Blue look is just not the ticket
ALONG they trudge in the stifling heat, smothered to the gills in Tropical North Queensland’s unstylish answer to the burqa.
Their boots splash pooled sweat as they shuffle through the street – some even wear special Camelbak backpacks filled with water and connected to hydration tubes to stop them keeling over and dying at the feet of American tourists.
Barely a shred of skin is exposed to the breeze, and so they stew like that for hours, bringing everyone’s mood down with their frumpy attire and generally just not smelling great. Parking inspectors.
They do my head in, but I love ’em. And I’ve got a way to fix it.
These much maligned, but infuriatingly necessary mongrels pass like bees in a flower bed all day, picking up revenue-pollen for the council with every third buzzing pause.
God knows they’ve done me over a few times.
However, you might not notice the other important service they provide.
I’ve watched these hardworking, hard-sweating folk go about their daily job and realised they are forever being pestered by weird blokes wearing Birkenstocks and knee-high socks.
Tourists love parking inspectors – it’s just a fact.
Not only do these poor buggers have to spend their days dealing with dribbling idiots who struggle to keep track of the time (how very dare you).
Not only do they have to plod about town in 100 per cent humidity, leaving a snail-trail of human lather on the footpath.
Not only do they have to put up with boofheads in the newspaper conjuring up images of their soupy armpits.
They also have to serve as the most common human interface between tourists and the city of Cairns.
And they have to do it all while dressed up like depressed blue and grey stormtroopers.
That’s not on.
We won the bloody war.
Cairns Regional Council shut down its only visitor information centre last year.
The reason given at the time was that it was not getting used enough, but I suspect it had more to do with location.
The centre was in the old Mulgrave Shire Council Chambers on the Esplanade – a beautiful heritage-listed old building the council hopes will form part of its feted (but persistently unfunded) Cairns Gallery Precinct development.
It’s difficult to show off priceless art with tourists waving around maps and squawking all over the shop.
Whatever the motivation, the visitor information centre is dead and buried.
Parking inspectors have been forced to pick up the slack – and to their great credit, they always seem take it in their damp stride. Spending all day, every day trodding around the CBD has imbued these brave nine-to-fivers with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the city, buried deep in the fleshy reptilian part at the stem of their brain.
They are the true face of Far North Queensland – walking atlases and local trivia experts who go above and beyond their job description to ensure our visitors don’t walk into traffic in frustration.
So why are they forced to do this important job while dressed up in hideous pillowcases?
Surely Cairns Regional Council recognises the extra service our parking inspectors perform, and will give them a nice tropical shirt to wear – and a pair of those cool pants that zip off at the bottom half when it’s time to party.
Give them a pay rise while you are at it.
Just think of all the money they are saving ratepayers after the shutdown of the visitor information centre.
I challenge the council to launch a public competition to design the new tropical-themed uniforms as a matter of utmost urgency – and to rejig their job title to include “walking atlas”, to boot.
SPENDING ALL DAY, EVERY DAY TRODDING AROUND THE CBD HAS IMBUED THESE BRAVE NINE-TO-FIVERS WITH AN ENCYCLOPAEDIC KNOWLEDGE OF THE CITY.