Kerman Glaser, transportation services representative, performs part of the "in the field" portion of his job near Day Hall on Aug. 12. Charles Harrington/University Photography
7 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 12: The rain is pouring down in slanting gray sheets as I iron the Cornell-red shirt with insignia that reads: Cornell University Transportation Services Department. The shirt and/or a red hat with the same insignia is the usual attire of a small cadre of university staff members called Transportation Service Representatives (TSR), also known to some as the parking police. I'll be joining TSR veteran Kerman Glaser for part of his work day, to get a feel for what it's like to be one of the most misunderstood class of workers on campus. Or so they say.
I'm wondering how I can graciously get out of this mess. I mean, who wants to spend several hours slogging through a downpour, ticketing vehicles parked illegally on campus? Then I think, wait a minute. These guys don't have a choice. They do their field work rain or shine, snow or sleet, just like the postal service.
I finish ironing my shirt . As I'm going out the front door, umbrella in hand, my husband calls out a warning: "Better be careful when you're wearing that shirt you might be shot."
Glaser, 72, had a good laugh when he heard that. But then this six-year-veteran of the eight-year-old reconstituted, more customer-friendly Transportation Department, seems to laugh a lot. And when he's not laughing, he's got a smile on his face or a gleam in his piercing, light-blue eyes.
Carl Cohen, assistant director of parking and commuter services, picked Glaser as the person who could give me the best taste of the work day of a TSR II. And Cohen, too, gave me a warning: Wear sneakers and train well. Glaser, he said, can out-walk just about anyone in the department.
"Kerm's bywords are vim, vigor and vitality. He's got unlimited energy," Cohen said. "He's very friendly always in a good mood. It's very difficult to get him rattled."
And he's committed to his work at Cornell, Cohen noted. "On Friday Kerm says, 'Oh, Friday. Two more days until Monday.'" And every Monday, Cohen adds, Glaser brings in a bag of donuts for his fellow workers. That's every Monday for six years, without fail, and without a big fuss.
That's the kind of staffer they were looking for when they transformed the department eight years ago, Cohen said.
At that time Transportation Services functioned basically as a traffic bureau, issuing parking permits and collecting fines, Cohen explained. Cornell Police handled traffic control, information booths for campus visitors and parking enforcement. In those days there were no formal commuter programs encouraging employees to use alternatives to driving and parking on campus, as there are now.
But as parking, traffic and commuter issues grew more complex, and as the duties of Cornell Police in other areas multiplied, it was decided to reorganize Transportation Services and transfer traffic and enforcement responsibilities to the department along with commuter programs.
The TSR II position was created to handle those duties, but with a difference. Department managers designed the job to be as interesting as possible to encourage workers to stay. So they made it multidimensional. A TSR II has to be a little bit of everything part counselor, part cop, part accountant, part dispatcher, part information specialist and, yes, part saint. A TSR II rotates through three weeklong shifts, spending a week in the customer service center on Maple Avenue, a week in dispatch and a week "in the field," checking for parking violations and dispensing information from the booths. The latter job they share with students from the Center for Information and Visitor Relations. Both Cohen and Glaser say one major aspect of the job is customer service, and that's how the job description reads. In fact, in the job description, the same percentage of emphasis is given to "Community relations, assistance and information" as is given to "Monitor the campus transportation program."
"We try to give legendary service," Glaser said. "We try to put on a smile and give a good impression. Sometimes we're not as successful when we're enforcing the parking areas. But we try to give good public relations for Cornell."
What about that field work? The rain had stopped and the sky was gray enough to spare us from the August sun by the time we left the information booth in front of Carpenter Hall after Glaser's shift there ended. We headed toward Day Hall, searching for parking violators. It was 3 p.m. By 3:37 Glaser had issued seven parking tickets at $20 each and by the end of his shift at 4:30 even with the distraction of a reporter and photographer tagging along Glaser had written 13 tickets.
That wasn't a record, by any means. Glaser said that depending on the time of year and whether he works the whole day in the field, he can ferret out as many as 40 to 50 violators. Department managers, he added, keep track of those numbers.
So do most violators take their anger out on the TSRs? "We do get some irate people at times," he said, chuckling. "But I say, 'what do you have to be angry about? You're the violator.'"
He conceded the job also involves using a bit of discretion and judgment occasionally, particularly in the interest of public relations. For example, sometimes a visitor genuinely is confused, he said. Like the father parked illegally and waiting in his car at the Gannett Health Center for his daughter, who had come to campus earlier to return library books. His daughter was already an hour late, and he didn't even know where the library was, he said.
Glaser suggested nearby metered parking and the patient father drove off, grateful he hadn't been ticketed. "Ignorance is no excuse," Glaser explained, "but sometimes you have to give someone a break if it's reasonable."
Not everyone is reasonable, though. The last person Glaser ticketed that day parked, saw us and asked if we were ticketing he had no parking permit. When Glaser said "yes," and that it was illegal to park in that lot without a permit, the young man replied as he raced by, "That's okay. I'm more afraid of my professor than I am of you." He got a $20 ticket.
Cohen, Glaser and others in Transportation Services are under no illusions that friendly, helpful, informative TSR IIs like Glaser will magically cure Cornellians of their various campus parking blues. In one degree or another they will continue to be frustrated by limited parking on central campus and will continue to get parking tickets.
But members of the revamped Transportation Services Department are committed to the concept of customer service. And that means helping visitors and members of the campus community find the best available solutions to their parking and commuting needs.
6:30 p.m. Tuesday: I'm off-duty, at a West End grocery store picking up a Peach Snapple. The young woman behind the counter stares, then says: "You're one of those (pause) anonymous parking people at Cornell, aren't you?"
I'd forgotten I'm still wearing the signal red shirt.
I smile brightly but say no, I'm not, that I was just tagging along for the day. But I didn't want to be disloyal to my new friend Kerman. "They really work hard," I say.
She appears uncertain how to mentally process that. "Oh," she responds, baffled by my good cheer. "They sure do, don't they?"