A recent post of mine sparked up some repressed feelings that I have about a particular group of people. I do use the term “people” very loosely. In fact, I think that I would rather refer to them as a virus or plague of some sort. Yes: “The great car-guard epidemic of 2009”.
The car-guard, in my opinion, is a glorified beggar. I have actually reached the point where I would rather hand over my money to a sun-baked street-person standing at a robot. At least beggars aren’t under any false pretences about what they are doing: they are begging for money for doing absolutely nothing. The car-guard, however, feels (for some inconceivable reason) that he is rendering a useful service*, when he is in fact… now say it with me… begging for money for doing absolutely nothing. And it is this attitude that infuriates me. The car-guard imagines that it is his right to receive payment for this so-called service. And if you refuse to pay him (which is your right), he will harass you and act like the criminals that he claims to be keeping at bay, until you finally cave and hand over a R5 coin out of sheer desperation, or, in many cases, fear. In Hatfield in particular, if you happen to hand over your money to the wrong rodent, you stand a good chance of being on the receiving end of a hate crime.
Another thing that drives me into an uncontrollable and often violent frenzy (this may be a slight exaggeration), is the fact that the car-guard does his “work” on public property. You have just as much right to be there as he does. He does not own the land that you are parked on. He has found a luminescent waistcoat somewhere and believes that it gives him some sort of official status. In uniform, he is no longer just a man, he is now a car-guard, beloved officer sent to protect automobiles from law-breakers and delinquents everywhere. And as for keeping criminals at bay, I have a whole handful of friends who have had their cars broken into (and even stolen) in the “presence” of car-guards.
So, I think I can safely say that the car-guard features absolutely nowhere on my hierarchy of needs. Here is a depiction of how much I need car-guards:
Now, I’m not one of those preppy individuals who spouts out encouraging clichés every chance I get, so I’m not going to start up a special car-guard seminar telling them that if they can dream it they can do it. That is bullshit. There is no way in hell that the car-guard who stands outside the Checkers is ever going to make something big out of his life. But he can still do something useful! I’m 90% sure that whatever skills it takes to be a car-guard can be direcly translated into the skills that it takes to be a newspaper salesman. Or someone who works the counter at McDonalds. Yes, I have said it before and I will say it again, I am a snob. Deal with it.
*Services provided:
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The car-guard will point out the giant parking space that you could not possibly have missed.
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He will help you to reverse out of said parking space (Hmmm… I feel as though I may have done this before… The action does feel awfully familiar… Wait! I remember! I managed to reverse out of my driveway this morning! All by myself!).
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He will produce a whistle that is so piercing that you can hear it from over 100m away (which is the approximate distance that he will be from your car when you reach it).
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He (like BraveStarr) has the eyes of a hawk (he is able to see you coming from any distance, even if you resort to a leopard-crawl).
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He is fluent in sign-language.
First time I looked at the pyramid I thought the lowest level said “accident involving a land mime” a truly scary thought.
Especially annoying is when they lurk in your blindspot when you try to reverse, or stand too close behind your car. My one car has a reverse sensor, and the thing goes mad when they do that trick
I am in agreement, Dirk, the blind spot should be called the “blind car-guard spot”. Or perhaps we can change it to limbless car-guard? Who’s game?
I just love your topics. The thing that infuriates me is when you parked your car, they greet you. I do not have a problem with people greeting me and i will gladly greet them back. “They” do not greet you to be friendly, they greet you to make sure that you noticed them and you now “owe” them money. ES, I am with you!!!!
i dont get angry for alot of things… but car guards…. aaarrrggghhhh…
recently one standing in my “blind car-guard spot” distracted / irritated the shit out of me so much that while worrying to not run him over while reversing – failed to notice the trolley (that he had put near front of my car) and i now have a beautiful white scratch along front of new black car… nice !
(my first car accident in my 9 years of driving – i shit you not)
I am shocked by your response to car guarding. It is very obvious that you do not know what car guarding is about. Part of my thesis (on car guards) I had to do participant observation and believe me once you spent a few days with them, get to know them you will not classify them as ‘glorified beggars’. THEY DO RENDER A SERVICE. You do not believe me? Ask the elderly who do their shopping and need that extra hand handling their bags, or when their eyes are not as sharp as yours and cannot see properly where to drive, by helping them in and out of the parking spaces they are actually protecting your car that is parked next to or behind their car. These people do appreciate the services of the car guard. Or the man who’s window decided not to close this morning, or even the pet owner who had to dash into the shop for something. Do you realise that a car guard is not protected my law. I have seen how a car guard got stabbed by trying to protect an ungrateful citizen’s, like you’s property. Or I have been shown how people like you leave their laptops, cell phones in the car, or how an idiot left a wad of money on the his dashboard and forgot to lock the door. When something do happen to your car, you are usually the first one to blow their head off, and threaten them…. buy they are also the person who left their belongings where it attract attention. The criminal elements watch the car guards and as soon as their attention is with a customer and their shopping, it takes them 5 seconds to open your car and drive off. I realised that even though car guards are there they cannot look after all the cars all the time. Not only do they have to stand on their feet for 10 hours a day, they have to take abuse from people like you!!! You can only make these comments if you have walked in their shoes for a day. Car guards do have self respect and for them to beg on the street corner is more degrading than looking after your car. They have to pay for the privilege to work up to R50 per day. Imagine that you have to pay people to be able to work. The ‘owner’ of the site only set foot on the site to collect his money – once or twice a week. I have calculated that these big shots easily earn up to R15 000 per site per month, then they have several sites. The car guard have to pay for their own uniforms; do not receive workmans compensation or UIF. They are being exploited by people like YOU. The car guards I worked with pointed out to me their regular customers and could link the man with his car. However, they did acknowledge if they are confronted with a person with your attitude, they do not bother at all. And I do not blame them. You might be able to drive your car, but I have seen with my own eyes how people reverse out of their parking without looking left or right, bump into another’s car and drive off. You are not the only customer, and if you do bump somebody’s car your registration number will be taken down and will be given to the owner of the car you damaged. I think you are arrogant and rude. By the way, there are car guards on Durban’s beachfront who take care of your car keys while they are in the surf, with not one incident of car theft or items removed from the cars!!
“They are being exploited by people like YOU.”
1. No, they are not. I have good relationships with my regular car guards around the varsity. I’m happy to reward them for being there all day and I give them old clothes when I’m able.
2. We can swap anecdotes all day – I was present when a Hatfield car guard walked off with my friend’s iPod right after being tipped. Do you have any notion, Lydia, what it’s like to have no recourse when something you’ve saved for is stolen and already changed several hands by the time you’re out of the car?
3. Regardless of whether they render a service, it’s not a service I’m under any obligation to receive. I’ll take you through a thought experiment to make my point.
Regardless, I’d actually be very interested to read your thesis. I don’t suppose you could link to it online?
Lydia, if you feel that car guards are rendering a valuable service, then by all means make use of their service and pay them for it. My point is that I do not feel that car guards are rendering ME a service and I don’t think that it is fair that I am harrassed and made to feel obligated to pay for something that I never asked for. Maybe car guards in Durban are wonderful. Here in Pretoria, however, particularly on the streets of Hatfield as well as in City Central, car guards tend to be violent and abusive. Of course there are exceptions. But I am honestly too afraid to park alone on the streets in any of these areas because of abuse that I have suffered in the past.
I think Lydia has lost the plot. I am sick and tired of people in this country defending mediocrity, these people do less than F all. They look unkept and dirty. Watch any space they are around and you will see litter, clothes and bags hanging up, box crates for them to sit on. They urinate in the street and i could go on. Simply they bring any area down.Try parking a car with Park distance sensors when you have these monkeys and they literally are monkeys standing in the way.
Lauren looks at them as Vermin, me i think of them as 10 notches lower. What irks me the most is that they are just allowed to be, like hawkers, taxi drivers and all other social scum.
Its people like this that make normal sane people become racists.
What you going to say to the new method of car guarding where a stolen vehicle is identified straight away by a special hand held machine.Criminal vehicles will be identified with in seconds and SAPS and other law enforcements notified and crime stoped from happing.So get your facts right.This is a revolution in car guarding and the one that public will support all the way.
Mervyn, I would be very grateful if car-guards “stoped crime from happing”. If this new method were ever introduced, it would definitely have potential. That being said, at this point in time car-guards are often the perpetrators of crimes, particularly car thefts. So I will change my tune when I actually notice a change in their behaviour.