Why are couriers miserable bastards?

Buffalo Bill I don't really want to get into it here, but even tho you can send the pix down a wire, the actual items that are in the photo, clothes, accessories etc, in a spread for a fashion mag have to be physically present in the studio (or on the location) for the photographer to snap them.

That means courier/messenger/despatch service is req. As long as people req things to be moved around, there will be other people that do it.

In my view, this means that couriers/messengers/despatch riders will be req as long as there is organised economic activity.

If you aren't making enough money, quit, change companies or start your own company. And stop bitching about what a drag it is that fixies are cool. It's boring. Or even better, use your intimate knowledge of what fixie stuff is cool, and where to get it, to start a on-line shop selling to stuff to hipsters (hello Roberto, Jos, Keirin Berlin, Berlinetta, Erik Zo etc).

Good post.

yeah bill for sure, I know this is one of your bugbears. Is it totally rose tinted lies then? so many old dudes claim to have comfortably made loadsamoney back in the day. also i reckon i do loads of runs for the prestige value "look they must be important, they courierd it in". Once, when my mate got sacked from a particularly nasty job, I courierd his boss a jiffy bag of shit.

For at least the last five years if I want to post something to the UK

and expect it to be actually delivered it has to go registered

Considering the shambles of the Royal Mail

I would not use them if my business depended on it

Jontyponty yeah bill for sure, I know this is one of your bugbears. Is it totally rose tinted lies then? so many old dudes claim to have comfortably made loadsamoney back in the day.

I loved being a courier, I loved it for the freedom, not for the money

Eventually I had to get a 'proper' job of sorts

But I walked away from being a courier

with a lifelong love of bikes and riding bikes

Best job I've ever had. The pick-up-in-20minutes-or-the-client-doesnt-pay, saw me once do Harrow Road to Hammersmith Roundabout in 12 minutes. Thats incentive. In fact, my lard ass misses all but the snow. Mind you, Hornets used to pay danger money to anyone on two wheels who was prepared to work in snow then. That was 80 squid just for turning up. Had to keep the big accounts happy you see. Motorbike couriers no-showed in snow. I turned up in cycle-shorts with loads of vaseline on my legs. The wusses of today never face snow-work.

The fscking trains don't even work in snow here.. ;)

What Buffalo Bill said was what I believed in. If my company's work dried up, I was off to another company. No salaries back then. What you carried, was what you got paid. Accidents - why were they never little ones. I almost killed a young lady, she stepped out on a Red Man at the traffic lights on Euston Road, without loking, and I hit her at more than 30mph. Probably quite a bit more. I was fit then. Her skull cracked open, honest, and the police were going to do me. Luckily, all the people at the lights, who were waiting for the Green Man, told the police what really happened. I spent the night in my bed, not the nick. Couldn't sleep though.

Jontyponty yeah bill for sure, I know this is one of your bugbears. Is it totally rose tinted lies then? so many old dudes claim to have comfortably made loadsamoney back in the day. also i reckon i do loads of runs for the prestige value "look they must be important, they courierd it in". Once, when my mate got sacked from a particularly nasty job, I courierd his boss a jiffy bag of shit.

have you listened to the other things old couriers claim? all of the fun in being a vet of the circuit is you get to chat shit to every one who has done it for less then 5 years.

I never made loads of money. The guys at Creative used to do like 100+ jobs a day. I hated the central London circuit, so I preferred the long jobs. Rose-tinted? I once connected with a Ford Sierra, and had to pay the driver £125 for the door. A passenger was getting out, and I had jumped up onto the pavement to get around. My fault. Lost money. Off work for 2+ weeks, plus scratched to hell, and a bike that looked like it was made from ribbon.

Still fun though. Do the present lot get together in Manchester Square and make the place smell like a Rasta commune?

Caspar

Digital camera's in my case.

Nowt to do with the pathological ineptitude of the Metro management, then?

GrandeAnse2Grenville Still fun though. Do the present lot get together in Manchester Square and make the place smell like a Rasta commune?

soho steps is where its at now

The more things change... etc etc etc

Memory's fuzzy; too many pills. It was Soho Square and Golden Square.

i like golden square... supposedly the warmest place in london.

Jontyponty:

yeah bill for sure, I know this is one of your bugbears. Is it totally rose tinted lies then? so many old dudes claim >to have comfortably made loadsamoney back in the day<

I was there. Sure, some people were doing well alright. But most were scraping. I was an ok messenger, working at the better companies, and I never, never remember having an easy week and making more money than I knew what to do with.

It's a hard job, and not a particularly well-paid one.

GrandeAnse2Grenville The guys at Creative used to do like 100+ jobs a day.

I can promise you that no one has ever done more 60 jobs in a day at Creative, never mind 100. Not ever.

GrandeAnse2Grenville The wusses of today never face snow-work.

Did last year at least twice.

More here.

yeah i know, didnt mean to imply 'yeahyeah whatever Bill', just that i've read your stuff on the frequent apocalyptic predictions of the death of the industry. bugbear was in no way intended as derogative, they exist because they are true.

bugbears i mean. how convoluted can i be. what i mean is:

I agree that there is a tendency to hark on about the good old days, and am glad to have it confirmed that things are pretty much the same as they have ever been, curtsey of one with a clear-eyed (and historiologically sound) overview of the industry in question.

Jonty, I didn't take it the wrong way! But thanks anyway. :-)

i love you bill. we all do. (a tear falls, softly).

kowalski Caspar [quote]Digital camera's in my case.

Nowt to do with the pathological ineptitude of the Metro management, then?[/quote]

A very big healthy dose of pathological ineptitude, right the way through the whole managerial heirarchy. What is the point of trying to be the last lab standing in marketplace like digital photography. This coupled with taking over a terribly run company in the same industry that wasn't going anywhere meant I had to get out. I started to loathe the job I used to love.

Whilst Bill is right there will always be a need to collect & deliver props and large/mounted prints this doesn't count for all the location work that goes on, which is/was a fair sized portion of the market.

Anyway this is all chat for other forums......

I loved working as a courier at Metro (I enjoyed it at Hornets but wasn't there for long), the summers I worked were fantastic, the winters we less so but still thoroughly enjoyable.

Personally I think... Whoa! how the hell did I get over here onto this forum? I'm off back to MT to start a thread about why day-glo commuters always leave me hanging when I try to high-five them.

Caspar [quote]kowalski Caspar [quote]Digital camera's in my case.

Nowt to do with the pathological ineptitude of the Metro management, then?[/quote]

A very big healthy dose of pathological ineptitude, right the way through the whole managerial heirarchy. What is the point of trying to be the last lab standing in marketplace like digital photography. This coupled with taking over a terribly run company in the same industry that wasn't going anywhere meant I had to get out. I started to loathe the job I used to love.[/quote]
Me too.

I jumped ship from film to digital but it was nothing more than deckchair rearranging.

I collected my redundancy last week: one of the more recently employed riders asked me if I'd "come for a job" as I wheeled the CONdor down Gt Newburgh St.

Didn't know whether to laugh or laugh...

i know quite a few photographers who 5 years ago spent 17-20 k a year at metro who now spend about £30 or less a month there because of digital.
as for direct lighting they would have a better business if they didn't employ muppet drivers who can't be arsed to drive to the end of the road to the house number they have to pick up at at, even though i'm standing next to a load of kit waving at the driver.
which resulted in me standing in the street with 6k worth of their kit (and mine) having closed the door of the location house behind me. while the driver fucked off back to lambeth. the wanker had to come back which meant me standing in the cold for nearly an hour.
account forms for kinetic (lighting hire) were filled in the next day.