what was that? is that all there is? who is this? this is it.

I enjoy time to think. But all day to think can be unhealthy. A little hard work helps to keep my mind off of things that I don’t want to think about. And the past few days there hasn’t been much hard work but there has been a lot of standing by, sitting down, zoning out. I’m even getting ridiculed by hard-working commissioned messengers. Some are jealous of my steady hourly wage and my lack of work. Some just can’t accurately express their feelings about the whole situation and all those emotions work their way out in other ways.

Underemployed times two. Actually underemployed to the third power. Working as a bike messenger is one thing. Sitting around as a bike messenger is another, but sitting around for hours when it’s 36 and raining is the worst.

Idle time recently has made me think about moving on to another job. Another employment situation. Another source of income. Not another “career” because that word gets in my way. I read about a paralegal certification program and thought about how I could do that. I thought about it for a good 10 seconds then laughed and said NO WAY.

There are times when I feel like I’m doing paralegal work pointing out mistakes to legal secretaries, calling them out to the front desk to explain things to them about their court filing, calling them on the phone from the clerk’s office to explain things some more. A rolling paralegal. I know my way around the courthouse. I’ve been in a lot of law firms in Seattle, I’ve been in some of them hundreds and hundreds of times. I have a feel for which ones would be OK to work for and which ones would really suck. The chi of Seattle law offices could be a page or two in kickstand. But the bottom line is, my favorite part of working with lawyers, legal secretaries and paralegals is going into their offices grabbing the documents, and getting the hell out of there and back outside. I do not want to spend my days in one of those offices.

this job sucks.

no wait, this job doesn't suck as much as your job sucks

PS…early this morning before I drank my coffee I thought I should “upgrade” to WordPress for this blog thing. But nothing happened and it just held the whole site in limbo so I tried to change my mind. So if your links are jacked that’s why. Next time I start a blog I’ll start there but it’s difficult to transfer translate. Copy?

PPS...I don't have a myspace page. You can contact me here. Copy?

12 Comments

I'll ridicule you! Barely doing any work is great. And then doing one job and getting to sit somewhere else for a while. It's kind of like that game with the chairs and you switch chairs, but the chairs are just really far apart. musical chairs. But you don't actually need to go to school to be a paralegal. I hear the better ones just learn from experience. How will I ever fill that huge void on my Myspace "top eight" now?

I copy you on the paralegal thing, but I'm still not ready for the work environment, even if I'd kick ass at the work itself. And I could also write about the quality of office building lobby chairs. Four or so years ago I wrote about the chi of office buildings, so the chairs would be nice extension of that and a few lobbies have been remodeled since then. You're right the core is my musical chairs game. Perhaps you could put Riskay the musician from Florida in your top 8, her hit song is great and will never get airplay.

I just shut down my one person indy messenger biz in a small city where 90% of the law firm and other companies use a fixed route, non profit Security company with foot "courier" division and they charge a flat daily fee of $8.00 for any amount of documents. This, of course, is illegal in Canada and I suspect elsewhere as well. The Law firms don't care and that's why I'm never going to give a lawyer the time of day. They suck and live below ground when it comes to morals and ethics.

and also, whether you like or not, new spew has been some good therapy for the crap I've been through over the past 5 months

thanks for reading this spew and I appreciate your comments. No body, NO ONE except another Wal-Mart sized company could compete with an $8 unlimited route service, that's crazy. I'd like to think that small, quality, detail oriented companies like KNR that provide excellent service will not only survive but thrive in the messenger world as ABC-Mart sized corporations take over...I'd like to think. And I'm interested in what your next steps will be. Cheers.

i heart KNR. last week i was working on 22 after 5pm and a secretary needed a rush and ABC said "sorry, closed". oh wait, you were there.. DUH. nevermind. moral of the un-story. KNR rulz. Cory and Pilder to the rescue. she was stoked how inexpensive it was too. i think the word is getting out about you guys here after that..

I run a two-man messenger operation and have felt the economic squeeze as of late too. We've had to resort to things like poster distribution and lunch delivery (both very un-messengerish and rather unfun yet lucrative). I think the way to fly in the legal sector will be electronic filing. The requirement is inevitable and all those old coots that have had little firms for decades will never learn how. Unless the paralegals figure out how to do it they will need somone to come in and fire off all their filings from a laptop or something. Could be a niche. Now the trick is figuring out how to learn said process and then marketing it. The fax made a dent but we bounced back, the same will be said for the interweb, we just need to stay creative to stay viable. Sorry your company didn't make it Joe, if we stay afloat, maybe I can offer you a job in the future (we're only a few hours south of Canada and we love hockey!)

P77 thanks for the offer, put on the bacon and chill the beer. Pilder - describing the next step can't be done without several paragraphs of background info but..... It's basically "to press the postal inspector (he's in another city,shorthanded and extremely busy) to proceed with the investigation based on my evidence and hope that they see fit to conclude with charges. The "courier" thinks they're protected by some wiggle room in the letter of the law but they're not. They claimed to have called a lawyer with Canada Post (but don't know his name...) and he said they are ok based on what they told him but advised them t get the law firms (all clients too) to sign a declaration that they will not violate the law (that regulates the courier industry!).No lawyer in their right mind would expose the firm to this. They have a bulk courier system where the courier assumes the firms carry "exempt" items (where $8 is ok for any amount) unless they're "told" otherwise to bill $2.88 per item for "non exempt" items. The honesty policy would never work in this business. here's the law - http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/showdoc/cs/C-10/bo-ga:l_I-gb:s_14//en#anchorbo-ga:l_I-gb:s_14

sorry I got several auth errors and dupes and dupes happened.

if you'd like to write up your story in full paragraphs and not be limited by these little comment boxes, you can email it to me and I will gladly post it here. I'm guessing there are several interested people out there who'd like to read it.

Double digit comments are so much fun though. I still don't know what I want to do when I'm not a messenger. I was thinking of maybe learning to fly and doing this job in a plane. People in B.C. and Alaska need stuff brought to them too. You can't email food yet.

Pilder, Well I do blog,,,, http://steambike.wordpress.com/ but that's a great idea. I'll write a "timeline" post to bring anyone interested up to speed and flesh it out with all of the details. Thanks man.

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