|
Sheba Farrin - bike messenger, Washington
|
|
Washington Post, July 3, 2005
Interview by Tyler Currie
Most jobs you need to work 40 hours a week, and if you're going to take
time off, you need to ask for vacation time. I couldn't ever do that.
I've always had this cool job where I could say, "Guess what: I'm not
coming all next week." It's a job you can leave and come back to. I was
28 years old, and I dyed my hair purple, and my boyfriend, his mother
says, "I was wondering what kind of job she had where she could do
that." I like that you can be as counterculture as you want, be
whatever you want, and still be really good at this [job], and really
productive. I'd always imagined I would move on from it, and I haven't.
There was a lot more money in this industry in the '80s, before the fax
machine and way before e-mail. I'm told that receptionists were sending
each other notes by messenger because you could just put that on your
company account and nobody cared, and there was a lot of money going
around. So the heyday was before my day. But it's changed -- even more
since the first World Trade [Center bombing] and then 9/11. The more
the work becomes just the really important things, the better. You
know, I don't want to deliver people's notes to each other. You know,
call. That's what the phone is for.
|
|
