stoopidbird posted about making mistakes at work – you know, serious ones. “One of those mistakes that makes your stomach drop and makes you want to slap your forehead repeatedly until it falls off.” This conjured up various memories that made me shudder. From 1992 until 2001, I worked for this man, shunting famous bands to and fro across Europe – mainly within the former Soviet bloc. Thinking back to that period of time, it was characterised by the kind of daily stress and anxiety that would make you yearn to be a bomb disposal expert. Huge amounts of money were at stake, daily. We were positioned directly between two sets of people: on one side, sneering and often furious hot-shot agents who were commissioning at 10% on the fees of some of the world’s biggest bands. On the other: weak, feeble, confused, rookie promoters from Belarus or Moldova who were frequently selling their belongings or doing deals with dubious mafia types in order to stump up the advance payments. Every time the phone rang, I knew it was going to be bad news. No-one ever called to say “I’m absolutely delighted, here’s a cream bun.” Agents would harangue us for information we didn’t have. Managers would threaten legal action. Artistes would ring up screaming into the answerphone until they’d clogged their receiver up with spittle, and promoters would whine that they needed at least another 2 weeks to pay the Red Hot Chilli Peppers the money that was due. “The Red Hot Chilli Peppers don’t give a shit about your cashflow,” Nick would say. “They need the money, and they need it now.” On more than one occasion, I would have to go to Heathrow Airport and pick up a huge bag full of money from a timid looking air hostess. Once, it was $50,000 for The Prodigy. I took the money home, spread it around my living room and took a picture of it. It looked amazing. I wish I could find the picture. The next day I took the cash to The Prodigy’s management’s office in Shepherds Bush; they almost looked annoyed that we’d stumped up the money, as the band now were obliged to perform. The next day a NATO missile accidentally landed 3 miles from the venue. The gig was cancelled. A promoter was ruined. This kind of fiasco happened all the time. Once, I successfully managed to get Slayer’s amps through a border checkpoint into Russia by speaking to a border guard in English, despite him speaking no English. My finest hour was, without doubt, when I deployed huge quantities of charm and reasoning from an office in Brixton, and persuaded an official at La Guardia airport to let a band member onto a flight from New York to Cleveland without her having a ticket.

But once – and, fortunately, only once – the fiasco was my fault. Goldie – half-Scottish drum and bass artiste once romantically linked with Björk – was due to play a show in Bulgaria. As usual, I had to co-ordinate all the details; sort out the logistics, buy the flight tickets, arrange the visas and so on. Annoyingly for the promoter, who operated on margins that were so slim as to be barely visible, Goldie insisted on having business class seats for the entire travelling group. These obviously cost about 4 or 5 times the standard economy fare. We argued for about a week; his management refused to buckle. So we reluctantly booked the expensive flights on the promoter’s behalf. As usual, I prepared a detailed itinerary a week before the show. A stickler for detail, I rang the travel agent for precise information. “Hi Bamber,” I said, (for that was his name), “can you tell me which Heathrow terminal the BA flights to Bulgaria leave from?” I carefully noted the answer, put it in the itinerary, printed off 4 pristine copies, and send them to the tour manager. On the morning of the show, at about 6am, the tour party assembled at the tour manager’s house and got in a cab. The tour manager consulted the itinerary I had so lovingly prepared, in order to check the correct terminal. They arrived at the correct terminal at Heathrow, 90 minutes before the plane was due to depart. Due to depart, that is, from f*cking Gatwick.

Nick, my boss, rang me at 8am. Once again, as soon as the phone rang, I knew it was bad news. “Rhodri.” “Yes?” “The flights to Sofia, where do they depart from?” My stomach dropped. I began to sweat profusely. Thousands upon thousands of pounds were at stake. I couldn’t speak. “Rhodri?” “Yes.” “Well?” “I… I think it was…” “You THINK? What do you mean, you THINK? Which f*cking airport?” “It’s Gatwick.” “So WHY, WHY are the f*cking band at HEATHROW?” “I don’t know,” I said in a small voice. “SHIT,” said Nick. “I’m calling you back in 2 minutes.” “Nick, I’m sorry,” I said, but he’d already rung off. The promoter would now be bankrupt, with no show, no artiste, purely because I had no idea that Balkan flew from Gatwick and hadn’t bothered checking with the travel agent. The phone rang. “WHY didn’t you ask the travel agent where the plane departed from?” “Well, I kind of did, I asked them which terminal Balkan flew out of Heathr-” “Yes, well, that was the wrong f*cking question, wasn’t it?” He rang off again.

30 minutes later, I received the news that there was a flight out of Heathrow to Sofia, leaving early afternoon, which would get Goldie and his entourage to the venue JUST in time for the show. The only thing that saved my arse was Goldie being so f*cking stubborn about the business class seats; you can change them absolutely free of charge, you see. Thank god, thank christ that he’d been a complete prima donna popstar bastard, I was in tears with relief. The phone rang. It was the Bulgarian promoter, who barely spoke any English. “Rhodri! OK, Goldie come on different flight yes!” “Yes, Christo.” He started laughing his head off. “Is funny yes! Is OK, is funny yes!” “Yes, Christo,” I sighed, “it’s quite funny.” I’d had enough. I shut down the computer and went home. 2 years later, I stumped up the courage to quit the job. I’m not in the music business any more.

Have you ever bummed up at work?