Ok, so most people know I work at the San Diego Community College District (City, Mesa and Miramar College) with the police/parking department. But most people have no idea what I actually do. The most I talk about my job is how my co-workers and I sit around most of our shifts, but what is it we do when we are working? I am a community service officer, NOT A COP! Every time I tell people I work with college police, people assume I am a rent-a-cop. Nope, we have police officers that are actual state officers who have jurisdiction on campus and up to a mile off campus in any direction, if I remember right.
So what is a community service officer? My job entails a few things, writing parking citations, doing lockouts when people lock their keys in their cars, battery jumps for dead batteries and checking on room alarms when they go off. But sadly our department works by seniority, so the senior officers get priority on battery jumps, lockouts and alarms, so I'm stuck writing parking tickets.
The more I think about it, I have too large of a conscience to write parking tickets, but I do trudge on. I've gotten parking tickets in the past and they just ruin your day. I try not to think about it, and most days I don't, but when I do I hate myself for it. For those of you that know me, I'm a an nice, easy going, non-confrontational guy. So luckily in my line of work, you almost never see the person you write the ticket for, and if they do come up while I'm writing the ticket I'll just give them a warning, AKA $0, and they're as nice as can be. But if someone comes up to me with a ticket I just finished writing and asks me to take it back, I lie and say it's impossible to take back but truth be told, I can. The way we write tickets, the second I cross the send box on the ticket, the ticket is uploaded to the internet through my work cell phone. So I use the excuse that the ticket is already online and it's out of my hands. They always believe me, and then I proceed to tell them how they can appeal the ticket and it will most likely be reduced or denied. They usually leave me with a thank you, understanding that I'm just doing my job and I've been as helpful to them as possible. The thing about this job, you just have to see yourself as a robot, if they have a permit they're fine, if they don't, write them a ticket. I'm am no judge, I don't decide if you deserve the ticket or not.
Because I never write tickets for people inside their cars, people who come back to their cars while I'm in the process of writing the ticket and am helpful to people I've written a ticket to, I never deal with angry people. But what about the people I never see? How many people come back to their cars, see the ticket, realize they don't have the money to pay it and just sit in their car crying? To tell the truth I never think about it, but it's a sad reality. In this line of work you just have to block it all out, or eventually it'll get to you.
I justify my job to myself in many ways. I tell myself if I didn't do it, they would just get someone else to do it. I also don't feel as bad as I would if I was a city meter maid, because compared to parking on a public street when you almost never expect to get a ticket, college students parking on a college campus without a permit know they are taking a chance. Another reason why I sit around so much is because it limits the amount of tickets I write, in other words, the amount of days I ruined. When training for the job my boss explained that we have to sell permits and write tickets to pay for the upkeep and construction of new lots, but is that true or is that a justification for our jobs? What really is the point of college permits? Why don't we just raise the tuition a bit and let everyone park for free?
I guess what it comes down to is that the job pays pretty well, gives me Friday through Sunday off, has a ton of downtime for watching TV, going online, or doing homework, and it works around my school schedule, so when push comes to shove I'll stay here until I find something better.
What made me start thinking about all this is a ticket I gave earlier. A few minutes later, this lady and her around three year old daughter came up and ask why they received a ticket. She just came onto campus to register as a student. I said my usual lie about how I couldn't take it back and she was ok with that. As they walked back to her car, the mom was explaining to the little girl how they got a ticket and I just felt horrible! The more I thought about it, with the construction going on here at Miramar at the moment, it's hard to find visitor parking. Plus I know she wasn't lying about registering, she had the papers in her hand. I guess I just wasn't thinking at the time. After thinking about it, I wanted to take the ticket back, but by the time I went back they were gone.
Thinking back on my job, I've been doing it since the fall of 2009, but I actually trained for it in the fall of 2006. After training I quit because I felt wrong about giving parking tickets. A few years later, I needed the money and came back. But now I'm starting to wonder, have I changed?
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