The first ticket Pam Hansen writes early one afternoon west of the University of Utah triggers - The Response.
Hansen cites a Mercedes for having expired plates. As she climbs back in the Salt Lake City Parking Enforcement Jeep, a woman with two children in tow arrives at the ticketed car."Thank you, too," the woman yells at Hansen.
Hansen tells the reporter riding beside her, "If you don't have thick skin, you don't last in this job."
Few things raise a person's hackles like a parking ticket. Any of the city's 11 full-time parking enforcement officers will tell you that. They get glares, gestures, sworn at and worse every day.
Would irate parking offenders still yell obscenities at Harold Fields if they knew the enforcement officer is also a well-respected Baptist minister? In his parking officer's uniform, Fields' pastoral calling is hidden.
Fields enjoys the inspirational sounds of a local religious talk station as he tickets errant parkers. He ignores taunts by employing a cool-tempered philosophy. "You have to be sort of level-headed," he says.
If it's not an obscene gesture, it's a muttered rude comment, a wad of spit, a snowball packed around a rock or a shot from a squirt gun filled with ammonia. Some drivers shove the officers or try to run over their feet. Other drivers speed by, purposefully executing a threateningly close pass by the city's slow-moving Jeeps.
"They call you a `jerk' and tell you to get a real job," Fields mused while cruising a downtown alley for expired meters. "You have to let it go. You can't let it be personal."
Like Fields, Hansen seems oblivious to the dirty looks the Jeep attracts - even from people waiting for a bus. Still, the harassment takes its toll.
As Hansen writes her fourth ticket in three minutes, she admits it's hard not to go home with her self-esteem in the gutter.
"I don't tell people what I do for a living," she said. "I don't want to hear the stories. People treat us like we're not educated or like we don't have a lot on the ball."
The fact is, Hansen, Fields and the city's other officers like the work. To them, it's about psychology and human nature and upholding the city's laws.
They get to work outdoors, which is a pleasure most of the year, and they have a lot of freedom. And parking enforcement entails more than handing out tickets.
"We've got to be everything: information booths . . . restaurant finders . . . baby sitters," Fields said.
One morning, Fields stopped his Jeep to roust a drunken man curled around a tree in front of a popular lunch spot.
"Sir, sir, can you get up? Are you OK?" The man was confused by the gathering strangers. He struggled to his feet, thanked Fields and ambled off, away from the upscale lunch crowd that gave him wide berth. The elderly drunk was the only person that morning to offer the city worker a polite word.
Turnover is low, despite the abuse parking officers receive. The last time the city hired a parking officer was two years ago - 150 people applied for the job. Pay starts at $1,065 a month.
Hansen, 37, has trolled Salt Lake City streets for parking and vehicle violations since 1983. She can size up a parked vehicle in less time than it takes for a pit stop at the Indy 500.
That speed is largely why Hansen is the top ticket writer in Salt Lake City - she wrote 27,307 tickets in 1994, about 5,000 to 10,000 more than the other officers.
"I work hard. I don't take a lot of breaks or goof off," Hansen says as she whizzes through an eastside residential neighborhood. But that rate makes for lots of "encounters," as Hansen calls them.
"I have had to work on my PR," she allows.
Each officer receives four weeks of training, with ongoing public relations sessions. In those meetings, the officers are coached on the importance of keeping cool and how to handle angry motorists.
To defuse conflicts, the city rotates officers every two days among the city's 11 parking zones. That keeps the officers and the public from seeing too much of one another.
Still, no training in the world can prevent the clash that sometimes results over where and when people can park on public streets.
Late in the afternoon, Hansen makes a pass through a quiet residential street and spots a truck she cited the previous day. Its plates are expired, it has one flat tire and it is still parked the wrong way along the side of Princeton Avenue.
A neighbor might hesitate to ask the owners to move the truck, so Hansen becomes the surrogate bold neighbor. She posts a second ticket on the truck. As she returns to the Jeep, a woman emerges from the house, grabs the ticket and suggests Hansen "give it a rest."
Hansen is already on the radio arranging to impound the truck. The woman alternately sobs and shrieks, telling Hansen she doesn't "like ugly people by my home."
"Are you a policeman wannabe? Is that all you have time to do - harass people?" the woman screams. "She is proving she wants to be a cop. She probably failed the test."
Hansen ignores her. A tow truck is on the way and Hansen has to wait until it arrives.
The woman's husband pulls up in front of the house. He jumps in the truck and drives it across the lawn onto the driveway. "I pay my taxes, lady. Do you?" he yells.
The problem is, the tow truck is already en route; someone will have to pay a $55 drop fee for the company's trouble.
Hansen rolls up her window, but the couple's comments are still audible. They tell Hansen she's in "deep trouble." The tow truck finally arrives, as does a back-up enforcement officer and two police officers.
The officers begin to sort things out, but it's hard to hear. Hansen tries to explain, but the couple keeps yelling about taking her to court, about how much trouble she's in, about how she's a cop wannabe.
In the end, no one goes to court, although the couple pays for the tow truck.
"What's really hard about that is to remain calm," Hansen says as she leaves from Princeton Avenue. "I could have reacted. Usually in a residential area, I would go up to the door and explain things. That's the PR. That's the gesture."
The day ends pretty much as it started.
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Additional Information
Many Meters give motorists a break
The Deseret News randomly selected six downtown parking meters, dropped a nickel in each and timed them. Guess what? Most of the time, the meters--particularly older ones-- worked in your favor.
A nickle should buy six minutes of parking time. We got: - 7 minutes, 12 seconds on the west side of 200 East in front of the City-County Building
- 5 minutes, 20 seconds at 300 South and Main in front of American Grill
- 6 minutes, 5 seconds at North Temple and West Temple.
- 6 minutes, 47 seconds at 200 E. Social Hall Avenue near American Investment Bank
- 7 minutes, 24 seconds at 200 E. 200 South in front of the U.S. West Office Building
- 6 minutes, 35 seconds at 250 E. 200 South, south of the 257 Building