Stories from "Little Bird #35"
It's the first really warm spring day of the year. The afternoon sun reflects off the office building across the street, giving it a golden glow. Orders have stopped for the day and I'm sitting in the parking lot outside the Nest (our office) with my bike. Some of my male colleagues have gathered to watch me, the courier, changing the brake pads and cleaning her bike. It must be very interesting for them to see that someone with breasts can do the same thing as them.
In the order center, the two-headed "Borracho" and "La Misa" are loudly discussing how to grow the company. So that one day they can really pay us properly? No. I think it's just their fetish to talk about work all the time. But if you love what you do, why talk about anything else?
"El Niño" storms into the room with new ideas. From the sunny outside world, I hear all three of them talking about new customers, expansion and golden combinations (when orders can be delivered in particularly beautiful sequences). "The District Officer" comes out of the "Cave", our large underground warehouse, balancing far too many crates of wine for mere mortals, but for her it is a completely normal working day. She interrupts the heated debate in the dispatch room with a well-aimed joke, and the discussion moves out to us in the sunshine, the bodies following her.
My bike is fairly clean and my brakes are working again. I wipe the grease from my hands and join my colleagues on the asphalt with a cold beer in my hand. We look at the building opposite and see the sun. I love this job. I love my colleagues. I love our bikes and the freedom of the road. A completely normal day in our bike courier collective - a symphony of fat, steel and passion.
Little Bird 35 is part of the worker-run bike courier company Crow, which aims to replace cars with bikes through cargo bike transport and bike repairs, for a better quality of life for all and without bosses. At Crow, people have constantly changing nicknames (but consistent numbers) that will be used in this column. It's up to you to get to know us and guess who is who.
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