The following letter was written by a Jamaican journalist living in Canada.THE EDITOR, Sir:
IT STARTED as a typical morning at a new office: outstanding contract documents are signed, the supervisor introduces the newcomer to the people he'll be working with and an orientation is conducted.
Everyone seems pleasant enough and there are smiles and light banter. Then the day begins.
I am a new courier broker as the industry terms those who use their own vehicle to pick up and deliver documents, medicines, goods or equipment on behalf of the company that supplies courier and messenger services to its customers.
TYPICAL CONTRACT
The typical contract, as the one I signed this morning, calls for the driver to use his vehicle, pay for his gas, his vehicle maintenance, guarantee a million dollars in insurance, pledge to pay the first Can$1,000 in the event of any damage to the customer's goods, waive any right to workmen's compensation, agree that the company may dismiss him/her without notice but require that he pays them Can$250 in the event of leaving without giving seven-days notice; pay the company three dollars per day for the use of its telecommunication equipment and Can$15 per day if manifests/waybills are not handed in every three days.
But I am not intimidated. After all, as a journalist, I had travelled to "Salvopan", the community in the jungle of Belize, where Salvadorians fleeing strife in their country had taken refuge and scraped a living selling banana bread to their Guatemalan and Belizean cousins.
So I happily agree to the 60 per cent commission on each job, although that can be as little as Can$3.20; but it can go to the teens and more depending on the priority, weight and distance of the job. On a good day, men and women who hustle can make a good wage.
I eagerly take to the blustery streets of my new concrete jungle and join my many mostly Asian colleagues it seems, darting in our little cars and vans between the roaring tractor trailers that rule the 400 series expressways from Niagara and Hamilton to Kingston; dodging the traffic wardens to safely deliver packages to customers in the towers that make up the bowels of the city; running endless rings around the perimeter of Pearson International to customs brokerages and delivery companies.
Before the day ends, you could have covered 350 kilometers (219 miles) going around in circles.
Well, I get a call to pickup two packages on Lawrence West, then to go nearby for two more. I call in my successful collections and am told to bring one of the parcels to the office in Nashua Drive, Mississauga. Diligently I rush across the 401/409/427 expressways to complete that assignment.
A FAVOUR?
I ask my dispatcher Peter H who had interviewed me, organised my one-day training the previous day (Thursday) and conducted my introductions this morning only hours before, what should I enter on my manifest and how should I record this assignment for my payment since I wouldn't get a signature from the recipient.
"You won't get paid," he said. I look at him quizzically. "It's a favour. You were in the place to pick up another package and this was there too, so you just collected it. Another driver will deliver it."
"So how did it get here?" I ask him, because I certainly did not happen to be at the office but was told to deliver it there before doing anything else.
Peter H glares at me. "I can't work like that," I said.
CHANGE
After his next response, you could have blown me over with a feather.
"Get the f... out of here!" he bellowed. "Get the f... out and don't come back! I'm helping you out. Put down whatever you have there for us and get out. Give me the radio and anything else you have for us!"
With my tail between my legs I walk out to my van and return with the battery charger for their radio.
"You're going to read about yourself in the newspaper," I tell him.
He ambles over to me menacingly. "Get the f... out of here!"
I walk timidly to the door with him in hot pursuit and he brushes against me.
"Be careful," I tell him.
"You want to take me out?" he bellows. He stops in the company warehouse as I head out the door.
Outside in the parking lot as I walk to my van I pass the sweetly smiling office manager, who Peter H in one of his saner moments had confided "looks like Shelly Long from Cheers."
"How's everything?" she asks. "Fine," I smile, lying.
At 2 o'clock, the fine sunny morning at the office had become a frigid, windy and caustic afternoon for a new immigrant in the world's most friendly, tolerant and multicultural city.
I am, etc
ANTHONY LEE
marval@sprint.ca
