Any couriers on the forum?

[Ravenbait]

Bit of an odd request, this one.

I've been working on a fiction project for a while now, and I'm at the stage where I want to make sure I don't get tagged with the embarrassing label of "didn't do the research". My story is currently set in a fictional town, although I may change it to a real place at some point. I'm looking for cycle couriers who wouldn't mind answering a few hopefully simple questions about how a day would ordinarily pan out for them. Although it's what's commonly referred to as slipstream fiction, so things happen in it that wouldn't happen in the real world, I want to be sure that the things in it that could happen in the real world are described accurately.

I could go and ask on lfgss.com, but I was hoping we might have some non-London based couriers here I could ask as well.

Sam

 

[4F]

I am sure alecstilleyedye is one

 

[e-rider]

I tried to get a job as one; but failed!

 

[Hilldodger]

We used to run a courier service and I did some of the riding, so ask away!

 

[Zoiders]

One of the few major cities I can think of outside london where I know there for a fact to be profitable courier business is Nottingham - they landed the contract for running council documents around between sites, without that I am not sure if they would still be in business.

 

[alecstilleyedye]

I am sure alecstilleyedye is one

sort of, but probably not doing the kind of stuff rb has in mind.

graeme obree gives quite a good account of his time as a courier in his autobiography, if i recall correctly…

 

[Ravenbait]

We used to run a courier service and I did some of the riding, so ask away!

Thanks, Roger.

I'm interested in the daily practicalities, both how it would work in the depot and how it would work for the couriers.

Do the couriers go into the depot first thing or do they go immediately to the first pick-up?

How are the tags tracked? How does the dispatcher keep track of who has done what?

Is it more contract work or do customers want one-offs? How would payment be arranged?

What would a typical day be like? Do couriers work shifts if a depot is open, say, 8am - 8pm? Will a courier expect to go back to the base at any point during a day?

What, basically, would make the difference between a believable story about cycle couriers and one that is just someone's idea of how it might work?

Sam

 

[Ravenbait]

sort of, but probably not doing the kind of stuff rb has in mind.

graeme obree gives quite a good account of his time as a courier in his autobiography, if i recall correctly…

I've read The Immortal Class as well, but I'm more interested in the boring stuff.

Sam

 

[brockers]

I did eight winters on the motorbikes in London. Pretty much the same thing, as most of the documents and parcels I carried were pushbike work. The basic line used to be, if you're in the office, happiness was a clear screen (ie all jobs had been allocated), and if out on the road, happiness was 2xEC1, 3xEC2, 2xEC4, 3 W1s, a W2, a couple of W6s, a Chiswick, and (if on a motorbike) a Reading, a Hungerford and a Chippenham ( on a wait and return ) on board. All on separate dockets. With no rain, sleet, breakdowns or p***tures. The chance of all that lot coming together mind, was pretty slim.

 

[Ravenbait]

I did eight winters on the motorbikes in London. Pretty much the same thing, as most of the documents and parcels I carried were pushbike work. The basic line used to be, if you're in the office, happiness was a clear screen (ie all jobs had been allocated), and if out on the road, happiness was 2xEC1, 3xEC2, 2xEC4, 3 W1s, a W2, a couple of W6s, a Chiswick, and (if on a motorbike) a Reading, a Hungerford and a Chippenham ( on a wait and return ) on board. All on separate dockets. With no rain, sleet, breakdowns or p***tures. The chance of all that lot coming together mind, was pretty slim.

That sounds fab, but what does it actually mean?

Did your dockets get allocated by computer and couriers went back to the office to see the job lists? Or did you have mobile internet browsers that carried the same information? Why were separate dockets a good thing?

Sam

 

[brockers]

A customer phones the courier company and says he wants a letter picked up from his office, say in King William Street EC4, to go to Grosvenor Sq SW1. And gets quoted a price (maybe around £6.50 now - much the same as it was twenty years ago). Job gets entered into system by telephonist, and appears on controllers screen. Controller calls the courier - who has a company-owned, but totally knackered twenty year-old hand-held motorola radio (usually by a call-sign, such as 'delta two-five' or 'easy four-zero') who he knows is around that area because he last dropped off there (known as calling 'empty'). Courier goes to address, clothes invariably dripping from being outside in the rain for the last five hours, and after fighting his way past security, is requested to go round to 'despatch' at the rear of the building. Usually by the dustbins. He finally picks up letter/package (often as not though, the parcel isn't ready, so he starts charging waiting time). When he gets the package he goes outside, hoping his bike hasn't been nicked, calls 'p.o.b.' (parcel on board) on his radio, and tootles off down to SW1 rlj'ing all the way. On the way, the controller might ask him to stop off in Soho to pick up another SW1, or irritatingly, ask him who signed for that parcel he dropped at SE1 2 hours ago, as the recipient are saying it hasn't been delivered. Sometimes customers will want the courier to take three, four, or more letters in more or less the same direction and will combine the cost onto the same docket, thus saving themselves money. And sometimes, the customer will happily pay for those same parcels on separate dockets, but the courier company will tell the courier that they're on one docket, so basically cheating him. The courier can get between 50 and 70% of the docket price, but he makes more if all his jobs are on 'separates'. The 'minimum' in London now is around £3 for a job, up to about 4 miles, so to make £100 in a day, a courier has to be knocking out about 30 'minimums', and the only way you'll get that much work given to you is if you've been with the company for a few years, or you go out drinking (or cycling in my case!) with the controller.

Joe courier is likely to pop into the office most days, just to say Hi! or have a cuppa, and hand in his dockets. Though, increasingly, jobs are allocated by handheld pda so a proof of delivery (p.o.d) is instantaneous. There are many, many more details about the courier game, and writing this has made me come over all nostalgic.

Hmm. There's a book in here somewhere !

 

[Ravenbait]

A customer phones the courier company and says he wants a letter picked up from his office, say in King William Street EC4, to go to Grosvenor Sq SW1. And gets quoted a price (maybe around £6.50 now - much the same as it was twenty years ago). Job gets entered into system by telephonist, and appears on controllers screen. Controller calls the courier - who has a company-owned, but totally knackered twenty year-old hand-held motorola radio (usually by a call-sign, such as 'delta two-five' or 'easy four-zero') who he knows is around that area because he last dropped off there (known as calling 'empty'). Courier goes to address, clothes invariably dripping from being outside in the rain for the last five hours, and after fighting his way past security, is requested to go round to 'despatch' at the rear of the building. Usually by the dustbins. He finally picks up letter/package (often as not though, the parcel isn't ready, so he starts charging waiting time). When he gets the package he goes outside, hoping his bike hasn't been nicked, calls 'p.o.b.' (parcel on board) on his radio, and tootles off down to SW1 rlj'ing all the way. On the way, the controller might ask him to stop off in Soho to pick up another SW1, or irritatingly, ask him who signed for that parcel he dropped at SE1 2 hours ago, as the recipient are saying it hasn't been delivered. Sometimes customers will want the courier to take three, four, or more letters in more or less the same direction and will combine the cost onto the same docket, thus saving themselves money. And sometimes, the customer will happily pay for those same parcels on separate dockets, but the courier company will tell the courier that they're on one docket, so basically cheating him. The courier can get between 50 and 70% of the docket price, but he makes more if all his jobs are on 'separates'. The 'minimum' in London now is around £3 for a job, up to about 4 miles, so to make £100 in a day, a courier has to be knocking out about 30 'minimums', and the only way you'll get that much work given to you is if you've been with the company for a few years, or you go out drinking (or cycling in my case!) with the controller.

Joe courier is likely to pop into the office most days, just to say Hi! or have a cuppa, and hand in his dockets. Though, increasingly, jobs are allocated by handheld pda so a proof of delivery (p.o.d) is instantaneous. There are many, many more details about the courier game, and writing this has made me come over all nostalgic.

You're a star! I had no idea that a courier would charge wait time. I thought stop time was simply time wasted.

Mind if I come back to you with further questions if they occur?

Do all dockets attract the same price tag, for instance? Do courier companies offer scales for priority/distance? Is there a guaranteed delivery time? Does the customer pay by credit card over the phone or do most of them have an account?

And what hours would a courier company generally be open?

Thanks for that, I really appreciate it.

And please, if anyone else has anything to add, even if it's just a different take on the same thing, not necessarily something different, the more the better as far as I am concerned.

Ideally I'd see if a local courier would let me shadow him for a week or so, but I've got a day job and I'm still recovering from injury.

Sam

 

[Yellow Fang]

I knew someone who used to be a cycle courier at my last company. He was a slightly eccentric, curmudgeonly and oppinionated Kiwi. He was also a plumber for a while. He was a mechanical engineer by training and set up his own company building robots. He was a software contractor while working for us, and one of the brainiest engineers I've ever met (either 1st or 2nd). My private nickname for him was Dirty Harry, because he could do and say what he liked and not obey instructions because he so good at his job, as well as being a workaholic.

Anyway, when he was a courier, he said he used to ride an old 3-speed. He used to save time by not locking it up. If it did get stolen, he'd go around the pubs and buy it back for £30.

 

[david1701]

there was a cycle courier in spaced, he was the rave king, limit of my knowledge

 

[Ravenbait]

there was a cycle courier in spaced, he was the rave king, limit of my knowledge

One of my favourite bits of Spaced ever is watching Tyres hitting the button on the pedestrian crossing just so he could dance to the beeping.

Sam