Article #89100

The work was simple: deliver letters, notices of assessment and other important legal documents, by bicycle. The locations, I came to realise, were varied and inconvenient

• Read more in this series here

A gopher is a small, solitary rodent with large front teeth native to North and Central America. It’s also the name of the job some workplaces give to errand runners (though it’s more usually spelled gofer).

When I was a 21-year-old law student in Canberra, I was in desperate need of casual work, I came across an ad pinned to one of the corkboards outside the library. Bleary-eyed after another all-nighter to finish an assignment, I took down the number of the law firm.

Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads