For 20 years the Dunedin City Council's customer services agency has been answering the questions on residents' minds, such as "How do you cook salmon?'' or "What's the weather like tomorrow?''
The council's customer services arm marked 20 years since its formation on July 1, 1996. In that time, it has fielded an estimated seven million calls and emails, and about two million face-to-face queries, council customer solutions manager Lyz Harvey says.
And while the scope of work has evolved, as has the technology supporting it, other things never change, long-time customer services officers Sue Ratten and Libby Angelo-Laloli say.
The pair have worked for the customer services agency for more than 38 years combined and remain committed to answering questions from residents - and visitors, for that matter - no matter how bizarre or irrelevant to the council.
"There's no 'Oh, sorry, it's not anything to do with us','' Ms Angelo-Laloli, who has worked in the agency for almost 19 years, said.
"I had an elderly gentleman wanting to know how to cook his salmon.
"I'm the only non-foodie up there and I thought 'of everyone, you poor man, you have got me'. So I put him on hold and I called my mother and found out how to cook salmon in the oven.''
The ever-changing nature of queries was one of the only unchanged aspects of the job, even 19 years on, Mrs Ratten said.
"We get a variety of calls, from somebody ringing asking what the time is to, I had one just yesterday, wondering how to get their cellphone number,'' she said.
While the advent of Google had eased access to answers for some of the more bizarre queries, customer services officers were also often asked to tap into their powers of clairvoyance.
Questions relating to "tomorrow's weather'', whether buses would be running the day after the call and the same for whether schools would be closed or open were also put to staff.
However, those lines of questioning were no problem, compared with the aggressive and abusive calls and queries sometimes directed at them, the women said.
Those queries were labelled "challenging'', Ms Angelo-Laloli said.
"We deal with a lot of controversial issues,'' she said.
"Parking tickets is a big one and, of course, people aren't happy so we do have a lot of abuse over the phone and the counter.
"You can't take it personally and you can't argue, because it only makes it worse.''
The majority of situations were resolved peacefully and many aggressive call-makers simply needed to "vent'' to calm down. But, occasionally, they were forced to end the phone call or contact police for clients in the services centre, she said.
"You don't feel good when you do that.''
Despite the tribulations and stresses, there was huge reward in helping others, Mrs Ratten said.
"It's that customer contact that I love and the fantastic team we have.''
Her thoughts were echoed by Ms Angelo-Laloli: "We love it'', she said of the job.
Mrs Harvey said the team's 26 staff answered, on average, 1000 calls a day and 100 emails a day, as well as 300 face-to-face queries and payments.
The team handled queries related to 34 council departments, as well as bus services administered by the ORC.
"I'm flabbergasted by the multi-tasking from the staff and the breadth of knowledge.''
