigs in AC are NOTHING like what I just described, they are instead heavy set, late 40s thru early 60s in age and clearly are aware that they are being paid way above what they deserve and as such are desperate to hang on to these cushy positions for one more quarter so they can get the next bonus check.....they do not want to rock the boat and do much of anything that is going to require sustained consistent effort on their part.They want the good ol' days back when they did not have to do a damn thing and they would make money hand over fist.....All you have to do is look back at exactly HOW Atlantic city literally fell apart over the span of just a few years *basically from 2007 thru 2011*      When the so-called competition opened up in Pennsylvania in late 2006, AC went from having a near monopoly on all gambling on the east coast and the surrounding area(s) which contained densely populated cities and regions, to all of a sudden having many competing casinos in nearby states.    Now, what exactly did the fat, lazy, arrogant, and oblivious management of the AC casinos do when this threat emerged?   In short, NOTHING.......they did nothing OF CONSEQUENCE to meet the threat and at least try to mitigate the damage and hang on to the market share they previously took for granted.    The lazily reasoned that the people in places like Pennsylvania, and down south in MAryland, Delaware, Virginia and beyond, would not completely abandon AC just because some single casino opened up down the street!   They figured people would try the competition, then realize "it's not AC' and then resume visiting AC!!!    What morons.......they first and foremost forgot that their so-called "AC experience" had deteriorated in terms of quality and service over the years prior to 2007 such that people were ripe to bolt.....and stay "bolted" when it became apparent that the idiots running AC were not going to go to any great effort to keep them from bolting to the new casinos in surrounding states.This is the point no one seems to remember, and it is galling.    AC and its crony management, essentially ALLOWED the business (over half) to evaporate before anyone really tried to stem the tide, and by the time they did, it was too late!!!!    I'll never understand it nor will I accept all the excuses and BS sob stories people from AC and its casinos give for the decline in their fortunes.    I will concede that AC woul dhave experienced some downward trends in revenue NO MATTER what simply because the extent of new competition after 2007 was prolific......BUT no way in hell do I accept that losing 50% (and counting) of the business AC had for nearly 30 years was "inevitable" and that the current pathetic state of things was the natural progression of things......they could have and should have done so much more, pulled out all the stops, done whatever it took, to keep people coming back to AC!  The profit margins would have suffered, but such is the nature of MAture industries like the casino biz, and they could have operated on a leaner and meaner premise while still retaining casinos like the AC club, Showboat and the Plaza.The Revell was the straw the broke the citiies back, literally.....that fiasco just killed them......if Revell had not opened, I am certain that at least showboat and trump Plaza would still be squeaking by and at least still employing the people who were lost.....Never in my life have I seen such a concentration of such OBVIOUS incompetence and pathetic business management.

[FAA]

I came after the glory days. Revel was my AC lounge. I never played there, but what a sumptuous lounge the entire building was. It was especially inviting after hearing myself think at the nearby no show Showboat. Nobody won on machines that got no play. In hindsight, CET management wizards were likely complicit in the poor payouts!