it gets worse...and worse...

so...as some of you might remember, we have a rookie on our hands. five-o actually came around alot quicker than i anticipated. i haven't been helping him get to places at all since the first couple of days. chicago doesn't take much to learn quickly...i love the grid system.

well, it's only his second week and things have been very, very rough on him. i wonder if he'll stick around. let's see, where to start...

6750...hey julio.

j.dot...what up?

6750...my gears keep hoping around. it won't stay put. what should i do?

j.dot...man, i know absolutely nothing about gears. umm, i'll see if i can find someone to help but for now i'll take those two off of you while you figure things out...cool?

...well, he sort of figured it out. apparently his chain was falling apart and finally snapped while he was trying to ride it to figure out what the problem was. no big deal...i tell him some bike shops and he heads out to buy a chain. he shows up to base with the chain but we have no chain tool to remove links...damn!! now he has to head back out and get that taken care of. he calls me...

6750...hey julio, im good to go. where do you need me?

j.dot...alright, umm...head to the mart.

...on his way there his derailleur starts acting up. he heads back to a different bike shop. apparently they tweak it enough for him to get through the day but they give him the bad news..."you need a new one". alright, so now i send him some other work cause i had to take the mart off of him. he delivers it and calls me clean from the mart...

6750...im clean at the mart.

j.dot...cool. umm, head out to ibm.

...he doesn't call me this time. he calls his father to break the bad news...someone just stole his front wheel. wtf?!! his day went from ok to bad to worse. he was pissed off when he showed up to base carrying his bike most of the way...i don't blame him wanting to beat up on stuff. he smokes a cigarette and chills a bit. luckily his dad was only 30 minutes from getting off of work so he didn't have to wait long for a ride home.

now, i know what you cats are thinking...that shit sucks! right? well, it gets better...today the poor kid got hit. yup, some driver ran a red light and hit him. then the driver stopped for literally one second and took off. some messengers who saw the accident along with some pedestrians chased the car down and forced the man to pull over. thank God five-o was ok. he has some scrapes and his bike is fine(i think). when he showed up to base his wrist was waaaay swollen so it was decided that the e.r. was calling his name. the man who hit him ends up getting arrested...not sure on the details but im sure running away from the scene had something to do with it(which is funny cause this guy did it and got away with it).

anyway, i hope 6750 heals up quick and hopefully this whole week can be put behind him. he called me tonight to tell me he was going to try and ride tomorrow. i did my best to convince him to take the weekend off but...well, im just his dispatcher and since when to messengers listen to their dispatcher...peace.