Dismay, shock, disbelief was just the minimum of the emotions that was felt after hearing on the Fox news Memphis that Harrah's Casino Tunica would be closing and 1800 people would be out of work, me included. Upon receiving the letter the day after the news cast, that stated On June 2nd, 2014 Harrah's Tunica property, will cease all operations and the entire facility will permanently close. It became a reality my job was really ending. .
After hearing this news, I had to go to work early the next day; a meeting was announced for everyone to attend. I was front row, ready to ask questions about what now? The V.P. of Human Resources, V.P. of Operations and the CEO of the company were there to talk about what's and why's. The CEO was the first to speak and he told us "the casino was just not making the monies needed to run the operation" and He also said that we would be took care of. They had put into action all other properties setting up interviews at our casino to recruit people to other cities with a small relocation bonus. They also had job fairs with companies from all over the area set up to interviews. The last alternative would be they had a date set for the unemployment office to come and talk about what they may do for us as well. .
After attending the job fairs and realizing that Baltimore, Maryland or New Orleans, La. is not the preferred job offered, with this, the decision to attend the meeting from the state employment office was a must. Then there was the opportunity to meet a recruiter from a nearby community college he was there to talk about the help someone could get to go back to school and be retrained to do something else.
Now the chance to move closer to my aging mother and Aunt, be with my grandchildren, return to my home church, and retrain for another job was more than appealing. The opportunity to have school classes paid for the next two years was too much to pass up.