Theresa’s Messenger Service

Why not start a blog? It seems as every else is, right? We’ll try to keep this one fairly specific, though, limiting it to topics related to the SF messenger industry as it applies to Theresa’s Messenger Service. Lets start off easy and post something that I’ve already written. The following is a comment I posted to Kuro5hin.org in response to an article written and posted by a messenger living and working in Toronto, Canada named Transient0:

I’ve been a bike messenger for about 6 years here in San Francisco. Here are some of my thoughts.

Transient0 captures messenger life aptly. Of course, being a “lifer” I differ slightly with his take on the courier lifestyle. Maybe it’s a different economy down here in SF.

Being a messenger is indeed one of the most satisfying jobs I have ever held. Before I became a messenger I was a firefighter, laborer, a student, and a nurse in a hospital. I’ve performed a litany of jobs before I found the one that suited me. Through it all, I’ve always been into cycling. So, on a whim I landed a job as a bike messenger. Now, I gat paid to play my favorite sport. In fact the job satisfaction I got inspired [me] to start my own messenger service. Now I work for myself.

I still consider someone with less that a few years as a courier to be a rookie. There are quite a few skills to be picked along the way. Even after my 6 years I am still learning new things. Being a bike messenger is an amalgamation of many jobs. I am a paralegal, process server, bicycle mechanic, customer service rep, dispatcher, and athlete. In my case, running my own company, I’m also a salesman, office manager, accountant, access database programmer (barely), web designer, and graphic artist. And I still manage to ride my bike every day.

Just as there are there are crummy programming jobs, there are crummy messenger jobs. Conversely, good messenger jobs are pretty good. Of course, Transient0 is right in claiming that there exists a wage ceiling for messengers vastly disparate from those of their programmer “counterparts.” There are bike messenger positions, mostly with attorney service companies, that pay between $40-60kUSD a year. These are real jobs not crummy independent contractor positions either. That’s not bad for skilled labor. I bet someone could raise a family on that. I know messengers that do.

As to the bad reputation that messengers have, I just have to laugh. For every crazy rookie messenger, splitting lanes the wrong way down a one-way street, and knocking down old ladies on the sidewalk, there are 24 professionals that aren’t even noticed. OK, so that is by my assertion 4%, which I guess is significant. However, the best-paid messengers rarely ride like idiots and rarely get in accidents. There are flukes, such as getting doored, but mostly messengers are in control of their own fate. And as to the perceived danger posed by a reckless bike messenger, when was the last time you’ve heard of a bike careening off the road onto the sidewalk, killing 10 pedestrians? Never!

I am proud to do what I do and I’m good at it. As for me, I feel that I am a productive member of society. I own a house and keep up on my mortgage payments. I live with my wife and 11-month-old daughter on Potrero Hill here in San Francisco.

-Paul

This entry has been posted so that this doesn’t become one of those “one entry only” blogs. My wife, Theresa, and I have been busy these past two weeks running TMS since we’ve gotten back from our all too short, yearly, one-week vacation. Running your own business is quite a task. Especially when you have a kid.

Our business partner, Mike, has two kids. He seems to do OK. I think it’s a cycle with me. One week I’ll be OK with all the stress, the next week I can feel the crushing weight of the American Dream bearing down on my chest. I don’t have an ulcer yet! Sometimes I wonder if it’s ever all going to pay off.

I remember a quote I saw on advert-flyer for a play in the south bay and I can’t help but to think of it now, “Living is in the United States is like being on a crowded bus headed for a cliff and everybody is fighting for a better seat.”

I hope I don’t alienate any of my clients by writing that.

-Paul

Our clients have been keeping us busy today. Thank goodness for that. We had a pretty slow time of it last month. Gotta’ keep up the cash flow! Payroll is a really big expense. Especially when one factors in healthcare and workers comp. Comp insurance can cost a messenger company upwards of 25 percent on every dollar that goes into paying their workers. That doesn’t even include payroll taxes.

No wonder there are so many crappy companies out there that hire only independent contractors to do their work. By hiring IC’s, companies avoid paying into all that good stuff that is the foundation of a healthy worker-friendly economy, such as disability insurance, health insurance, unemployment insurance and social security. It is my personal opinion as an employer that these are my ethical responsibilities. That is until we get nationalized health care…oops caught myself again sounding like a San Francisco Liberal. Wait, I am a San Francisco Liberal!

OK, I’m not sounding very “corporate friendly” here, am I? But hey, call me crazy. Not only do I feel that this is a moral imperative to treat my workers as human beings and not meat robots, but I find that it is also good business.

I know from my years of work experience that when I feel appreciated and relatively well compensated that I’ll do a crackin’ job for my boss. I also know that working as an IC sucks when one makes messenger wages, making ones motivation drop profoundly. Well, I’m boss now. Lets see what happens.

I was doored in May of 2002. Here’s the story.

I’m riding my bike on Market Street in Downtown San Francisco. I have two packages on my back and they need to be delivered soon. Dinner sounds good about now, but seeing as it’s only 3:30 pm, I have a few hours to wait. Hmm, I wonder how I might increase my client base…..wham!

The edge of the SUV door impacts with the left side of my skull. Usually I can see this kind of thing coming. After several years as a messenger, I’ve grown quite accustomed to the occasional unforeseen obstacle. Pedestrians, cars and other cyclists are all vying for space. Obviously we can get in each other’s way. Often there is time for me to react, but sometimes, due to overly aggressive driving or sheer bad luck, something really bad happens.

My hand covers the side of my face. I’m sitting on the sidewalk when the pain sets in. It’s sharp on the outside and dull on the inside. My first feelings are of disbelief and anger. The first words I utter are, “Mother f**ker,” and “God damn it.” Actually the words came out of my mouth as a sort of strained yell.

“There’s no need to cuss.”

There standing over me is a stocky Arabic man, the passenger of the SUVand the one who opened the door into my path.

I look up at him and say, “What?”

He reiterates, “You don’t need to be cussing like that.” I notice his giant, golden, jewel-encrusted crucifix that hangs pendulous from his thick neck.

“Are you all right?” , he says.

This is a common query asked of the immediately injured. I guess it’s just some sort of courtesy, but at this moment, clutching the side of my bleeding skull, all I can think is, “What an idiot. No, I am not all right! I’ve just cracked my skull on your door, I am bleeding and I’m in pain and I’ve got packages to deliver! And you, you have the audacity to ask me if I’m all right. What does it look like, a**hole?!”

I said none of this. I’m a fairly even-tempered guy and I knew that yelling at this point wouldn’t help. So instead I give him the best version of the what-are-you-stupid look I can muster. Calmly, I say “No.”

The cross bearer ponders this for a fleeting moment and says, “But you’re gonna’ be OK, though, right?”

The man proceeds to get back in to the passenger seat, and tells the female driver “C’mon lets go.” He slams the SUV door.

This is the point when the mayhem starts. I jump up and reopen his door, and tell him that leaving now would constitute a hit-and-run. At the same moment a good citizen stands in front of the SUV and places his hands on the hood. He looks at the driver and shakes his head no.

The passenger seems startled and perhaps a little angry. Great, this guy wants to fight. I must tell you, I don’t fight. I haven’t been in a fight since the 7th grade. I would much rather go to the dentist to have a root canal than to engage in a fistfight. It’s not because I’m absolutely against fighting. I feel this way because I’m a big p*ssy and would much rather talk my way out of a prickly situation than to experience someone’s fist impacting with my skull. Besides, my skull hurts enough.

“That’s some Osama Bin Laden bullsh*t, there!”

In comes Hothead (named for the purposes of this story). Hothead is perhaps one of the most outspoken politically-minded bike messengers in the city. He has no problem asserting his opinion in any situation. His verbal temper is legendary. Unfortunately, he chooses to make his political views known at this crucial moment in my day.

“That’s some Osama Bin Laden bullsh*t, there!”, repeated Hothead pointing to the SUV.

The now upright passenger’s attentions are now off of me and focused squarely on Hothead. They both look agitated. Both men begin to engage in a dual-one-way disagreement about two very different things.

Hothead’s angle is that our dependence on foreign oil funnels money into the Middle East. As it turns out much of the money Osama used to fund Al Qaeda is from oil profits. Hothead used the gas guzzling SUV as an example of “Osama Bin Laden bullsh*t.”

The passenger felt that Hothead was making some sort of racial slur directed at his ethnicity. He had no idea that Hothead was talking about the vehicle.

“This guy works out.” I thought. I have my hand placed firmly on the chest of the passenger, carefully avoiding the crucifix. He is pushing toward Hothead. Hothead is coming from the opposite direction, yelling something.

“NO FIGHTING!”, I say. I tell Hothead that he’s not helping. I’m stuck in the middle of these two angry guys, bleeding, dizzy, and feeling not so well. I must have you know that a mere minute has passed from the time I was doored to now.

That’s when the cops showed up and told me to have a seat until the ambulance arrived. Thank god. While waiting for the ambulance to arrive Hothead and the Passenger continued to argue.

I remember while the paramedics were putting on my neck-brace the passenger kept asking me if I was OK, as if trying to quell his guilt. I kept telling him, “No, I’ve been doored.”

Soon my experience is limited to the confines of a stretcher in the back of an ambulance. A police officer came in to ask me questions about the accident. More police came in to ask me questions about Hothead. Apparently he was arrested for making threats at the scene, and released the next day. About a week later a police investigator called me to ask about the accident. I was pleased that they were being so thorough with the police report, because my hospital bills were more than I could afford, and I was expecting the police report to come out in my favor.

Actually the investigator was calling to see if the police should press charges against Hothead for hate-speech. Disappointed, I explained that Hothead, when not in a state of mindless political rage, was one of the most moral, upstanding and racially tolerant people I have known. I think that most, if not all, of the charges against him were dropped. He did however loose his job.

The police report concerning my accident was another matter. Apparently, the officer said that because I passed on the right side of the vehicle that I was at fault because legally one is supposed to pass on the left. He also drew a little picture showing that there was more room to pass on the left.

The insurance company didn’t want to pay for my hospital bills, because I was “Mostly at fault.” I patiently persisted, and after staving off collection agencies and jumping through numerous hoops for about 10 months, my medical expenses were finally covered by the insurance company.

I was later berated for not taking full advantage of the situation. I could have opted to sue for a sum far greater than the medical costs, but I guess it just didn’t feel right to do so.

Thanks to Swerve and Ben C. for getting my packages out on time and to all the other messengers who showed up at the accident to gawk and lend their support.

As to my hospital bills, thank God for mandatory auto insurance.

-Paul

This year has been my first year as “The Man”. Yep, I’m the boss man. Theresa’s has only a few employees, so it’s not as if I am regional manager at Wal-Mart. However, I’m still barely comfortable with my position. I do have two partners, Mike and Theresa, and we all decide collectively how to run our company, so I guess they’re bosses as well, yet even though the responsibility is shared there is still an odd feeling when our new employee, Chris, introduces me to others as “ My boss, Paul.” I guess that’s just something that I’ll have to get used to.

Why does being a boss make me uncomfortable? Could it be because I have major socialist leanings, maybe even bordering on communism? I am conflicted. On the one hand I absolutely love the side of capitalism that allowed me to take the meager resources I had when I started TMS and through tenacity, hard work and creativity spawn a successful company from scratch.

On the other hand I see capitalism as a corporate juggernaut that is seriously threatening the way we live here in the West. Now, when I say the “way we live.” I’m not talking about having big TV’s and driving gas guzzling cars, and throwing away a Dixie cup with each drink of Coke. That stuff is going to get bigger and more prolific. This is not what I mean by “way of life”. What is threatened is access to health care, education, jobs, equal opportunity, housing, infrastructure, human rights, and the list goes on.

Everything is out of whack. Union membership is declining – we can thank unions for the 40-hour workweek and the 8-hour day – at an alarming rate. The standard of living is declining for many people. The ranks of the poor and lower middle class are growing. Health insurance is super expensive. I could go on and on about how many peoples’ lives are becoming worse. In the meantime the people who are at the top of the income scale have never been doing better economically, ever!

Now, don’t get me wrong, I think that capitalism is a good system, but as with any system, there can be profound abuses. The current model of capitalism is so controlled by the people at the top with such a compassionless drive to increase shareholder profit that the people at the bottom cease to exist as nothing more than consumers and workers.

I don’t know? I think I’m a pretty good boss.

I keep recycling old stuff. Here’s something from three years ago.

I’m at Market and 2nd when I witness my first bicycle-messenger cop-car chase. “Tall-Can” Thomas, the guy on the bike, passes by at about a million miles an hour. Sirens and lights are not far behind. Tall Can hops off of Market and doubles back along the sidewalk. The cops come to a skidding halt as the messenger has already maneuvered across two lanes of traffic and is madly pedaling up 2nd street. I thought he was going to evade San Francisco’s finest when, seemingly, out of every direction police units swarm upon him, trap him and knock him down. At the scene of the arrest the crowd of very confused bicycle-messengers, cops, and civilians come to find out that there had been a bank robbery that day. The police had simply wanted to question the messenger. Apparently he fit the description of the robber. I spoke with Tall-Can weeks after the incident. Apparently he didn’t think anything of it when the cops told him to stop. Listen to Thomas tell the story himself. (2 1/2 Minutes, 300k RealAudio file). Thomas would like it to be known that one should never try to evade the police.

Here’s a picture I took at the scene.

As the messenger industry shrinks so are the ranks of bike messengers. For a professional messenger like myself, a “lifer” if you will, I find that fact both disconcerting and encouraging.

The major drawback regarding this industry’s contraction is that there’s less work to do and less money to be made. As a company owner, this makes me worry a bit. At the same time the people that are left in the industry are often very happy with their work. OK, so there are a few who feel trapped in this job, who feel that they have no other line of work to transition to. These people are in every profession, though.

What I’m talking about are the messengers like me who have chosen to stay in this field for something more than a summer gig. There are a lot of us now. We’re responsible hardworking adults who take pride in our jobs and realize that we are lucky enough to get paid to ride our bikes, although, most messengers will never make as much as the people who work in the buildings.

The peers surrounding me now are much different than when I first hopped on the courier saddle in 1998. There are far fewer rock stars today. It’s also much harder to find a job now, even at the crappy companies. So the messengers who seem to make it past the first job interview are more appreciative of having a position somewhere, and thus seem to be better couriers.

Oh, some of them are still tattooed, pierced and love to drink beer, but there seems to be something more professional about this current breed of messenger. Maybe industry shrinkage and its subsequent attrition is a good thing after all.

Frank Chiu is perhaps one of the most famous “protesters” in San Francisco. If you spend any time downtown, then there’s a good chance you’ve seen him. He shows up at almost every protest and a great many public press conferences. I’ve even seen him in the background on the local nightly news.

I’m not going to rewrite what is already out there, so I suggest that you read the following Wikipedia article, which is perhaps the most comprehensive description of Frank Chiu I’ve seen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Chu.

The messenger community is particularly fond of Mr. Chiu. He is often invited to many of our functions and has been honored on T-shirts worn by “One Posters’”, messengers that stand by at One Post Street here in SF.

Here’s a picture of me with Frank back in 1999

It has been a fairly recent development for me to jump onto the Blogwagon. Oh yes, I’ve been posting stuff I’ve written for years now on personal websites. You know, short articles, photos, and what-not, but that was all before this was called “Blogging.”

Now that it has a name, there are a plethora of blogs out there. And I’m not complaining. I said that I myself was new to blogging in its current form. I am very pleased to have so much good stuff to read. Some bad stuff too.

Keeping with the Theresa’s Messenger Service blog’s general theme, here’s one that I just ran into called Bike Messenger.

As a fellow courier, I hope this person keeps up the good work.

I become quite irritated when I see courier companies from out-of-town opening shop in the San Francisco Bay Area. I’ve been here for years, living in SF, working hard to establish my business, when these other companies come with their sales people and expensive advertising budgets and compete for business in my bay area.

I know that competition is at the core nature of this industry, but it still irks me none-the-less. If I want to engage in the capitalist system, I have to realize that competition comes with the package, even if the competition is unscrupulous.

My frustration comes when I see that most of the out-of-town guys are hiring independent contractors to do their work. Some of these companies are like sweat shops on wheels. A messenger can work as many hours a day as the company wants and the company gets away with paying no overtime and providing no breaks or lunches. They pay none of the local city and state taxes and California workers comp insurance that Theresa’s Messenger Service does. They can undercut my prices and reap bigger profits while pulling money out of the local economy. How are they getting away with this? This is actually illegal, but for some reason the labor department, for the most part, turns a blind eye.

When people choose a courier company they are really choosing the most attractively packaged path of least resistance. It is understandable that clients want to simply place an order, know that the job will be done and move on. However, what they don’t realize is that their choices have a direct impact on our local economy.

In order to be socially conscious, clients should ask these questions before choosing a company:

1. Are your workers independent contractors or employees?
2. Are you a locally based company?
3. Do you offer health insurance?

I chose to live here in San Francisco for many reasons. The most paramount of which are the liberal and progressive attitudes that prevail here. Sometimes I wonder, though, is San Francisco really that liberal, or is just a patina on what is now becoming an adult amusement park.

I am surprised, perhaps naively so, by the fact that business is business is business, even in liberal San Francisco.