Perhaps

I went a bit too hard. But to the reserves coming in behind shoes as big as BoBo's you had better hit it hard or move back in with your mom.

Been out of the game

For some time now. Been working as a wrench at a scooter shop on top of the usual wrenching for the bikeshop. Pedaling into work learning to enjoy riding for ridings sake again. Not looking at the bike as a paycheck. I can still come out and drop some packages on Mondays, however the week is usually so busy that I've got little left in me to make it worth even coming out. Plus it's summer so it's not even really worth coming out. And then you realize there is a few nipples that need tweaking(lame joke) and I don't make it out. Well I'm going to try and make it out tommorow, it'll be good for me and good for these fucking rookies to catch some shit. By the time I get annoyed at them and I don't even have to see them, then you know they need to get yelled at or something.
Speaking of rookies, now I am one in another field. While self evaluation always leads to self flattery. I would hope that I don't profess to be the scooter wrenching master after only a short while dealing with the horribly designed beasts for only a short time. Would I open up a scooter shop knowing only having a shallow understanding of the industry. Now then why would two rookies both with less than a year of experience want to start a courier collective? Doesn't that seem a bit cocky. Well thats what is happening, and to top it off the least experienced of the two has snaked work out from under Justin who has worked out there ten times as long as this particular rookie.
Well maybe bad ideas have a way of sorting themselves out and I should stop caring about it, it's not my business(pun) anymore.

heaven forbid

that you specialize in something and do it well. you want walmart you drive down the highway and get it. you have a need for a specific niche then you go to a specialty shop. when the shop isn't walmart you get mad? makes no sense to me. we do what we do well because it is what we know and love. we never professed to be sources of anything else, and when you ask for knowledge and services outside of our mission and even our very namesake... how could you be surprised when we tell you thats not our department?

I've been

Reading about a lot of people bitching on internet forums lately. About how much it sucks when a bike shop charges them for anything, and that the people who own or run the shops are bad people for charging.
As far as products go, I know for a fact you are much more likely to get a deal if you have something in return to exchange, such as beer, or tattoo's or food. But otherwise there is little reason we should devalue our goods on account that you feel like cool enough of a dude to get a discount. So when expecting for some crazy reason a free or discounted tube or something ask yourself if you have given these people anything free from your small business lately? Or hooked them up with goods from your place of employment? Or do I race for their team? If you have had to ask yourself these questions then the answer is likely no, because if the answer was yes, the percentage would all ready be taken out of your receipt. Oh and the only thing more awkward than asking for a discount you don't deserve is someone having to tell you you don't deserve it to your face.
There are also a few tricks that don't work so go ahead and stop using them. The I can get tubes cheaper somewhere else trick. You know what if you can then you wouldn't be coming to my shop to buy tubes so thats a lie. And if you really can get cheap tubes elsewhere then that must mean you have to get a tube right now because you are flat and at my shop, so there is little reason for me to give in and charge you "the 2$ that the other place charges you,"because you don't really want to walk the six miles to the other shop.
As far as labor goes. Hey my sink is broken you wanna come over and fix it for free, no you don't, it's not going to happen. Everywhere I go people charge me for drinks, food, tattoo's, gasoline, or doing my taxes. It's shitty I'm the first one to admit but we live in a capitalist society, and I don't know where inside my store it says that I am running it for charity, if you can point that sign out I've been meaning to take it down for some time now. So I am going to charge you to do pretty much anything to your bike. And I'm not going to let you borrow a specialized tools. I bought them by working and you feel entitled to them by your own folly.Next time you walk in and somebody charges you for doing something to your bike that you don't have the knowledge, tools or both to do, you shouldn't be any more surprised than to see a bill at the end of a dinner at olive garden. It's true that somebody a long time ago lied to cyclists and told them that bikes were cheap. This has never been the case. I am sorry you and I were both lied to.

Wheels.

Made more money this week building them than riding them. Slow time for packages this summer, fast season for the spoke wrench.

Dispatchers

Now that I have a well intentioned dispatcher it is a little bit harder for me to draw upon the anger present in the normal courier/dispatch relationship. I have to draw upon long forgotten wounds. My current dispatcher rides into work which is a pleasant change of pace. Instead of a fat slob pushing me harder and harder on a rainy day. I now get to smile knowing that he is about to get his. In factor should really be a requirement for anyone whom dispatches cyclists to ride in A couple days a week.
And don't forget that no matter how many times you help them out of a jam that when the axe falls they will let it fall down to you.

First day back

After a long trip, the first day back is always a little strange. Your tires allways seem a bit too low and slow. Or maybe your chain is too tight. Soon you fall back in the rhythm and everything clicks back in.
Pretty soon you feel right at home with oncoming traffic taking lefts into you. Pouring sweat pushing into elevators with perfect perfumed suits.
Receptionist, "Is it hot out there," well honey it ain't raining, and you're not the one getting me wet.
Which brings me to another little known fact. Bicycle couriers are also amateur meteorologists. Even in the digital age nobody trusts a weatherman if he isn't on the street so people come straight to the source. Usually with startling stupidity. Couriers worldwide come into offices pushing soaking manifests toward receptionists, lawyers, doctors, and every type of people far too educated don't catch such a subtle nuance as the trail that soggy vans leave on expensive carpet. Clever answers include things that you would never say like, "No It's not raining took a swim with all my shit including your package before I rushed your package over." Who knows how I would explain away the snow in my hood if I worked in a colder city, and maybe my lack of tolerance for dealing with,"Is it snowing?" is half the reason other than just not enjoying it.
The thing you have to remember though is that these people are presumably more educated and certainly make more money than we do. All the while they can't remember to put an address on a package, or bother to look out their windows with beautiful views. No, we check the weather for ourselves, because we have to deal with it. Before we head to work, at the office, and on those nifty weather updates they've got on the elevators now, it matters to us. Slipping out an hour early before the downpour means one more day you can wake up and put on a dry bag, and thus one more day before you go ahead and do something worthwhile with your time. So if you ask nicely we'll clue you in, and quite likely we've got a better chance at predicting correctly than Al Roker.