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Offline hugh.

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Bicycle messengers of BG.
« on: June 19, 2015, 10:34:35 AM »
So I'm nearing the end of my bike tour and have decided that this is what I want to do when I get back to Dublin. Mainly cause I want to stay as fit as I am and I don't fancy working in a kitchen again. 

How exactly do I go about getting a job like this? Talk to other messengers? Throw out CVs? Maybe just rock up with a decent bike and a smile and ask for a job?

Any tips on the daily grind? Of course I'll get a decent bike sorted and some wet weather gear, and I'm pretty handy with bike maintainence.

Tell me your secrets.

Offline Albie

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Re: Bicycle messengers of BG.
« Reply #1 on: June 20, 2015, 01:35:31 PM »
Get a real job.

Offline Kinchy

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Re: Bicycle messengers of BG.
« Reply #2 on: June 20, 2015, 02:54:47 PM »
Like building wonky frames

Talk to Zoidberg, he's a messenger. Pretty much get paid by delivery so need to do everything quick, will get shouted at and run over, rained on, sunburnt, tired out for less than average wage.

But it is well fun apparently, and I believe that. Not sure how big the scene is in Dublin though
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Offline Albie

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Re: Bicycle messengers of BG.
« Reply #3 on: June 21, 2015, 12:12:58 AM »
Like building wonky frames

Yuh bish.

You don't know me.

Offline Prodigal Son

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Re: Bicycle messengers of BG.
« Reply #4 on: June 21, 2015, 12:33:44 AM »
You're not the stay trendy dude right?

Offline Zoidberg

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Re: Bicycle messengers of BG.
« Reply #5 on: June 21, 2015, 03:20:21 PM »
It’s not ideal.

I started as a courier 8 years ago but if I count up the months with a year off here and stuff there, in August it will be five years on the road. I’ve only ridden in London but there is definitely a scene in Ireland, I could ask about a bit but I can tell you about London.

Anyway, you do get paid per job and that means no sick or holiday pay, pension etc. If you’re off work you have no income. Some companies will charge you say £25 a week until you get to whatever, between £100 and £200, and they’ll keep that as a deposit for your radio and you get it back when you leave, usually that is. Other firms, the bigger ones, will charge you roughly that per week and keep it as a hire charge for your radio, clothes (tshirts or polos, jackets), a bag that’s usually shite, and whatever device you get jobs on unless it’s paper. You will also be self employed so responsible for your own tax and you won’t be insured. All firms work a week in hand and you get paid every Friday. With clothes and bags usually firms will let you use your own if they are better than what they give you but some can be picky about jackets/ tops and some will have you wear your ID on your radio.

In order to get started, join any firm that will take you. Have a look on the internet to find them and just call them up asking if they are taking on new riders but turning up in person will work in your favour. They might give you a short written test on how well you know the city and what kind of stuff you should carry with you. Usually it will be a small firm taking you on but you might get lucky and walk into a big one straight away. You should aim to move around firms but at each one you need to work yourself up and prove yourself to your controller. They won’t be good to you if you aren’t good to them and they already know who their good riders are and who will stick around.

The money you get from jobs can be as little as £1.25 because courier firms will cater to all types of clients so their charges will usually vary. This also works on the volume of work they get from that client. Because of this, bigger clients will obviously get priority on their jobs over smaller clients. There are three types of jobs: normal, double (firms and even controllers at the same firm use different terms) which goes straight there and a return, which obviously needs to go back. Although some jobs like embassy jobs or things that have to be signed, you need to take something somewhere and then take it somewhere else. Oh wait, you can also get multi drops where you pick up a bunch of stuff from one place, these can be criminally priced. If you are waiting at a client’s for more than ten minutes you can start the clock on charging ‘waiting time’ which isn’t much and sometimes work can be taken off you if you are still waiting or if you fuck your bike and can’t sort it out. This is a big reason for riding fixed because there is less to go wrong or maintain. There’s a guy on my fleet who has an amazing geared bike with all sorts of bells and whistles but when it goes wrong he has to take it either home or to a shop which will both mean time and money but more importantly time off your bike which is time not earning.

Ideally you want a few things in your bag at any given moment. Your controller will get to know your speed (although you need to be a certain standard) and will be setting you up for a run and if anything comes up when your on that run near you, you’ll get that too, maybe in priority of what you are doing so it gets quite hectic. Mostly, you’ll do a bit of running about then go off in one direction and then they’ll be sorting stuff out for you on the way back. The quality of controllers can vary but some of them can only do so much with what they have in terms of lining up work for you. You may end up somewhere where they have no clients and have to wait around a bit to get started again or the work just might not be coming in at that time where you are.

Some people have regular contracts with one of their firm’s clients and will get extras on top. Some people have ‘guarantees’ or ‘g’s’ where you always get paid a set amount per week. This isn’t always a good thing as the firm will want to get their money out of you so you might get run about a bit doing dead miles (which is when you have nothing in your bag and have to go a distance to pick something up) and some people can earn more than they’re offered on their g. Guarantees aren’t set in stone anyway, you won’t get it that week if you miss a day and you could get it taken off you if you work for a small firm and the boss feels like it, or they could decide to just shrink it a bit.

All firms will have a kind of hierarchy. Small firms can have a fleet of between 8 and 30 riders and they will have their top boy or boys. If you get good enough, it will get to the point where you will have to wait until they leave for you to progress. Also you’re firm may decide to take on new riders which means less work for everyone. Big firms have all the clients and that is the single most important thing because they have all the work, meaning more work for you and less distance between jobs. Essentially, you will live and die by your controller. The golden rule being, shut up and do the work and if you’re any good you will get more. Some people just get lucky though.

You can get fired for anything, it’s absurd how easy it is. For example, one guy I know rode for a firm for 3 years until a taxi cut him up so he spat on it, then the taxi driver called the firm to complain and they fired him on the spot which is a good reason to wear as little uniform as possible. If you mess up a big job for a big client or are even rude to a client, you can also lose your job on the spot too. This kind of thing happens a lot. There is a very high turn over in riders for all firms for various reasons. Newbies who decide they can’t take it (two weeks or even two days is not unusual), people getting fired, people moving to other firms, injuries, people quitting, not being good enough etc.

Acquisitions is also a big one at the moment, there are very few firms left now as the big ones keep buying them up but I think there will always be a need for small firms and often clients will use two firms with one as a back up. With acquisitions, they aren’t concerned with the riders they inherit, just the clients, and will very often freeze out these new riders by not giving them enough work to get by on and their rates are often lower. Also the industry is very cut throat when it comes to getting new clients as the best they can do is under cut other firms and make up for the money out of the rider’s share. Every firm will occasionally drop its rates, maybe because that contract is up and another firm has offered less or maybe that firm aren’t doing very well in general and need to cut costs. Firms will always make up for short falls from the riders. This means that there is a lot of moving about for all concerned. The riders really do get dicked. The ratio of what you earn compared to what the company gets is quite often astonishing. I work for a small fleet within a big fleet doing medical stuff and there are some jobs where we get about eight quid that our firm charges the client fifty for.

The reason couriers often ‘ride like cunts’ is because of both how many jobs you have to do a day to earn a decent wage and also because some of the deadlines are horrendous. For my work there’s a city run where you have to pick up five jobs from five different places at 17.45. To be able to do it, you have to work out which clients complain so prioritize them for nearest to that time and be fucking nice to everybody.

The clients have no idea you don’t get a wage or any perks or have insane deadlines and are often more than happy to blame the messenger before accepting any responsibility if a job goes wrong and ultimately your firm will side with the client if it means them losing work. This could just mean that they can’t send you to that place again, you could get fired, or worst of the worst, your firm could lose the client. A recent story is a guy on my fleet got sent to pick up various blood samples, the nurse asks him to pick the right ones out of a jumble to which he says he can’t as he can’t take responsibility, which is true. So she phones our firm queries this and is told the courier is right so she spends as long as possible sorting them before giving them to him and calling again to complain. There’s always arse ache.

It’s another reason why couriers can be quite surly. You’re always in a rush and people tend to think you’re rude if you’re in a rush because they are not. Security guards are particular wankers in this respect. Clients also won’t address things properly, sometimes not at all, sometimes it will have an old address, no addressee. Things like that fuck you up as you should have a few jobs on with deadlines ticking away while your firm are trying to phone around to sort out what you do. Quite often it will mean you have to take it back later or will upset the run you’re on if you have to do it sooner. Of course your firm will blame you for not checking the package first as it also means more work for them and the client will be pissed off at you as their boss has already had a go at them. Meh. I know this one courier who does embassy work for a huge financial company which means notorizing company stuff which is basically getting it signed and then to the right places in the right order in the right times. Essentially he gets the blame if something goes wrong for not checking the work that this finance company charges extravagant fees to their clients for which is actually being done by this 50 plus year old alcoholic, ex junkie who talks to pigeons.

The clients vary in what they do, really it’s for people who need stuff there right away so have a lot of money or do important work or are working to deadlines: architects, lawyers, media, fashion, medical, embassies, pr, advertising, etc. This means you get things of all shapes and sizes, some of which can be a real pain in the arse or more succinctly: ‘fucking liberties’ but more importantly, you get to go everywhere.

You’ll be doing between 40 and 80 miles a day everyday, wind, rain or shine so you’ll be pretty knackered or hungry a lot of the time. Two days a week, you’ll just be going through the motions having tired days. It ain’t all glory. If you don’t like the rain then steer well clear as it rains a lot more than it doesn’t in London so if where you are is the same, remember that the majority of your time will be spent in the rain. No lunch breaks either : ( With those kinds of miles you will getting through parts and clothes quite quickly from all the wear and tear which can either be pricey or something you have to put up with until you can afford whatever. If there’s not something wrong with your bike chances are you will be carrying an injury. Bank and school holidays impact how much work you get so your wages won’t be steady and there is more work during the winter than the summer. Putting ‘bicycle courier’ on your cv also won’t do you any favours. It’s career kryptonite.

Ten years or so ago, riders got paid more than they do now. It’s a dying trade really. First it was fax, then email, and next it will be 3d printing. There will always be a need for couriers but the market they cater for is diminishing. Rates for jobs have always declined over time with the recession fees offered by firms taking a big bite on top. Rates never go up. What will happen is a firm will get new riders offering them guarantees but will then lower that guarantee after a while and they won’t just do that once. Another reason for moving around.

At the moment there are a few other things in the mix. There’s a union of riders starting up to address the rights and pay that riders get at the moment which is generally fuck all. In fact some firms have it written into your contracts that you can’t join a union. It’s a shame though as they are going about it the wrong way and look like they are aiming to change the job into being a postman. I’ve heard PAYE and £4 minimums are what they’re after but the problem with that is it will change who the couriers are and the price thing is a shitstorm in itself. With the tax thing, as it is now anyone can walk into a firm and start the same day whether they’ve done it before or not. A lot of the work force is therefore foreign and not planning on doing it forever. Some people want to do it but because anyone can do it and it is all some people can do like maybe because of criminal records or just no education, there is an interesting mix. I’ve already mentioned the turnover of riders within the industry. So this will mean the majority of people who do it now won’t be able to do it as you can’t pay tax if you live in a squat for example. The wages are low and the amount of money you have to spend on parts and food and living will mean that it will be pretty impossible to wait until your PAYE gets sorted.

Also it will mean the riders are employed by the firms making them liable for the riders and there are lots of accidents. As a firm you could take on some idiot that crashes into a lawyer walking along the same day that ends up costing you a fortune and it may be tricky to fire him. This is why couriers are self-employed so if you have an accident your firm don’t have to pay you while you’re injured and they can just fire you so as to not take any responsibility from who or what you hit. With liability, I imagine it would be very costly running a courier firm and a miracle to do it at any profit. As for the £4 minimum, it would be nice but so would a pair of Phil Wood hubs. Something better yes, but it’s a cutthroat roundabout, crazy train of a business. Some small firms and clients just might not be able to afford it. And the big clients and the sliding scale fees are possibly what makes the whole thing possible. Also the quality of riding would go down with the new breed but that’s probably just personal opinion. There certainly are many issues that need to get addressed but they’re not doing themselves any favours in how they’re going about it, however that’s personal opinion too. But anyway, answers on a postcard please. It’s also worth remembering there have been about four union attempts in the last fifteen years or something.

Also there’s a new thing starting up over here, which is like Uber or the other taxi apps. There’s already people doing this successfully in New Yoik and Denmark apparently but it looks like this one is struggling to take off and is still very much in testing. I’ve done some work for them and you get a phone and the app works off google maps, so it shows you the pick up and drop and even suggests a route. It also tells you how much you get paid and you can choose to accept it or not. You can also use it on the job like Sat Nav but they have a lot of work to do to get it all sorted. They are still only doing one ups for a start. It will be interesting to see what impact they have, they aim to have a small fleet of regular riders and then other people doing it as well as their regular jobs. Each time a job is done the rider and client rate each other for future users to be aware of. They are throwing loads of money at it and aim to take it abroad in the future. I think it will work if they market it at the general public rather than companies, so it could be used by someone who has left their phone at a meeting or in a coffee shop rather than big clients doing big business.

The guy who is doing it is a good dude. I had this weird meeting with him earlier this year that was set up by another courier, with us three and two people from a film crew who were shooting a film. It was a bit contrived because this courier had told everyone different reasons for the meeting. Anyway, the film people were making a feature film shot in London having made a ten minute short with Jaime Winstone so were now doing it big time off the back of that and a Kickstarter but sans Jaime Winstone. Eleanor Someone from ‘Poldark’ is the lead. They’ve also got one of the guys from Rizzle Kicks(!), an upcoming model for Burberry (who crashed his bike on the last day of shooting and had an operation the next day as a result), someone else who’s starting to do well and after this meeting I fitted in as an extra and apparently credited ‘rider consultant.’ They were already half way through shooting but wanted to get some actual couriers in it which was why this courier had set up the meeting which worked towards his ulterior motives. So anyway, they asked for 15 couriers over a couple of days and we had a whale of a time shooting. We managed a few red lights with a police escort one day and I was at the front of the pack when that Burberry kid ate shit. I’m a steward for the big race in the end and look like a complete tool as we are all in Halloween make up. I race in that and am also in another race in normal clothes. Chances are I shall mostly be cut from the final thing and my ‘rider consultant’ credit won’t happen, but really that was just getting the riders in and trying to put our logos everywhere we could so fair enough. It was a good laugh to do, we got paid and we got fed and got drunk but there are loads of head scratching moments such as how they manage to get a wooden table to a checkpoint for an alleycat. The cast kept falling off their bikes so often it would have made for a good drinking game. Anyway the riding should look good judging from the short and the trailers I’ve seen so it’s win win for us, doesn’t matter if it’s a turkey or a cult classic. It’s wrapped and they took it to Cannes but will probably be in post production for a bit maybe. Apparently Universal were interested before they went and so was someone else. Excuse me while I go start my imdb page.

But as for couriering, I wouldn’t recommend it as a job to plan to do for keeps, a lot of people only mean to do it for so long and get stuck in it, me being a prime example. I’m due to take over the larger half of a contract I share at the moment and I’m aiming to make it my last stint on the road. But that doesn’t mean I regret a single thing. You get to go amazing places, meet all sorts of people, carry all sorts of things (I once delivered a script to the late Christopher Lee in person to his place) and end up in the most bizarre situations. Every day you don’t know where you are going or how the work or weather will be. Personally, I’ve not travelled but there is a global scene where annual events take place. This year there’s been the world’s in Australia, euros in Milan, there’s one in Glasgow and another in London. There's one in Ireland too. One guy I know has couriered in Australia and New York and now rides London. So there’s all that scene if you want it as it is a kind of niche job that brings about a sort of team spirit. The end of a working day can be incredibly satisfying especially in tough conditions and you get to pull off some sweet moves on a daily basis. On top of that you are riding YOUR bike every day and all day so really the work is the reward because it’s not about the money, money, money. Because that’s not even funny.

For an outsider's opinion, here are a couple of articles from people who have come to a few of our races (we're in a print magazine soon):

http://www.accent-magazine.com/issue6/Alleycats

http://www.pedlas.com/cemetery-cycling-club-bombing-it-in-london/

but you can keep up with them on the subtle tumblr in my sig. I just put a sweet trailer in there for the upcoming edit, the trailer might well be more homo erotic than Top Gun. There's another one with riding there somewhere too and I'm working on a third which should be good.
« Last Edit: June 21, 2015, 03:42:26 PM by Zoidberg »

Offline Sebastian

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Re: Bicycle messengers of BG.
« Reply #6 on: June 21, 2015, 05:05:54 PM »
Damn, Zoidberg, that's pretty comprehensive.

I'm a courier as well, for about 3 years now.  Started my own company a year ago, we handle both parcel and food delivery.

I'll try and write some stuff up later when I have time.

Offline Narcoleptic Insomniac

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Re: Bicycle messengers of BG.
« Reply #7 on: June 21, 2015, 06:45:29 PM »
Let's hear some crazy couriering stories.

Offline ginger

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Re: Bicycle messengers of BG.
« Reply #8 on: June 21, 2015, 07:35:05 PM »
I once delivered an ounce of weed by bike to a public hospital so a guy I knew could blaze up while bed-ridden.
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Offline Narcoleptic Insomniac

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Re: Bicycle messengers of BG.
« Reply #9 on: June 21, 2015, 07:59:56 PM »
You're a saint.

Offline blueee

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Re: Bicycle messengers of BG.
« Reply #10 on: June 21, 2015, 08:22:13 PM »
pickup truck deliveries are much more profitable, much less tiring

Offline LeonLikesToRock

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Re: Bicycle messengers of BG.
« Reply #11 on: June 22, 2015, 02:50:54 AM »
Being a courier seems like a fantastic way to be broke and pretentious. Maybe the couriers around here are just tossers.
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Offline _tom_

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Re: Bicycle messengers of BG.
« Reply #12 on: June 22, 2015, 09:01:39 AM »
That was a great read Zoidberg. Being a bike courier sounds way too much like hard work for me though. I'd soon get sick of having to ride my bike for a living I reckon.

Offline Sebastian

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Re: Bicycle messengers of BG.
« Reply #13 on: June 22, 2015, 02:40:16 PM »
We’re kind of on the other side of the industry, in relation to Zoidberg’s company.  Whereas Zoidberg’s experience is pretty typical for any given messenger at the peak of the 'messenger era' (and is still pretty prevalent in the international cities with a lot of messenger work like London and NYC), I think a large part of the industry as a whole is moving toward a different, maybe more flexible model that allows for a larger diversity of work.

My company is part of the newer wave of rider-owned courier services that have sprung up in the past 5 years or so, in response to some of the phenomena Zoidberg was talking about like slimmer workloads, rider pay decreasing, unfair treatment of riders, etc. etc.

All of us rider-owners fully realize that we’re not really going to make a ton of money off of doing this; in other words, everyone in our little hemisphere is here for the “right” reasons, because they like the freedom and experiences that this job provides.  This attitude, I think, gives the riders themselves a little more room to make a decent living and have some semblance of job security.  Plus the community is pretty tight-knit, everyone keeps in touch, sees each other at races, and some people even switch cities/companies for a week or two at time just to get experience in other cities.

All of our riders are independent contractors paid on commission, which, like Zoidberg said, means that if you’re not in the saddle with a pick-up in your bag, you’re not making money.  This can be a massive bummer if it’s a slow day, if you’re injured or having mechanical problems, or if it’s just one of those really shitty days where you’re getting low-return runs all over the fucking city.

Some of the more successful rider-owned companies are moving away from this model in favor of hourly pay and benefits.  This is really cool, but it’s also more than us smaller companies with really tight margins can afford.

Many of us aren’t doing some of the higher-risk stuff that Zoidberg’s firm is doing, like medical, mostly because of the prohibitive cost of insuring yourself for work like that.  Many of the rider-owned companies, most notably TCB in SF and Cut Cats in Chicago (along with a lot of others) do only food delivery for restaurant clients under contract.  Some of the other older firms like Godspeed, 4Star (also SF and Chi) and some newer ones (like Clementine out of NY) are still doing 100% parcel.  Then there’s a bunch of companies like us, especially in smaller markets, that handle both. 

In our city, which isn’t cranking out 30-minute urgency runs like NYC or London, the peak hours for food and parcel fit together pretty nicely.  This is also the reason why the larger cities tend to have two non-competitive specialist rider-owned companies; it’s difficult to mix the two if these peak hours aren’t more or less separate.

The pay for food delivery is typically between 7.00-10.00 USD per run.  About half of this is commision from fees, and the other half is tips. For parcel, it varies depending on urgency and the type of package, but it starts at around 5.00 USD commission (after the company takes its cut) all the way up to 15.00, 20.00, 25.00 for super-urgent runs or large bulky stuff.  We have a Bullitt cargo bike parked in a garage space nearby for anything larger than what we can fit on a cargo rack or in our bags.

Regarding dispatch (or “controllers”): we have none. Our system is largely self-dispatched.  Work is submitted to a central system by our clients, which all couriers on the board have access to and can claim runs via smartphone.  With the right guidelines and policy in place, I think this is a more egalitarian way of distributing work because, 1) it doesn’t play favorites as a dispatcher might, 2) it still rewards the good couriers for being quicker and more efficient, and 3) it allows the riders on the street to work together to distribute work rather than a dispatcher, which is great because dispatchers tend to get really disconnected from the nuances of routing and such after spending too much time behind a desk.  It still takes some regulation on our part, as some riders will wait in the wings and just cherry-pick high return runs if you give them the chance, but it works really well most of the time.

Admittedly, the absence of a central dispatcher restricts our ability to pick up new clients on the spot. We’ve more or less gotten around this by providing job submission forms on our website, that anyone can access, that link to our mainline email account.  The Shift Lead, usually myself or my co-owner, plugs those one-off jobs into the system as necessary, and also handles any customer phone calls via our Google Voice number (which can we can set to forward to as many riders' cell phones as we need).

Zoidberg is totally spot-on with a lot of the pitfalls about being a courier.  No one is ever in as much of a rush as you are, and naturally just assume that they are the only thing you need to worry about at any given time.  So you’ll get people that take their sweet fucking time meeting you or getting payment together, for example.  You can start tacking on Wait Time charges after a certain amount of time (usually 10 min), but that initial 10 minutes is a fuck-ton of wasted time that can set you back for the better part of an afternoon if you’re not careful.  Security can potentially be massive unreasonable dickheads as well, although a lot of them will let you through no questions asked when they see you’re just trying to do your job.

Being efficient is way more crucial than blasting through intersections and getting all Premium Rush and shit.  It's way more about being combining runs effectively, staying organized with your work, knowing the patterns of the city, finding the shortest route between A, C, D, B, and A again, than it is about being breakneck fast.  But being a strong rider does help a lot, too.

Drivers, of course, are very frequently the worst.  In many cities, it’s the cabbies, buses, and aggressive drivers you have to worry about; in my city, it’s the timid drivers that freak out and slam on the brakes when you get within 5 feet of them.  At least the aggressive ones are somewhat predictable.  Then again, I've had a bunch of weird driver-related shit happen to me at work, from getting knives and guns brandished to me to dudes trying to run me into a curb.  People get heated.  But most people are pretty cool.  I've never actually been hit, and the couple times I've gone down were pretty minor, and the fault of drivers / pedestrians not paying attention in general rather than me taking risks.
 
Cops around here, thankfully, are remarkably tolerant of the liberties we take with traffic laws, as they see the same couriers pretty much every day and for the most part understand that we’re professionals who know what we’re doing.  Not the case in bigger cities, I know messengers in NYC and Chicago have been getting massively fucked lately with traffic violations.

Of course, you also have to deal with bad weather, injuries, constantly being tired and hungry (although we’ve found a way around that with contractual shift meals from our restaurant clients), and all the other things that come with working what a lot of the time is just basically a highly physical blue-collar job.

All of the good things you’ve probably already heard, which I’m assuming is why you’re looking at couriering in the first place.  You hang out wherever and do whatever the fuck you want when you’re on standby.  You have no real master other than your (relatively loose) contractual obligations to complete whatever job you’re carrying at the moment.  You use your own equipment and you don’t have to wear a uniform, unless you’re working for one of the few companies that actually employs rather than contracts riders (at least in the US, sounds like it’s different in the UK).  And obviously you get paid to ride, which also means you can write off a shitload of bike-related expenses on your taxes.

All in all, you really have to love riding a bike to make couriering a decent and productive venture for yourself.  It can be a really rough, shitty, and ultimately super discouraging job at its worst, and one of the most satisfying and liberating ways to make a living at its best.  Some of the guys I’m acquainted with from the industry have seen and done some pretty incredible things as a direct result of being a courier.
« Last Edit: June 23, 2015, 09:03:09 AM by Sebastian »

Offline Sebastian

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Re: Bicycle messengers of BG.
« Reply #14 on: June 22, 2015, 03:02:36 PM »
Oh, and regarding pitching yourself to a company, from my perspective:

As long as you show up with a decent bike (preferably with a cargo rack like a CETMA or something) and present yourself as a reliable person with a decent employment record, I'm already interested.  One of the negatives, for us, about this job being so flexible is that it tends to attract some massive fucking flakes as a result.  So if you've convinced them that you're going to show up every day and be relatively trustworthy you've already done yourself a huge favor.

The turnover rate for rookies is on your side here, if you're even just a little persistent you'll probably be in. Unfortunately the summer tends to be the slower season, at least for us, so they may be staffed up.  If they are, try again in October.

Bikeguide.org - Bike maintenance for BMX'ers

Re: Bicycle messengers of BG.
« Reply #14 on: June 22, 2015, 03:02:36 PM »

 

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