A Raccoonist(s?) had recently applied for a Bike Courier job with Ottawa's alleged largest employer of bicycle couriers, Quick Messenger Services (or is it Quick Buisness Services? Both phrases appear as corperate names on their website). Anyways, for the interview I spoke with the pudgy, bland-faced quick-talkin' hardnosed stereotype of a small time buisnessman who apparently acts as president of the company. This chump offered absolutely no incentive to become a bike courier, and major incentive for ridiculing him and his system in blogpost form.
Firstly, Wikipedia's article on bike couriers describes a common romantic perspective of the job amongst people and this perspective is what gives a difficult and dangerous job its popularity. There are no shortage of bike couriers. I...no..my unnamed Raccoonist associate fell prey to this romantic notion and chose to apply.
assumptions about bike couriering 1) - they are well paid for what is clearly a physically demanding, and potentially dangerous vocation. - this is false - at Quick Messenger Service we are self employed, independant contractors - now the joker who interviewed me tried to make it sound like this was great because they wouldn't take anything off my paycheque (things like income tax, and UI) - obviously what he thought sounded like a little extra spice to get our Raccoonist into the job sounded extremely disadvantageous to our hero and we're clearly 'independant contractors' so he wouldn't have to pay us a wage. Quick Messenger couriers are paid out of commission on the packages they deliver, which means embarassing and vulgar competition with other couriers over packages to make what could amount to less than living expenses. President said I would be making between 1,000 and 1,200 a month which is about minimum wage, for an extremely demanding job - he also spoke of the right couriers have to deduce from income tax the cost of lunch and other expenses, he spoke of this as though its something he's providing to his workers although this was in fact the result of a hard won legal battle fought by Toronto Bike Couriers in 1998. Anyways I'm not an idiot, I know that what I deduct from taxes isn't up to him.
Assumption 2) the job gives a great deal of freedom to those with the true grit to work at it. - well, being a bike courier might require some kind of grit, true or otherwise, but freedom is not a significant part of the job. Sure, you get to bike around and that can FEEL like freedom at certain moments but its a full time job, 8am to 5pm of constant biking to deliver stupid packages to people with the pressure on to continue in perpetuity because theres no hourly wage. Self Employed Independant Contractor my ass!
Assumption 3) there is some system in place to assist someone who is injured....because its dangerous - no, not with Quick Messenger Service. Couriers are self-employed and therefore have no one to rely on for help except themselves if they're hurt. So therefore there is pressure to work during a time of injury, otherwise the inevitably dire financial situation of a bike courier could unravel with the time missed. Of course when I asked the stupid president what happens when someone gets hurt he replied around the question in two immensely transparant ways. A) he said something like "well...knock wood, lets hope it doesn't happen." (lets hope knocking wood saves lives first, I have a feeling it doesn't) and B) he invented a hypothetical situation which was fairly mild in its severity - a courier hurts his leg but its not so bad that he doesn't miss any work...good for him. At this point in the interview the Raccoonist felt pretty sure that the guy was an insufferable dickweed and he was not going to work for him, so he didn't persue an argument where the hypothetical situation was significantly worse for the rider.
Assumption 4) aside from my bicycle, necessary equipment would be provided. Err...this isn't really an assumption because I figured I had to provide my own bag BUT get this, for every pay period (every two weeks) $48 is deducted by the company because they forcibly rent each courier a pager device. So from already small monthly earnings almost $100 is extorted for something that our Raccoonist would not have any use for outside of work. This is again a byproduct of the Independant Contractor scam, where because the courier is an outsider to the company, they cannot just be given company equipment but rather borrow it at a cost which amounts to a significant personal detriment. And this aside from the fact that the couriers work full time for them and because they're a couriering company, actually do the work central to the company's buisness scheme.
Anyways, anything written here is the result of experience with Quick Messenger Service, maybe there's some other service hiring bike couriers in Ottawa that's really great. Something has to account for why I see "rebellious" punk types acting in this position of exagerrated servitude.
If this is "just the way it is" for bike couriers then fine, be a bike courier, we don't care but we're not going along with it.
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