POLOKWANE – Review spoke to several car guards at various shopping centres in the city to find out how the weaker rand and the cost of living increase have affected how much they are getting paid and how they are treated by shoppers. The guards spoke to us on condition of anonymity.
“People usually think we are here for free, but they need to understand this is how me make our living. If they ask us to look after their car, we at least expect to be paid for our service, even if it only a small amount.”
“During the week it isn’t as busy as usual though weekends are still the same, but there are no complaints from my side I don’t think much has changed over the years,” explained one of the car guards.
Another car guard said that people ask them not to look after their car, but when their car is damaged in the parking area, they usually demand to know what happened from the car guards. In such cases, we were not present, because we will rather watch the cars we are asked to watch more closely than the ones we are not asked to watch,” the guard explained.
“People still treat us the same, but there are noticeably less shoppers during the week these days. However, the centres are still busy over the weekends which helps us to maintain our income.”One car guard said people still pay them either the same amount or very close to it, so they can still make a living. They understand that with the difficult financial situation, people do not always have cash on them as they rather pay with their cards to cut a bit of costs so they do not always get paid for their services.
“I think they still treat us the same, nothing has changed much in my opinion,” another car guard stated.
One car guard explained that some of them work for a business which has to pay the shopping centre to allow them to watch the cars and urged people to understand they do not get a steady salary every month. The tips they get from the people whose cars they watch is their only source of income.
