diff --git a/mrq/queue.py b/mrq/queue.py
index 5ee75118..c797d306 100644
--- a/mrq/queue.py
+++ b/mrq/queue.py
@@ -168,7 +168,8 @@ def unserialize_job_ids(self, job_ids):
         if len(job_ids) == 0 or self.use_large_ids:
             return job_ids
         else:
-            return [binascii.hexlify(x.encode('utf-8') if isinstance(x, str) else x).decode('ascii') for x in job_ids]
+            return [binascii.hexlify(x.encode('utf-8') if (PY3 and isinstance(x, str)) else x).decode('ascii')
+                    for x in job_ids]
 
     def _get_pausable_id(self):
       """
diff --git a/requirements-base.txt b/requirements-base.txt
index 60d8e4f8..9653a73d 100644
--- a/requirements-base.txt
+++ b/requirements-base.txt
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 argparse>=1.1
 redis>=2.10.5
 pymongo>=3.0.1
-gevent==1.1.1
+gevent>=1.1.1
 ujson==1.33
 hiredis>=0.1.5
 psutil==1.2.1