What a Lousy Blackjack Dealer Taught me About Customer Service

Mini-lesson for those who don’t want to read the whole post: “You probably should have read the whole post.”

I sat down at the Blackjack table, pulled out a $20 and stuck it on the velvety green tabletop for the dealer to change. He gave me four weathered $5 chips, then neglected to wish me luck.

He dealt the cards and I won my first hand, earning another $5 chip.

While beginning to shuffle, the dealer the said, “I’ll get you the next hand.” He didn’t say it with humor or sarcasm, which I wouldn’t have minded one bit. He said it with that awful I’m-king-of-the-world tone possessed by people who enjoy throwing fast-food wrappers out their car windows.

I looked up at him with my eyebrows raised. Not so much from surprise at what he said, but because I’ve rarely had a Blackjack dealer talk to me at all. And I’ve never had a dealer say something other than “Nice hit,” or “Good luck,” or a well-placed “Sorry.”

The dealer noticed me giving him my best stink-eye, shrugged and said, “What? It’s true. It’s only the odds. The dealer usually wins.”
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Should You Have Advertising on Your Site or Not?

There are two schools of thought when it comes to the on-site advertising issue. Luckily, one of the schools only goes up through kindergarten.

A lot of website owners struggle with the idea of monetizing their sites, especially when it comes to advertising. They want the income of ads, but not the clutter. And some fear that advertisements will make them appear greedy to their readers, elicit nasty feedback or even lose them subscribers.

But is having a few ads in your sidebar that big a deal? Are ads really going to draw the line between a hugely successful site and one that appeals only to the most ad-tolerant minority? Possibly, but only if your site sucked to begin with.

On-site Advertising. Debunking the Reasons Against.

1. Ads take people away from your site

This isn’t actually 100% true. I mean, ads do take people away from your site but there are so many solutions for this it’s not really much of a detriment.

First, there’s always the “Back” button and everyone knows how to use it.
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