EI-CGO
Better still than your scenario is one where the mobsters sidekick and punchbag (the one with the Liverpool accent) came to Ops one day and asked the chance of crewing some ludicrous flight to one of the North European countries (not being coy, just can't remember). Ops and crewing already having a hard time to crew tonites debacle anyway because of crew sickness etc, do their usual magnificent job of trying to magic up an extra crew (begging, cajoling, making promises NOBODY can keep). After half an hour even the Sidekick agrees we can't do it and goes away to tell the Mobster.
Doubless after a long moral boosting "chat" from MOB, including the usual about ops being a useless bunch of W******, Sidekick rings Ops and says that he's accepted the flight and he just "knows" we will be able to find a crew!!
Things obviously haven't changed, and like Gemstone I'm sure glad to be out of it.
Doc C