Only In It For A Minute

It was December 1st, which meant only one thing to me- the day I start my new job ad arrived. I had been in America for exactly one week now and I had been in my new flat for the past four days. In that time, I had unpacked all my stuff, got to know my new flatmate, Jamie, a bit more, explored the local area and had finally began to feel like I as starting to settle into my new hometown. John had gone home two days ago as the band had lots of work to be doing in preparation for their next release and tour.

As I got ready for my first day, I wondered what I’d be doing. Jamie was due to start today as well but had done similar jobs before so wasn’t quite as nervous as I was. The new office had only be opened fora few weeks in LA, so everything was still going to be new here.

I showered, dressed and did my hair and make up and was completely ready by just after 8am. Jamie had shown me where the offices were a couple of days ago, which was only around a 15 minute walk from our flat, so I had plenty of time to spare. I walked out to the kitchen to make myself some breakfast and saw Jamie by the cooker.

“Morning, Tash,” he smiled in my direction.

“Morning,” I said, returning his smile and sitting at the dining table.

“Nervous for today?”

“Hell yeah! My stomach is doing somersaults,” I laughed.

“Well, here’s something to ease it,” he said, putting a plate of pancakes in front of me. “Enjoy.”

“Aw, thanks,” I said, immediately tucking in. “I could get used to being looked after like this!”

Jamie wasn’t kidding when he said he spent a lot of time in the kitchen. Since I’d moved in, he hadn’t allowed me to make one meal. Once he’d finished making a stack for himself. he came and joined me at the table. When I looked at him now dressed in smart trousers, a shirt and tie and his hair styled properly, I suddenly found him very attractive. While I’d lived here so far, he’d only worn jeans or sweats and t-shirts or hoodies. It made such a changed to see him all dressed up.

My phone buzzed while we were still sat down and I looked to see a message from John

From: John
Good morning, baby. Just wanted to wish you good luck on your first day, you’ll do great!

As we cleared away and finished getting ready, we casually chatted about the day ahead of us some more.

“I hope there’s not too many people starting today, otherwise it might get a bit chaotic,” I said.

“Yeah that’s true, although I hope we get some other nice people,” Jamie said. “And I hope now we’re living together it means we get to work together to.”

We continued chatting as we left our apartment and walked to work. Once we arrived, we were shown to a room where there were already a handful of people sat down waiting. Jamie and I introduced ourselves and took seats next to them. All of them were new like us, some were from the UK, some were from the US, and all of them looked relatively young, none seemed to be over 30 years old. As we waited, more people walked in and the room filled up and after a few more minutes, six people walked through the door and I suddenly recognised one of the faces.

“Good morning everyone, good to see you all found the building and made it here on time,” the man began telling us. “I’m Mike King, some of you have met me already, I’m overseeing all of your training and induction to Raw Power Management. It’s great to have you all here and I think you’re going to make a fantastic team here at our Los Angeles offices. You’ll see me around here for the next few weeks, but I am usually based in the London offices.”

It was nice to see Mike here, especially since he interviewed me and helped with the process of getting my visa to work here and everything else involved in moving over.

“I’m sure as we all settle in here, I’ll get to know you all a bit better but now to get stuck into the work aspect,” he continued. “The people stood next to me will hep you learn the ropes and then they will be here as the head of departments. This is Carol Green, she is Head of HR, any problems with anything, go see her. This is Julie Sampson, he is Head of Promotions. I think the majority of you will be working with Julie in the next couple of weeks. Next we have Martin Wills. Again a lot of you will be working with him as he is our Head of Artist Support. This is obviously our biggest field, as it is all about the artists we look after. I’m sure you al know the types of bands we currently have on our roster so our main focus is to support them and continue to expand,” Mike continued. “And finally we have Alex Carter and Tim Best, who are Head of Management and Head of Publicity, however you will also find them doing a lot of other jobs over the next few weeks!”

Each of the people Mike had just introduced took a couple of minutes to say the sort of thing they do and once they had each spoken, Mike again stepped up.

“OK, so most of you probably already know what field you’ll be in, now it’s just a case of teaming you up with your manager,” he told us, reading down the sheets of paper in his hand. He began with Booking Agents and read out a few names, then A & R co-ordinators, then Press Agents, Promotional Assistants, Tour Co-Ordinators and a few more, until there was just a few of us left. This consisted of myself, Jamie as well as Katie and Charlie who were both from the UK like me and Maria, Jenna and Joe who were from various parts of America.

“So those of you left are probably the backbone of a business group like this. You are our Artist Managers,” as Mike said this, me and Jamie looked at each other and smiled. We knew we were going to be working Management, but had no idea what our actual roles were. “Artist Managers are exactly as it sounds. The seven of you are going to be overseeing all aspects of our artists and guiding them to the right path to success. Also under this role, you may from time to time be asked to go out on the road as a Touring Manager with some of our acts.”

The rest of the day was spent learning more about the company and what sort of things we’d be doing on a day to day basis. We spent our time with our head of department, Alex, as he went through their current acts and how each band has to be managed differently and that there is no set way to managed all bands.

“Right so, I think we’re just about done for today,” Alex told us. “Good first day guys, you’ll all be flying soon!”

We left the building and Jamie and I made our way back to our apartment. As soon as we walked through the door, Jamie start preparing our dinner and I went to my room and calld John.

“Hey darlin’,” I heard his voice say as he answered the phone.

“Hey babe,” I smiled.

“How was your first day?”

“Really good actually,” I told him. “There was a lot of new people starting, but they split us into different areas so we could learn about our jobs.”

“So what will you be doing?” his raspy voice asked.

“I am now an Artist Manager.”

“Artist Manager? That’s awesome, Tash!” John said.

“I know, I can’t believe it really. They also said that sometimes I might be tour managing too.”

“Really? Wow, check you out! My girl’s gonna be on the road like me?!” he said, letting out a laugh too and I could only imagine his smile as he said it.

“Yep, damn right I am!” I laughed back.