From EHell Blog: Bad Company Corrupts Good Morals

[Asharah]

Many years ago I had a job that looked as if it would go places and a girlfriend who I should have known better than to get involved with.   I had been told that I was being given a promotion within the next month.

A person at my job offered each of us at work free tickets  to see a musician.  I took two of them, thanking the person giving them to me.  When I got home, I informed my girlfriend that we had been given free tickets to this event and that it would be a nice date as I knew she enjoyed the musician.  She seemed happy and thrilled.

A couple days later and suddenly I was on her “bad person” list.  I asked what was wrong and after much drama I was informed that she was mad at me because I had not gotten more tickets( remember these were a gift from a person at work)  for her 3 friends who also loved this musician and how dare I not think about them when I should know that they would really want to go too.  In retrospect I should have just given the tickets to her friends or thrown them away.

I need to interject here that I have never told this story to my mother because I know how poorly I behaved in the next bit.  Instead of stating that the two tickets were all that there were and it was supposed to be a romantic date, I went back and asked for more tickets.  I know it was wrong, I know that it was a terrible etiquette breach.  I berate myself for it still after all these years. Asharah's comment: Not very good, but if there were extra tickets that wouldn't be used otherwise, I think still berating yourself after all these years is a bit excessive. Especially since the karma gods already bit you back for it

Fast forward to the day of the event.  The three people that have decided they need to horn in on my date with my girlfriend and also my girlfriend have known for a couple of weeks that we will be sitting with my co-workers so I have asked them to be thoughtful of this.  The office where I worked was very staid and we had just gotten a new accounts manager who was a very faithful Christian.

They all (including my girlfriend) showed up in very inappropriate clothing.  Leather, fake piercings, fake tattoos, spray on colored hair, ripped jeans, spiked heels for the women, motorcycle boots for the guys. Asharah's comment: Maybe OP should have kept the tickets and threatened to tear them up if his "guests" didn't change into something more appropriate. I’m in slacks and a shirt.  We get to the venue and I realize that we are seated behind the account manager and the owner of the company, complete with both of their families and their very young children.  And then it starts…

Shrieking, screaming, spilling food and drink on everyone around them, shouting sexual comments as first the warm-up act and then the main performer take the stage, my girlfriend and her three friends spent the entire event acting as inappropriately as they possibly could without getting kicked out by security.  During the evening one of my girlfriend’s friends struck the owner of the company with his event program and told him to move his “F****** fat basketball head”. Asharah's comment: And that wasn't enough to be thrown out for? Another made a point of leaning forward and shouting in the account manager’s wife’s ear that he really wanted to have sex with the back up dancers on the stage (not in that tame of language).
I was fired the next day.    Couldn’t blame them.   Asharah's comment: Neither do I!
1211-08

I sure hope you “fired” your girlfriend and her purposely devious companions from your life shortly thereafter.

[Bob Ducca]

This one confuses me.  Either it was the sort of concert that would be appropriate for a family to attend with children, or the sort that would welcome standing, screaming obscenities, etc.  I've never been to one that was both.

So, either the OP and his boss had a very unrealistic expectation of what the behavior would be at a concert like this, or the OP's girlfriend and her friends were extremely inappropriate and should have been asked to leave. 

[Starchasm]

This one confuses me.  Either it was the sort of concert that would be appropriate for a family to attend with children, or the sort that would welcome standing, screaming obscenities, etc.  I've never been to one that was both.

So, either the OP and his boss had a very unrealistic expectation of what the behavior would be at a concert like this, or the OP's girlfriend and her friends were extremely inappropriate and should have been asked to leave. 

I didn't really get that either.  The OP went in slacks and a shirt, and the exec brought his children.  BUT, they mention backup dancers?  And food and drink?

It really sounds to me like the girlfriend and friends were trying to get the LW in trouble at work.  The second they started to act like that I would have shut it down FAST.

[Bob Ducca]

It really sounds to me like the girlfriend and friends were trying to get the LW in trouble at work.  The second they started to act like that I would have shut it down FAST.

The girlfriend particularly.  They were her friends, after all; I'm thinking she instigated the whole thing, thinking it would be funnny.

[MommyPenguin]

Backup dancers doesn't necessarily mean it was "that kind of show."  I'm guessing that it was something along the lines of Bruce Springsteen, but that the girlfriend and her friends were either being deliberately malicious or intended it as a prank of some sort.  It sounds like the clothing they were wearing was inappropriate for the event, as was their behavior.  I, too, am puzzled by why they weren't thrown out, though.  I think that if I were the OP I would have gone to a security guard and pointed out their behavior.  But maybe it was the type of show where they don't have many guards, not expecting a problem?  Hmm, although, it occurs to me that the girlfriend said that her friends liked this musician, though, so... I don't know.

[Bob Ducca]

That's where I'm stuck: what possible musician could the upright, moral, family men like that the OP's swearing, irreverent girlfriend also liked?  Who has concerts at which children are acceptable?  I'm stuck.

[marcel]

I didn't really get that either.  The OP went in slacks and a shirt, and the exec brought his children.  BUT, they mention backup dancers?  And food and drink?

That only tells us that it is most likely not a classical concert, otherwise this is possible in the entire range of concerts, from family to hardrock.

[One Fish, Two Fish]

When I went to see U2, the audience members varied greatly.  There were families with tweens/teens, and I was there with 9 friends from college.  The opening band was Rage Against the Machine, and that influenced the audience as well.

[Twik]

Backup dancers mean that the show is inappropriate for children?  

The fact that the "friends" seemed to have set their mind to push the envelope here indicates that it wasn't likely a particularly cutting-edge sort of show in the first place. It doesn't sound like they came dressed that way simply because that's how you attended a show of that nature - they were trying to be provocative. Possibly to punish the LW for being so "rude" as to not pester the original ticket-holder for more tickets in the first place.

[magician5]

Shrieking, screaming, spilling food and drink on everyone around them, shouting sexual comments as first the warm-up act and then the main performer take the stage, my girlfriend and her three friends spent the entire event acting as inappropriately as they possibly could without getting kicked out by security.

Jeez ... heII of a way to treat Itzhak Perlman. (Or was it Yo Yo Ma?)

[Yvaine]

Backup dancers mean that the show is inappropriate for children?  

The fact that the "friends" seemed to have set their mind to push the envelope here indicates that it wasn't likely a particularly cutting-edge sort of show in the first place. It doesn't sound like they came dressed that way simply because that's how you attended a show of that nature - they were trying to be provocative. Possibly to punish the LW for being so "rude" as to not pester the original ticket-holder for more tickets in the first place.

*nods* I checked just for giggles--Miley Cyrus has backup dancers. So, backup dancers don't necessarily mean "not family friendly." I saw shows at Disney that had dancers too. They were dressed appropriately and didn't do any raunchy moves.

[hyzenthlay]

Backup dancers mean that the show is inappropriate for children?  

No, but I admit my first visions are of later era Madonna, Spears or Lady Gaga. I don't see staid Christian families attending any of those 

I think the guy writing was clearly set up by his 'girlfriend.' If he'd had half a brain he'd have fetched the ushers himself. I'd guess he just sat there and let it happen. It's no wonder they fired him. 

[DottyG]

If he'd had half a brain he'd have fetched the ushers himself. I'd guess he just sat there and let it happen. It's no wonder they fired him. 

Or, even spoken to his boss and said, "Sir, I am so sorry for the actions of my friends.  They think they're being funny, but I assure you that I'm as horrified at their behavior as you are and do not condone what they're doing."

If he's expressed any kind of attitude of "I'm not with them or like them", it might have saved his job.  But, as it was, it appeared he approved and was one of them.

[Sirius]

If any of my friends came to such an event with me and acted like that, I'd have put a stop to it immediately.  In fact, I'd have been the one complaining to the usher if they didn't knock it off.  (I'm just trying to picture my 50-year-old ultra-conservative friends acting like that.)

[Twik]

Backup dancers mean that the show is inappropriate for children?  

No, but I admit my first visions are of later era Madonna, Spears or Lady Gaga. I don't see staid Christian families attending any of those 

I'm not sure why "backup dancers" implies that it's necessarily one of them. One might as well say that the fact that it was a concert could invoke visioins of "Madonna, Spears or Lady Gaga".