May's gotten off to a good start. I haven't been able to put in many hands, maybe 7k so far, but I'm up 700 at mostly 50nl and some 100nl again. The good news is, I'm running good again. Last night, I couldn't play long, maybe 700 hands, and had the swongiest session ever, and ran into the tops of everyone's ranges, and still finished +15. I'll take that any day.

Lots of stuff going on at work. My boss and I decided we're going to work 2 open-closes (15 hour day) per week, so we can each get an extra day off. This is in addition to each of us also working a 10+ hour day on the weekend. But, 5day/55hour weeks >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 6 day/55 hour weeks. It's really better, because I traded a close-open for an open-close. It's really the same, but I don't drive an hour between. I'm really excited about this, cause now it frees up another day to put in some hands.

This weekend was really not fun. We found out Saturday that one of our drivers passed away. He was 2 weeks shy of his 50th birthday. It came as a big shock and saddened us all.

Roger came to us in August from another pizza place and several other employees had worked with him before. They said he was never happy at work, and always grumpy, never smiled. Yet with us, he was always smiling, joking around, eager to come in. This winter, he would keep cleaning off my boss' and my cars when it snowed.

Roger had no family that we can find. He had no one to list as an emergency contact. He had a handful of friends . . . and us. We'd become his family and friends. I don't think I'd realized it before Saturday. I think this has been one of the hardest things. It's been so sad to think that this guy who was a really nice guy had nobody for a long time, and was so unhappy, and then just recently had found that happiness, and had such a short time to enjoy it. The one thing that did help was realizing that we'd made his last 9 months so enjoyable for him.

It really made me realize again that it doesn't take much to impact people around you, and make their world a better place. I never thought we did anything out of the ordinary. We just treated Roger with respect and like a friend (as much as you can ever do with an employee). Yet he constantly talked about how great it was working with us.

Sometimes, I feel like I really shut out the world, and sometimes, just don't care about other people. It's like I look at what I can get out of people, and what they can do for me. I think it's just a reaction to things that have happened in recent years personally, the pressures at work to get as much as you can out of people and not place much emphasis on what's going on personally, playing poker, and being completely detatched from any emotional aspect of the game. I guess I just approach life with a "poker face" a lot.This was a big wakeup call to what matters in life.

Roger was always making us laugh at work. He was a total dirty old man. But he'd do it in a way that would just make you laugh, and not make you go "ooh, creepy! get away!" He would "hit" on me all the time. Recently, he had begun inviting me over to watch Brokeback Mountain. Roger also had a habit of drunk dialing you in the middle of the night. A month or so ago, I get this phone call at 2 a.m. (after he had invited me to watch Brokeback Mountain before leaving work):

Me: Hello.
Roger: Who's this?
Me: Who's this?
R: Shannon?
Me: No, it's Chris.
R: Hey, wanna come over and watch Brokeback Mountain?

He didn't miss a step, it was instantaneous. He was always looking for a joke and making us laugh. A couple weeks ago, he did the same thing to our boss, called her at 1 a.m. thinking he had called his friend Shannon. He did a female voice and asked how he could help. My boss said "Roger, it's not a good idea to prank your boss in the middle of the night, you're fired, see you tomorrow." After this, I said "you know, you can program people's names with their numbers in your phone."

It's definitely sad at work not having him around. The only thing you can do when you lose people in your life is just remember the good times, honor their memories, and take on their legacies. I really believe that a lot of people that come into our lives teach us important lessons, especially those that are only in our lives for a short time.

Roger taught me that you should never, ever stop enjoying life. But most of all, what I've learned this week is to just be myself and treat the people in my life better. You never know when you're going to be one of the few people someone has. Do what you can to make someone's life more enjoyable and better. You never know how long they'll be around.