Machka there's nothing wrong with your ex embellishing a bit to emphasis that rates are too low (rates are too low), but there is a certain disservice in doing so to the degree that the service provided could be perceived as worthless due to being universally undervalued to the wild extents relayed in your story.

The fact of the matter is a hard working individual of average intelligence can make a living, albeit not a lavish one, but still a living nonetheless as a bicycle messenger. The work itself benefits -everyone- immensely, reason enough that an individual should be able to earn a living wage. That the work is typically hard or demanding and considered a necessity by many in business is further reason.

What we would like is that this work be accepted as a career choice, with mechanisms providing benefits, pensions, etc. It's a hard sell on a continent that perceives worth of the individual by little more than the weight of a pocketbook, yet we're all aware that we can't all be CEO's CFO's or executives or even business owners. Someone has to mind the works, and in most industries through a long struggle those persons have been provided for with benefits, pensions, workplace rights and protections that allow a worker a 20, 30, even a 40 year service to industry with some expectation of a duty of care to the worker after retirement or should the worker suffer a debilitating injury, and fair wages all along the way.

It is entirely possible, I personally know many individuals who work on the road and have wives and/or children that they & they alone provide income for, but these are usually very exceptional individuals.

In answer to your suspicion, pay does vary widely from company to company, but not so much from region to region. It's moderated by the same forces that govern low income wage earnings everyplace, minimum wage law requirements, cost-of-living variables, good old supply & demand, and in the case of our industry, the Canada Post Act, a woefully out of date document. In Sweden, and anywhere else in Europe it is far more desirable than doing the job in North America. Europeans by and large respect the work messengers do moreso than their counterparts here in North America. In Sweden he can count on a fair wage, vacation & benefits, all he has to do is be a good worker.

Tales of .30¢ payments per delivery even in the early 90's, a time not nearly as hard for our workers as today, do a disservice to our workers, and as intended would discourage new workers. Even if they fervently believe that doing a job on a bicycle that would otherwise be done in a car is a good thing, they're not likely to join up when told they'll be earning less than a bubblegum machine each day.

Besides which, it just isn't true.

But relax, that's not a reflection on you, we face mis-perceptions like this regularly. The thing with mis-perceptions of this nature is that they're nearly always the result of a lack of information. There's nothing wrong with it that it can't be corrected.