Corporate Meeting Courier Style

16 February - A foul start to the day. First I had to negotiate a minor but never pleasant hangover. I went downstairs to find that someone (almost certainly my tree surgeon friend) had consumed the last of my bread (i'd specifically left two slices the night before for this morning's breaking of the fast). What was really annoyingwas that there were two other loafs of bread sitting on top of the fridge with mine but the bread the other housemates buy is awful so I left it be (which was probably the same reason why Rene went for mine anyway). Subzero temperatures on the ridde into work - hands completely frozen and I found myself riding with one hand and keepingthe other in my pocket and switching whenever it got unbearable (tomorrow is supposed to be much worse, I might have to wear socks on my hands when I go in). When I did arrive in town I was hungry so I bought a muffin from the usually tolerable Blenz chain. It was completely stale and the "small" coffee I ordered was completely overpriced, way too big (12 ounces, the size of a large one at home) and it was way too hot (think spill it on yourself at McDonalds and sue them for ten million dollars, as it was I just suffered third degree burns to my mouth). It was very clear and sunny but the winds were awful and the jobs were pretty awful too. I gave a very sharp admonishment to one receptionist who'd placed an order for a 1 pound envelope which was reallya 10lb binder. The way I see it when customers lie about the weight of an item and try to get biker rates (much cheaper) instead of car rates they're not trying to get a better deal for their company, they're tryingto rip me off, which is the same as stealing! We did have our first team meeting today though. I'd suggested to Lee (our dispatcher) that he come downtown so that we could all put a face to the name. We'd also planned to go over a few of the things that annoy us during the day (too much scooping, bad routing, clients misrepresenting the weight and dimensions of packages, issues with allocation of work) but I'd been adamant with the others that there was no way that it was going to descend into a bitching session. We decided to meet at SoHo in Yaletown and when Lee did arrive (i've realised that I did meet him quite a few times when he was a biker downtown - never made the connection between the guy I met and the voice on the radio though) he'd brought BJ (our manager) in tow and it turned out to be a totally work themed 'meeting'. It wasn't necessarilya bad thing because there were definitely things that needed to be discussed and it's possible that some of the problems may even be rectified. Lee is still very apologetic about his rude personal manner, which is laughable because he never met Chris, our previous dispatcher, who was such an arsehole on the radio that three couriers left rather than put up with him. Lee is constantly apologising for beingrude to me and I often have to ask him what he's actually apologising for. Still, reasonably productive evening, hoping that some good does come of it. We've been promised that it's going to be a monthly thing and next time we're going to be taken out for dinner, which will be only three months after we were first promised it. Joy. Had a brief stab of interest in the Winter olympics with the announcement that some overacheiving little snot won gold for australia in .... a cold weather event of some kind. Of course, the main theme of the story here is that he's really a Canadian, an opportunist traitor who abandoned his country for his own personal gain, but that certainly hasn't stopped the canadians naturalising Jamaicans for their bobsled team so can't say that I feel that much sympathy for thm.