Sometimes you need to rig a mesh or element that is not located at the origin (0,0,0) and/or it has had its transforms frozen, so that translations and rotations appear as 0's and scale's as 1 in the channel box (its relative zero). How do we deal with this?

Maya

This is easier to do if you have both the Outliner and the Hypergraph Panel → Hypergraph Hierarchy panels open as it shows the child/parent relationships very well. I suggest using a Schematic layout in the Hierarchy panel for cleanliness and ease of reading.

1. Create your control shape that you would like to parent the mesh too. Rename the control shape to something like "Control_MeshName".
2. With nothing selected, create an empty group (Ctrl + G) and rename the group to something like "Neutral_Control_MeshName".
3. Parent the Control_MeshName (child) to the Neutral_Control_MeshName (parent).
4. Select the original mesh that needs to be rigged. Go into component mode and select all of the vertices. Go to the Deform Menu and click "Cluster". This creates a group of vertices at the local object space center of the selected vertices (the center of mass or volume in 3D space).
5. Select Neutral_Control_MeshName and, with snapping to vertices turned on, move it to the position of the cluster (this places it precisely where you want it in local object space and world space).
6. Delete the Cluster (Cluster Handle).
7. Parent the mesh (child) to Control_MeshName (parent).
8. Now you may continue moving and working with the elements using the Control_MeshName shape. If you need to move the object back to its relative zero, you can do so by zeroing out the transforms and rotations of the Control_MeshName shape in the channel box.