These articles were written by Kristen and published in international and national magazines, where they were subjected to an editors eye. Here we find them in their raw form.

The Scariest Job You’ll Never Love —Kristen Ulmer

“Pick this shit up here, and drop the shit off over there” Andy, the manager, says. “That’s all there is to it.”

I sit with a big smile and perfect posture in the Breakaway classroom in Manhattan’s east side, going through the mandatory 2 hours of school before I start my glamorous, new bike messenger job. This is going to be great.

He continues; “More than 75 percent of you will come back within two weeks and say this job sucks, you suck, Breakaway sucks, everybody sucks. Here’s my goddamn radio, give me my fucking money.”

Dum dee dum. I own a shiny new Cannondale- just picked it up this morning. My new shoulder bag holds a thick, metal $100 chain to lock it up (those bastards aren’t going to get MY baby). I rode here passing grid locked traffic and felt I was the hero of a video game- there’s a door swinging open! Oh no 50 jaywalkers! Watch out for the bottomless pot hole! I came inches from Prada clad woman and felt I was better than them, ha ha!

A Pamphlet titled “Death in the streets of New York City by Right of Way” is passed around. The room is filled with toothless ex cons, Kevin Bacon/Quicksilver movie types and slouching, blue collar guys. I’m the only girl.

The ones who quit just can’t take the heat, I think. Bunch of pansies. But me? I’m going to make tons of money, meet cool athletic people, keep in great shape, and live as Danger Girl, deliverer of packages, able to move through traffic like melted butter. Hey, maybe me and muscles will be discovered by some sports modeling agency. I’ll walk in with a package- tan, confident, with my adrenalized green eyes piercing from under my low slung helmet, and the CEO will drop his phone and announce “hold all calls- we found her!” I smile dreamily.

Andy goes on, drawing out the end of every sentence with a sneer: “There’s no ladder to climb- no messenger first class or messenger general. If you hate your life, you didn’t get your college degree or never made a plan, don’t take it out on my clients or I’ll fire you. You got a chip on your shoulder? In New York you’ll get in a fight every fucking day.”

I pick up the pamphlet. Being a bike messenger has long been a fantasy of mine, probably a fantasy for most daring, athletic people. Risk is like crack to me. And New York? One friend was convinced “The motorcycle couriers in London are the most hard core. They can barely walk once they get off their bikes because they’ve crashed so many times.” Another bragged “In Seattle- it’s such a cool counter culture scene. Everyone making tons of cash while training for bike races.” But in Manhattan, guys often ride “fix” bikes, meaning they ride one speeds with no brakes. No brakes in Times Square?

New York…she’s the Mother Lode. The honks coming through the windows make me sigh.

We’re told about accidents and lawsuits. We’re told the safest way to ride in Manhattan (on the left for example- fewer opening car doors). We’re told not to leave our bikes in the office or they’ll be thrown away. We’re told to only use the freight elevator to enter the building.

And we’re told yet again what a lousy job this is. “I don’t care who you are, you may be a poet or a great filmmaker, but you’re still just working as a bike messenger. You may be the smartest person in the world, but it’s still… ‘Yo Einstein, Pick this shit up here, and drop the shit off over there.”

Come on, could it be that bad?

The next morning, just before starting work, a friend drops by to offer me his motocross outfit. It’s a black, full body suit with spine protectors running up the front and back and plastic elbow, wrist and knee pads.

What is he, crazy? It’s June and 100 degrees out. I’d be a fat guy in a marathon. “You’ll wish you had taken it when you’re looking up at the paramedics” he said, leaving.

Watching him go, I start to feel nervous. Does everyone quit because the riding is so dangerous?

Turning on the radio, I press the button to reach my dispatcher. “Hey Rob, I’m on the lower east side, what you got for me?”

I know pedestrians call messengers psychotic, dangerous, threatening nuisances. Cops resolve to nail us when we run red lights (isn’t that a perk of the job?). All my friends think I’m going to die. And yet, I don’t feel that vulnerable.

The radio crackles and Rob responds; “What the fuck! Don’t DO that! That’s so annoying!”

Ahh! I had pressed the alert button instead of the call button. Sorry sorry!

Sure it’s a dangerous job, more so than say, accounting, but less so than most think. The Pamphlet talked about “inhospitable cycling conditions… requiring cyclist to be nimble, daring and aggressive.” From 1994-97, seventy two bikers died on the streets of New York. But turns out few of them were messengers. “I hire 400 people a year” Andy explained. “Six years now we’ve had only one hospitalization.”

Lots of messengers get ‘doored,’ as in some ‘moron’ opens his door without looking and ‘Lance’ goes pitching over the bars (hopefully not into oncoming traffic) and breaks collar bones and such. But bottom line is- the bikers who get killed in Manhattan are the occasional riders, not the steadies, because the steadies know what their doing. Kind of like Sigfreid and Roy don’t get hurt as often as, say Jethro extending a hotdog through the bars at the zoo. The messengers are not encouraged to ride like F-16’s to get the job done either. “The fastest messenger isn’t the fastest. Slow and steady is more efficient, and safer.” Makes sense.

So, given that messengers don’t quit because it’s too dangerous, what could it possibly be?

Two jobs print on the screen a minute later, and I’m no longer nervous. Now I’m panicking. Where’s my pen! Crosby street, where the hell is that? Where do I go first? OhmyGod everyone’s waiting on me.

I race to the street repeating addresses over and over. I throw my bag over my shoulder and what the? Did someone put an anvil in it? Oh, it’s the lock- the $100 New York proof lock. How much does the thing weigh, 30 pounds? I push off alongside a Chinese bike delivery guy and smile at him. We’re like kin. He ignores me.

Then, I can’t find the first address. Map is out, bike straddled. Where is it?! Back on the bike, weaving between cabs. Bus cuts me off, fucker. Why am I swearing? I don’t usually swear. Bike messengers are everywhere- I had no idea there were so many of us. I see one almost every two blocks. Find the first address, lock my bike. Have to wait 10 minutes for them to locate the package. Don’t these people know I make money for each delivery and not for standing around wasting my time?

The pickup is a heavy package the size of a tray. The second pickup 15 minute later is a small envelope. Where’s my pen? Okay, now 460 east, I start pedaling hard. A pigeon flies into my face- yaaah! I didn’t know that could happen. I weave 20 miles per around an older squat woman- must have came a half inch from her belly, but she doesn’t say a word. Do that in Peoria and she would have been screaming for hours. A door swings open- AHH! A sweaty business man lurches out, averting his eyes. Cars honk relentlessly. I look up, it’s 400 east but beyond…there’s just water. I radio Rob, where’s 460? “It should be right there” he responds. A wave of clarity washes over me like the flu, it was supposed to be 460 WEST. Fuck!

Fuck fuck! I start pedaling. Why am I swearing so much? Pedaling my ass all over town. Rob radios me. I have to stop riding to listen above the honks and roars. “The woman at Stern wants to know where her package is.”

Two hours and 4 minutes later, I finally exhale. Two loads are delivered. I made exactly $8.45.

Another three hours later, I’m done. Cooked. I locked and unlocked my bike 12 times, which means I delivered 6 packages. What is that, 25 bucks- maybe? My shiny new Cannondale has enough dents and scratches from throwing the metal chain around it to now resemble a yard sale giveaway. My right shoulder is red and raw as hamburger. My lungs hurt from inhaling black clouds of exhaust. My old sun block layer is sticky and my arms and legs are covered with gray vertical runnels made from dirt, sweat and dripping radiators (or was it spit and urine from the 10th floor?). My three pens are long gone. I stop for a luscious slice of drippy pizza and a goddamn chance to finally pee in a smelly restroom. Can’t understand why I have to pee, I’m so dehydrated.

Coming out of the john, I run into a friend, an athletic guy who works at the Chelsea Piers rock climbing gym. What have you been up to? he asks. “I’m a bike messenger now” I explain. He stops eating his slice. No way, I don’t believe you, he says.

“Do you want to smell my shirt?

I just don’t know the city yet, I think, it’s going to get better. I’ll make more money once I get a system down. Maybe I should get a crappy bike instead, like the others, so I don’t have to worry about my Cannondale getting stolen.

Day two I stop by the vast, bustling office to figure out the (goddamn) radio so Rob will stop yelling at me. Andy eyeballs me for not taking the freight elevator, then continues talking with a quiet Ashton Kushter look-alike. “No problem, happens all the time. Good luck with everything.” Ashton made it two weeks, he slouches in his chair.

Next Andy yells at some middle aged, rat looking guy who apparently lives in Brooklyn and supports a wife and three kids. “If it happens again, you’re fired!” The guy tiptoes away.

Then it’s my turn. Andy, like everyone in the office, started out a messenger before becoming part of Breakaways spine. He also used to also run marathons. He finally quit because in his thirties, after 9 years, the job became too exhausting to have a life otherwise. It was always straight home to the couch and an ice pack.

“I respect hard workers” he says. One hundred and fifty messengers work at Breakaway, and it’s only one of about three hundred messenger services in the city. Wow, no wonder there’s a comrade on every block. “For guys with no education or skills, where else can you make 35 thousand a year? You have to live in the boroughs, but you can get by. Plus it’s better than some repetitive factory job- stamping out some shitty little item bump puta bump all day. But you gotta work hard.”

Almost on cue, a tall African American man with narrow hips and a high, hard butt glides through the office. “He’s worked as a courier for 30 years” Andy whispers. The guy doesn’t look at or speak to anyone, and without a ripple, he’s gone.

I ask where we make friends after work- like, where’s the scene? I want to hang out with guys like him, you know, by the water cooler. Andy looks at me funny; “What makes you think they do that?”

He shows me a few radio tricks, then I’m kicked out. Messengers aren’t encouraged to hang out in the office. I just wave to Rob, my dispatcher- a pudgy, long haired 70’s throwback in an old, ripped tee-shirt. He waves back, then laughs with the other dispatchers. Are they laughing at me? 

I ride down in the slow moving freight elevator. While making deliveries, we have to ride the freight elevators then too. We deal with back doors and mail rooms. No one ever says Hi. They don’t even let us use their rest rooms, no matter how panicked I look or how nice I ask. “Sorry, not allowed.” Three word sentences are it.

Back on the street, I fumble with my chain and unlock my bike. My beautiful bike. The riding is without question, the best part. I love squeezing through tight spots- holding my breath and sucking in to avoid rear view mirrors. I drop the end of the chain on my foot while trying to wrestle the thing into my bag- a slew of obscenities crosses my frontal lobe. But there’s not much riding involved. Mostly it’s dealing with this chain all day. And finding addresses. Or juggling packages and clipboards and pens and a noisy radio with only two hands. My mind seers until three jobs come through on my radio. Bump puta bump. Time to panic again! Where the hell is my fucking pen?

“The cops are bad for ten blocks up, they’re handing out tickets for running red lights” yells a passing ‘coworker.’ Thank you! I yell back. Time to go.

Another 5 hours later, after running at least 30 red lights, I still make only 25 bucks. If I had three kids to feed, this would suck. Actually screw the three kids, this sucks regardless. My last delivery is to a modeling agency. It’s a small enough company I walk in the front door to hand the package to an important looking guy in a tailored suit. I tilt my helmet forward and look him right in the eye, sizzling, but he just signs my handwritten receiving slip and turns away. I’m not Danger Girl. I’m Leper Girl.

The next day, it’s raining. Even the worse job, like Amway salesman or street mime, can always be made worse by someone turning a fire hose to you. But no matter, because first order I’m stuck for three hours in one building because I lose my bike key. I can’t go anywhere. After the first two hours, Rob radios me some gibberish; “I don’t have time for the ball.” What the heck does that mean? Another hour later, I’m finally moved to tears- looking in the fucking potted plant and my underwear for the fifth time, when a woman confesses- she thought it was the key to the coke machine and figured she’d get free cokes all month. Sorry.

Yeah, sorry. You bitch. I’m done. I’m done picking this shit up here, and dropping the shit off over there. I turn off my radio and start riding to Breakaway, yelling; “Just Drive asshole!” or “Hey we’re all waiting on you back here!”In town four days and already I’m a Joey.

Then, I see her.

She has dread locks and a perfect athletic body. Her face is young and beautiful- water drips off it from the rain in slow motion. She rides a cheap bike and has a messenger bag sawing into her tan shoulder. Her legs ripple with muscle and her eyes gleam with mystique. All the cabbies stop honking for just a second to watch her weave past.

If she lived in Boston, all the Harvard boys would want to date her. If she were a bike racer, she’d be on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Do they have bike messengers in Hollywood, I wonder?

Then the cabbies recover. They yell ‘Hey Baby!’ and “Yeah I got a package for you!”

Here?  She’s just another girl with a smelly shirt.