Who Is That Woman?
"How are you doing?" Scheetz asked a roving reporter
recently pouring in the rain. "It's
not such a nice day to walk around town all day, but it's a living," she added and smiled.
"This job isn't nearly as bad as everybody might think. You wouldn't believe the people
that I get to meet! Adam West, Jimmy Stewart, and President Bush. Mr. Bush even threw
me a kiss when he was driving down Nassau Street. Can you believe that?" As she spoke
she was already approaching a red Chrysler that was to be her first victim. She scribbled
out a ticket and placed it onto the windshield of the car. When asked her she felt about her
power to instill so much fear in the hearts of Princeton residents, she laughed at the
thought.
"That's funny that you ask me that," she said. "Just recently I ran into a woman who
thought that I was going to give her a ticket, even though I wasn't because she hadn't
done anything wrong. When I asked her why she had been so afraid of my giving her a
ticket, she said to me, 'It's because you're so scary!' I thought that was the funniest thing
I'd ever heard. I'm not scary! I'm one of the least scary people in the world. As long as
you put money in the meter, I'm not scary at all."
Scheetz has been working downtown Princeton's parking meters for the past six years, from 8:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, and she plans to keep doing so for as long as her feet can manage all of the walking. Formerly a dispatcher in Hopewell Township, she changed careers to spend more time with her three children. "It was a natural transition," she noted. " I grew up around police, and I grew up having respect for the uniform. My dad was a cop. State troopers would show up at my birthday parties. Santa Claus was a state trooper. One year I recognized his voice, but I never said anything. I knew that he wasn't really Santa Claus, but I never really stopped believing in Santa Claus. I still believe in Santa Claus. Don't you? I think that we all have to believe in something."
Scheetz also believes in the opportunity her job has provided for her. "It's just what you make of it," she said turning onto Washington Road. "I met my boyfriend because of this job. You never know the way things are going to work out, and that's the fun part of it all." For those who are tired of sitting behind desks all day, a job like Scheetz's might sound attractive. "It's good exercise, walking around all day. And I like the walking because I get to meet and interact with people." Stopping to ticket another "customer," as Scheetz calls them, she pointed out that another great part of her job is the freedom. Freedom to walk where she wants, freedom to take breaks if she needs them, freedom from people watching over her shoulder all of the time.
"Today's a slow day today because the weather is so bad," Scheetz noted as she opened up her extra large umbrella before proceeding to ticket, another car. "Not too many people want to come out on a day like this, and I don't blame them! Days like this make my job easy. Besides, on days with bad weather, I take it easy and give people more of a chance. I don't want them running out to their cars all of the time because they might fall and hurt themselves."
Scheetz is certainly no stranger to safety. During the school year, she doubles as a school
crossing guard twice a day, a job which she takes just as seriously as she takes being a
meter maid. It's the part of her job where she receives the most satisfaction because she
gets so much recognition; the legend of her graceful and crisp traffic direction has even
crossed the state's borders. "People come up to me and recognize me as the crossing
guard and they tell me what a great job I'm doing.", she added, winking as she tried to
keep her pad of tickets dry while holding onto the umbrella. "Once a kid got hit, and I
swear that it took five years off of my life. By the time I could get in front of the car to
block him, boom, he was down. And suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a doctor
running down the street. He was like an angel. I'm an LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse), but
I was sure glad to have a doctor come to the scene. When I turned to thank him for
helping, he was gone, just like an angel. He came out thin air.
"There are a lot of near misses. It's usually the car's fault. They're just not paying attention. Whenever there's really bad rain and I can hardly see a thing, I say a prayer for the kids because it's so much more dangerous. Crossing Spring Street, Scheetz waved to a woman on the other side of the street. "Hi Ellen!" she called out. "Ellen is a real estate agent with Henderson. She's another person that I would never have met if it weren't for this job," Scheetz explained. "Hi Darlene," Ellen called back. Ellen turned the reporter and said, "Let me just say right now that Darlene is the nicest lady in Princeton, and she's got the toughest job. She's also an expert traffic director. She could be a ballet dancer with those moves!" "A few weeks ago," Scheetz said proudly, "a man wrote a letter about me to the editor of The Princeton Packet. It said that 10 times a week, a ballet goes on for a very special dancer. He was talking about me directing traffic. I couldn't believe how nice he was to do that. I remember that I used to throw him kisses as he drove by. One day he stopped his car, got out, and told me that he loved me. Can you believe that?"
To escape the pounding rain for a few minutes, Scheetz took a little break outside of the public library, but she didn't take a break from socializing. "Hey Gordon!" she called out to the other meter collector rolling by in the three wheeled parking scooter. "On slow days like today, we're always tripping over each other," Scheetz said. "It's always like this when the weather is bad." But the worst part about bad weather isn't rain, it's cold. Scheetz said that she hates the winter because of all of the layers she has to put on her small frame in order to stay warm while walking outside all day long. "In the cold weather, you have to dress really well because you get frozen walking around outside all day long. The more stuff you have to carry, the harder it gets." But don't think that bad weather is going to get you out of too many tickets. Scheetz works in any weather, rain or shine - she proudly pointed out that she tickets as long as she can physically get to the meters. "Sometimes when it's really cold, the meters freeze up, so I usually have to wait until the afternoon when it's warmed up a bit and the meters thaw out, but I always make it out eventually."
As Gordon drove around the corner, Scheetz's attention shifted to the library parking lot, towards a woman walking by with her three young children. "Hey! It's baby Charlotte!" she called out to the foursome. "Come see baby Charlotte," she said as she walked out into the rain to greet them. "I really can't believe how big they're all getting," she continued. "One day their mother was pregnant, and the next thing I knew, she's got this new beautiful baby and her other kids are getting so old so fast."
Continuing up Witherspoon Street, Scheetz pointed out something that was already
becoming very apparent-that her job is a lot more than just putting tickets on car
windshields. "This job is really 95 percent public relations," she said. "People are always
coming up to me and asking me where to eat, how to get to Lambertville, where they can
go to the bathroom." And while some might not take the initiative, Scheetz has refused to
let the negative aspects of her job get her down. "It's really not as bad as people might
think. You can make it a hard job or you can make it pleasant. I've chosen to make it
pleasant. If you wave to people, say 'good morning' to them, almost all of them will smile
and wave back. I stay cheerful, because almost all of the people are nice. There's always
that one person in a bad mood who takes it out on me, but you can't let something like
that get you down. I think that's to be expected on any job." She admits that there are
days when she just wants to head for home, but insists that those days are few and far
between. "Of course there are times when it seems like the whole world is mad at you and
they're taking it out on you. But you'd think that would happen all of the time on this job,
and it's not true. It only happens maybe once a month. Once a month, nothing goes right.
When people scream at you, it still hurts, but you have to let things like that roll off of
your back. To make things easier, I usually try to hit and run with my tickets so I don't get
caught in the act of ticketing. When people catch you ticketing their car, they get so
angry. Luckily, it doesn't happen very often!"
Like most of her days at work, Scheetz managed to avoid any conflict this particular day.
But occasionally she runs into some trouble. Two incidents stick out in her mind, with
good reason - two times angry ticket recipients have actually hit her with their cars. "The
first guy just snapped. Usually you can tell when somebody is going to be angry with you,
but I couldn't tell with him. He snapped, and I didn't expect it at all. When I put the ticket
on the windshield, he got into his car, pulled out, and knocked me over. The second time
was a woman. She backed her car into me." Thankfully, Scheetz wasn't hurt either time -
only a little shaken up. And she is quick to point out that things like that are far from
ordinary occurrences. "Ninety percent of people understand, and don't get too angry.
They know that they didn't put enough money into the meter and they realize that I just
have a job to do."
The hardest part of her job, she said, is the fact that sometimes people don't understand that she's just doing her job, or that people think that their jobs are more important than hers is. "It hurts when people come out to their cars and say to me, 'I'm working in here, can't you give me a break?' That upsets me because my job is important too, just as important as theirs is. They should understand that we both have jobs to do." Scheetz withstands the accusations and criticisms from ticket recipients with a thick skin that has formed over the past six years. She laughs off the fact that some people think that she's waiting around the corner for meters to expire and that she runs up to them as soon as the money runs out. "There are so many meters to cover in downtown Princeton that I could never even think of doing something like that. I just walk around on my route and whenever I see an expired meter, I ticket. That's all." There aren't any tricks up her sleeves; she has no quotas to fill, which allows her to help people out whenever she can. "On the Spring Street parking lot, you're not allowed to park rear first, and if you do, you get ticketed. If I see somebody parking rear first, I go and tell them to turn around so they don't get ticketed. I know how it feels to get a ticket, and I want to help people out." If she catches a person running to his car just as she's approaching it, she almost always lets the person off the hook, giving them a hug instead of a ticket. "A lot of times, I'll tell a man to go buy his wife some flowers with the $12 that he just saved. I don't try to trick people into getting tickets. And you wouldn't believe how much people enjoy getting hugs instead of tickets. Once I gave a guy a hug and afterwards he asked me to go have coffee with me. He said that he hadn't realized how much he had needed that hug. Isn't that sad?"
Scheetz would love to have the opportunity to meet Rita, the Beatles' prototypical meter maid. An admitted addict to English murder mystery books, she said "If I ever really do get the chance to go to England, I'm going to have high tea and eat cucumber sandwiches,and not give out a single parking ticket."
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