Silvio Petricciani - University of Nevada, Reno

128 Silvio E. Petricciani
or anything, why then you’re just a lucky
person. And I consider myself very lucky,
so therefore I don’t lord this over somebody
who is—well, I hate to use the word—but
my inferior mentally, physically, or—I can’t
say educationwise because my education has
been limited. But [it’s] surprising what people
can learn with just plain old common sense.
So possibly that’s why I have the rapport
with my employees and why they like me so
much because I know that they can—well,
they’re just human beings; I consider them
my children. I know that they go out and get
drunk; I know they get in trouble; I know that
sometimes they can’t pay the rent, and they
feel that they can come to me and—they all
call me “the Godfather”—they can come to
me and they know they’re going to get bailed
out somehow or other. And maybe I’m wrong
in doing this, but by the same token, I’ve seen
people in this business work it around the
other way and when people come for help,
not even listen to them or turn them away,
and it’s strange—when a person is that way,
then the employee loses respect for them
and they find a way to tax them, and they
tax them in many different ways, possibly
slowdown of work; sometimes they’ve been
known to even steal from their employer, but
it’s really a psychological way of showing their
resentment. It’s not so much that the person
is a thief, but they say, “Okay fellow, I gave
you a chance to help me, I gave you a chance
to let me remain honest and you turned me
down, you turned me away, so consequently
you don’t deserve my complete respect; you
don’t deserve my complete honesty.” And
you’ll find that this is true.
And it’s not only true in this business;
you look in the grocery store business or the
employees—I mean it’s a national trend. If
they could stop all of the thievery that goes
on in grocery stores, for instance, the prices
of food would come down tremendously.
But it’s a national problem and it’s not mine
alone. But I’ve seen this happen with people,
and I can say truthfully that I’ve never done
that and never really had to, but I could see
sometimes the resentment in people that I
work with, and this is their philosophy. “This
person is not a nice person, they deserve to
be taxed,” and they call it a “tax”—they’re not
stealing from them; they call it a “tax.” So you
see, perhaps it’s better to help the person along
the way, and they pay it back, as opposed to
putting them in dire straits where they have
to steal, and sometimes they even get to a
position where they have to steal. And I’ve
been in the position of where I’ve needed
help, myself, and caused by my own actions,
but I’ve always been able to go and get the
money from someplace and to tide me over.
(This is when I was broke down in Vegas a
couple times.) And it wasn’t pleasant, but I
was able to get the money and pay it back and
so on. But some people don’t have what we
call “the ace in the hole” to go to. And when
you don’t have it, it’s tough. So possibly that’s
why I have the rapport with my employees.
When I come in the door in the morning, if
it’s the colored porter or a crippled change girl
or one of the shift bosses or whatever, they all
get treated the same—”Good morning, how
are you? How you doing?” That’s it. Makes
a lot of difference—at least I feel it has with
me. And again, [as] I say, I can go to sleep at
night, no problem sleeping at all; as a matter
of fact I fall asleep in the chair. Some people
can’t do that. I feel sorry for them.
How do you feel about unions and union
organizing efforts in the clubs?
Well, that goes back to what I was just
talking about now. I have worked for people
as an employee for a good many years of