me

no

i'm not in good enough shape and don't know the city well enough to deliver stuff yet. but it is appealing because i hate the IT market, i dislike working in an office, i like riding my bike, and i like not having to wear dockers. it is also unappealing because of the ****ty pay, no benefits (even though the ones i have now suck), having to ride in terrible weather, HAVING to ride every day (it's a job now, not just something i like to do, which tends to sort of ruin things for me) and busting my ass, and i figure it's almost a matter of time if i were to become a messenger before i get hit by a car, or cars, and get messed up and or killed. kind of a high risk job, and i kind of want to live.

me too, most of the time, but not if I have to wear Dockers.

(your dockers line cracked me up, dude.)

didn't you have a "short" run of being a messenger here in NYC last year?

Thank for the replies, some companies give benefits (paid vacation,holiday pay, 401K etc) .

I don't think messengering is not like it was years ago but no way like the community want it to be like.

Weather is not bad because you have to go through it when ome and go from work. If you are prepared then it shouldn't be that bad.

Keep the replies oming folks.

S/F<
CEYA!

yes - i want to be a messenger because i grew up in new york city and ever since i was a kid i have been kind of taken with the idea. i don't know, there's just something badass about it.

no - i don't want to be a messenger because i am not badass.

ceya - how many years were you a messenger for?

i was actually just thinking about this. i have become pretty dissallusioned with my
current job. its a great job actually, i have just out grown it. i am not learning
anything new.

i was complaining the other night and one of my friends said
"well hey, why dont you quit and just messenger for a bit until you find something else"

in theory, it sounds pretty great to me, but from what i hear from messengers, its not
the best job. no insurance, lo pay and you have to deal with idiots all day. its just, being on your bike is so fun.

so, now i am just contemplating it.

dc.

Not too long ago, there was a thread on this forum about messenger pay. When people posted what they were making, I was shocked that the pay hadn't increased at all since I was a messenger (in DC) in the late 80s/early 90s... I mean, it's been 15 years since then, and the pay is the same!

I worked as a messanger for one day got offered a job doing food delivery for my favorite restauraunt in the world, realized I would be making a little less money doing double delivery shifs for 6 hours a night and its still less work and im still working on my bike, and I get free food, My on day as a messanger was disastourous I had been riding fixed on a suicide for like 3 months and that one da destoryed me I was glad to not be doing it. I think that now that ive been riding for a while I could do it if i wanted to, but im content to deliver food and flirt the waitresses at the food places I work at. I'm commonly mistaken for a messanger, i guess im just a huge poser with a tiny ass.

I'd like to be a messenger again so that I could:

- make $5000 a month again to spend on bikes and parts.

- wear my awesome briko shades again.

- blow my loud whistle at people standing in the way.

- feel the adrenaline rush.

- coordinate bike thief chases over the com-radio

- bike 310 miles a week at work and then go for an easy 74 mile run on Sunday off just for fun.

a) yes, b) yes, and why: If I had to get back on and work again, I would and could. Me loves New York. Of all the physical jobs, this one was the best. Hardship? Whatever. I'd love to do it again too so I don't feel so damn guilty, like some outsider deserter. Doing runs for my studio at work just ain't the same.

But I'm past that stage now - got to devote everything to seeking my path and making my art, do the one thing I know I'm here to do. I am now a messenger of design.

Im a career messenger, I own my company.......that solves alot of the problems with the job in general. Like almost everything else in life it is what you make of it, it can be brutally tough sometimes, but it can also be quite easy too. Its the sort of job that chooses the person, not the other way around. Ive never done anything else nearly as satisfying for a living. If you get into it for all the wrong reasons you will not have a good time or be good at it, it is a very unforgiving job to mistakes and foolishness. I wouldnt trade my freedom for anything, life is too short.

For those of you that dont think your in good enough shape, thats mostly BS.........I was 35 yrs old, 40lbs overweight, and hadnt touched a bike in 20 yrs and I went right into riding more than 200 miles/week.

Holy moses, how many runs a day did you have to make? Were you sleeping with the dispatcher?

Around 50 runs a day from 8 til 6. It was during the so called IT-bubble, the last half of the nineties when everyone called for a messenger. Those were the days but I wouldn't wanna have the 10 min lunch consisting of 2 Big Mac meals and then directly go for a triple rush back.

Freddiesan, where was this?

Stockholm -95 til -98. Alot of new messenger companies was born here then. It's diffrent now. Have a few friends left that are still working. You know anyone over here?

not me.
i made my living on a bike for a few years (racing, not messing), and it was a freakin' blast, and i'm really glad i did it, but it was ALL i did, and who i was, and i don't want my job to define me that much.

i like it better the way things are now; i don't get to ride as much as i'd like to, so every time i DO go riding i'm really happy about it. (riding when you're sick and you have no choice isn't really that fun.)

i also have time for other things in my life that are important to me.

Man did we look up to the cool messengers i NYC!

no thanks

i love my current job too much

but if i ever quit or lost my current job i would definately give serious thought to being a messenger...im not the fastest person in the worrld, but i know my way around the city

i worked as a messenger for almost 10 years, '90-'99. i'm over it now, although it would be fun to go back for a day or a week sometime. all that riding in traffic was fun, i miss it sometimes. but not too much.

Ha! I was a messenger here in ny then, and down in Baltimore/Dc in the early nineties. I think you guys probably had a better time of it than we did, moneywise if nothing else.

does it have to be a bike messenger? can it be something more meaningful like the biblical messenger of death?

I did it for 17yrs (NYC and all on track bike) .

I am a rookie with experience now..LOL

I left a ouple of times and I moved to others states for a short time also but only 4 months out of the year. Always coming back to this crazy place.


S/F<
CEYA!

If you want you can be the messenger that delivers the messenge to the 4 horse men that comes from the four corners to end life as we know it.



S/F,
CEYA!

.....

Always remember alot of guys are doing their hobbies. If it was work it will suck.
Hobbies become livelyhoods , it becomes something you enjoy that makes money. Once the fun goes , you need to go.

S/F<
CEYA!