KEY POINTS:
It was party night at New Plymouth's Devon Hotel on Thursday. Dress appropriately, said the invite... something beginning with P.
And there they were: a room full of parking wardens getting down and funky. Leading the charge was chief warden Colin Waite. He'd been musing about what to go as. "I'll probably be the 'Prat' without the costume," he joked.
Waite has a dry wit. It had, said the former military man, stood him in good stead. "Like any quasi-law - enforcement or military organisation, you rely on black humour a lot to get you through."
Waite's title is manager, parking services, Waitakere City Council. He's also chairman of the Parking Association; his "troops" are the country's 350-plus parking wardens - sorry, parking enforcement officers.
A gang of them were in New Plymouth for the association's fifth annual conference. They hauled in some overseas experts, such as Kim Jackson, a feisty woman who heads the Washington-based International Parking Institute and who spoke about wardens being the "eyes and ears" of the city.
There's also the bad side. She recalled one "customer" trying to run her down. Wardens, she said, had been shot. "Yeah, they can get pretty violent."
Waite receives dozens of complaints about parking wardens' behaviour each year - generally, just motorists venting their anger. However, in Wellington last year one warden was fired after getting into a fight with a homeless man, while another resigned after racially insulting a taxi driver, something Waite said his wardens regularly had to put up with.
Two years ago eight of the Capital's parking staff were either sacked or resigned following allegations of bribery and backhanders.
There were also some local experts at the conference, such as Dr Tom Mulholland, whose usual stomping ground is the emergency department at Auckland Hospital, and who offered "tools" to deal with difficult situations.
Dave Upfold, who calls himself a magician, comedian and hypnotist, was there to talk about releasing stress in the workplace.
Ironically, I was told there's not a lot of stress. By the managers, of course. The public don't really hate us, they told me. It's a misconception. Like Jackson, they talked of being their city's eyes and ears, of helping their customers, directing tourists, changing tyres, managing traffic.
The spin doesn't quite fit what's happening at the coalface, however. Even Waite admitted it. Wardens do need counselling. They can get three free sessions a year.
"One of the things I used to tell people when I was in the forces was that at the end of the day you go to your locker, you take off your uniform, and you wash your hands. You don't take the job home.
"The washing of the hands is symbolic - the dirt of the day is gone. It's the same with my guys. They go home and take off their uniform, they hang it in the wardrobe and that's it. Then they do whatever anyone else does, work is over, they cook, have a glass or four of wine ... "
I had to ask about quotas - around two million tickets are issued each year. Waite grinned. Nope, he said, there were enough infringements not to need quotas. Auckland wardens issued an average 360,000 tickets a year - more than 980 a day, while Wellington City raked in around $5 million a year in parking fines.
And the pay? "It depends on the area," said Waite. "Some in the sector see it as being an unskilled job, while others regard it as highly skilled in terms of customer service."
Training is "hands on" - a week with a superior - but there's also an NZQA-standard certificate and Australia's Monash University has a two-year extramural certificate in parking administration for the dedicated.
"It's all about life skills," he said. "Part public relations, part law, they are very employable people.
"There's been a considerable number that have gone in to the police, or the military."
His troops cover every street in Waitakere over a year.
"Again, we are the eyes and ears - there might be an illegally dumped car, or rubbish, maybe a broken street sign - if it's council business my officers have an obligation to report it. If we see vehicles that are parked illegally, or haven't got current warrants or whatever, then that's a byproduct of it. Sure, we do some police work, but then, would you rather have a police officer dealing with an expired registration or being at your house when it was getting burgled?"
One per cent of "customers" gave wardens grief, said Auckland group manager Brian Tomlinson. "The other 99 are glad we're there."
Tomlinson's a serious bloke.
He's also a big bloke. He's proud that two of his boys helped apprehend a bag snatcher in Queen St recently, pleased there's moves towards environmentally friendly carparks and keen to talk about transportation hubs, car-share programmes, and eyes and ears ... "We're there to look after the welfare of the community," he said. "Educate the public... there's no such things as free parking."
Auckland has 60 wardens, rostered on seven days a week, around the clock.
No one would divulge the excuses people use to try to get off tickets. "It would encourage people, wouldn't it?"
The life of a parking warden
Lyn Adlam's first day on the beat really did end in tears.
She can laugh about it now; she's hardened up since then, she says. But 13 years ago it wasn't so hilarious.
"I had some guy go me, he was [swearing at] me all the way up the road, screaming at me out of his car, following me. It nearly put me off the job," the 62-year-old New Plymouth veteran says.
Back then it was pencil and paper tickets. These days it's all electronic: a machine spits out the infringement notice, and there's a camera to snap the misdemeanours.
That doesn't stop the excuses, though.
"It's amazing what some people will try and get out of. We've got a picture and they say 'but I wasn't there ... "'
An average day's mileage for Adlam is around 20km. There's a lot of chat, some abuse, some great stories, and some sad ones.
"Some days I can hardly get my job done. Everyone wants to talk to me, and the social side is one of the great things about it.
"I've had one guy go down on bended knees pleading with me not to give his new car a ticket; people have hugged me trying to get off. But I've also had women come up to me and say that $12 was money for food. It is a lot of money for some people."
Adlam's had to ring police on a couple of occasions - to warn off threatening drivers, and still finds it difficult reconciling the behaviour of some people.
"Some ladies can be terrible. You wouldn't think they could even utter the words they do. And well-to-do-men ... it's shocking the way some people speak to us."
Her solution is to either walk away, explain the infringement can be disputed through the right channels, or "just cope with it".
"The odd one can get a little heavy, there's been a few days where I've gone to work looking over my shoulder. You just have to keep your cool."
And the reaction when she tells people she's a parking warden? "Terrible. I very rarely get anyone saying 'that must be a good job'."
