OffTheHoox.com

If you are not familiar with South Africa then you wont be familiar with our top notch security systems that take care to ensure your car is not stolen or broken into while in shopping malls etc. This system is known as, and goes by the term: “Car Guards”

Basically these are seemingly unpaid security guards that roam the parking lots with the intention of dissuading any would-be burglar, vandal or car thief. Sadly in South Africa this is a necessary evil and a very good initiative to help curb the crime. The only issue now is the guilt expectation to tip / pay these guys. The going rate is not a lot of money on a once off but lets just take a look at exactly how lucrative this little trade really is.

Please bear in mind that I have much better things to do with my time than to sit and monitor parking lots for years and write a thesis for a PHD so please allow me some poetic license to speculate and estimate.

Just to keep the numbers manageable let’s work on a hypothetical parking lot with 100 parking spaces. I would safely say that 4 car guards per 100 spaces is the norm, maybe 5, but we will get to that later.

Working purely on my shopping habits of late I will work on a 1 hour time frame.

Lets say of these 100 spaces:
25% stay 15 mins making 100 cars per hour (25 x 4)
25% stay 30 mins making 50 cars per hour (25 x 2)
25% stay 45 mins making 25 cars per hour (25 x 1 - leaving 25 spaces for 15 mins)
25% stay 60 mins making 25 cars per hour (25 x 1)

TOTAL : 200 cars per hour

For arguments sake, let’s say everyone gives a car guard R2.00 (which I hear is the going rate) each time they leave the parking after shopping. That’s a conservative estimate of R400 per hour making it R100 per hour per guard split amongst the 4 on duty. According to Rocky during a conversation about this car guard situation, the going rate in Cape Town can be anywhere as high as R5.00 per parking visit at night. In the same hypothetical situation that’s an estimated R1000 per hour giving each guard R250 per hour. This is a speculated salary of between R19 200 and R48 000 tax free per month (based on 8 hours x 6 days x 4 weeks) with no required training. A hat and sunscreen can be useful tools of the trade though (expense: R60 per month). One wonders if this has not become a syndicate having a few power people getting extremely rich off this unavoidable reality.

Word on the street says a beginner (baby) pilot can hope to gross R10 000 per month after spending R300 000 (for training alone) + accommodation + food + petrol.

Now there’s a toss up. Stay a pilot and be poor forever, rejoin the IT industry or join lucrative security industry as a car guard?