With more than 150 years of experience between them, a group of Griffith’s most familiar faces are calling it quits.
Sonya Gatti, Tracie Salvestrin, Maria Trimboli, Keran Davies, Kaylene Foy and Debbie Simpson will wrap up their careers with the Griffith Motor Registry on Thursday after taking voluntary redundancies as the branch is consolidated into Service NSW.
The group are some of many regional employees across the state taking redundancies as essential services are consolidated due to a focus on cutting costs.
But for the six women moving on with their lives, while it is the end of an era, their final moments in the job have been sweet, with bitterness far from their minds.
“We are going to miss our regulars, and we are sure they will miss us,” Kaylene Foy said.
“Over the years we all have really become like a family, we have had births, deaths and marriages between us.”
With six lifetimes worth of memories of working to meet Griffith’s traffic needs the group said they had seen it all.
“We definitely have a sense of humour and that is what has kept us sane,” Maria Trimboli said.
“The more under pressure we were the funnier we seemed to get.”
While the move and re-branding of the service is an enormous step in itself, the women said it was nothing compared to some of the changes they had seen in their time.
“I have been here 36 years, I started when I was 18 and so now I’ve seen everyone up to the age of 52 get their licenses,” Tracie Salvestrin said.
“It is scary that now when they get their Learner’s Permit they are born in 2001.”
Even more strange in a time of online technology was the news the women used to type paper licenses for their customers on typewriters.
“And in the early days when someone wanted to register a semi trailer we had to go out there and physically climb all over it,” Ms Foy said.
The new Service NSW centre is set to be a one-stop shop, giving residents access to more than 970 government service and transactions from Friday, March 10.
The centre will replace all motor registry transactions available at Griffith Motor Registry.
Lewis Blume, Regional Manager for Service NSW said the centre would be a time saving asset for Griffith.
“Service NSW is now a proven commodity we have been operating since 2014,” he said.
“It was well researched it's what people told us they wanted.
“To be able to walk in the door, you can do your trades licences, you can renew your drivers licence while your at it and if you need to you can do your boat licence as well.
“That is a whole lot of work saved for one person.”
Mr Blume said the average wait time across the state was around eight minutes with the ultimate goal to have everyone in and out in under 10 minutes if queues and self serve machines are being used effectively.
Member for Murray, Adrian Piccoli, welcomed the new facility saying the Service NSW Centre will make it easier for Griffith residents and businesses to access government services.
The Griffith Service Centre, located at 12B Kooyoo Street Griffith, will be open Monday to Friday 8.30am to 5.30pm and Saturday from 8.30am to 12.30pm.
The ladies from the Griffith Motor Registry will be having farewell drinks at the Griffith Leagues Club on Friday, March 17 from 6.30pm.
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