On the job

Jorjan Day

What's your job title?

Clerk Typist III in the Division of Campus Parking and Transportation.


What are your main responsibilities on the job?

I work the counter, do customer service, take care of student accounts and
faculty/staff bills, answer phones and respond to mail.


What kinds of mail do you answer?

I respond to the notes that people sometimes include in their parking tickets.


What's one of the most common excuses you hear from people who think they
shouldn't have received a ticket?

"I was only in there for two minutes." We hear this a lot when someone has
been ticketed for parking in a yellow zone.


How do you respond in those cases?

I explain the reason why they got the ticket and that they have to file an
appeal. Most tickets are valid because they wouldn't have been written
otherwise.


What does the appeals process entail?

People can fill out a form that goes to an appeal board made up of students
and staff. The board meets twice a month and decides whether to void
tickets.


Of all the people you come in contact with on a typical day - on the phone
or at the counter - how many call or come in because they are upset about
something?

Some are friendly, but most are mad. Their body language is unreal. Mostly,
the mad people standing in line have tickets in their hands, and you can
tell they're really steaming.


How do you react in those situations?

I've never taken it personally. I seem real cheerful. If I go up with an
attitude then I'm really going to be in trouble. We've been called names.
And a lot of times, people come in and throw the tickets at you. One time,
someone opened his umbrella and flung water at me. You just have to laugh
it off when they're gone.


After considering the down sides of the job, what are some of the more
positive aspects?

It never gets boring. There's always something different every day.


What are the busiest times of the year?

New student week. And the registration period for faculty/staff rentals,
which is going on now through May 21.


How's that going this year?

The phones are ringing off the hook because we're going to a new system.
Instead of stickers, people will be getting hang tags. (See May 4 issue of
Inside Illinois for more details of the new hang-tag system). We're telling
them that they need to treat that hang tag like an expensive possession ...
to keep their cars locked, because they're easy to steal.


What are the advantages to switching to a hang tag?

It should prevent what we call "double dipping" - when more than one set of
stickers is issued for someone who may drive more than one car, but both
vehicles are parked in a lot at the same time. We also get a lot of
complaints from people who don't like to put the stickers on their cars.
And, it's hard for the enforcement people, who sometimes have to look all
over for the stickers because people don't always put them where they're
supposed to.