TollBoothGuy
5 Years Experience
Brooklyn, NY
Male, 33
I spent just short of five years as a toll collector on the western end of New York State. Ask me anything, but please don't pay me in pennies.
My system did accept $100 bills. The only caveat is that we took the license plate numbers of cars that paid with anything larger than a 20. We linked the plate number to the bill and sent in a form as part of the audit.
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Sorry, I didn't know how to answer this question 3 months ago. I hope you found your way out.
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While roads do close in emergencies and during particularly adverse weather conditions, it is correct that toll roads do need to remain staffed at all times. If relief cannot make it to you, unfortunately you will generally be expected to remain at your post until they can safely make their way to you. In more general terms, you always try to arrive at least 10-15 mins before the official shift start time so that you can relieve earlier shifts by the time they are scheduled to leave. Some lanes will close/open depending on the time of day, but to maintain continuous service collectors generally cannot close their lane before relief is in place.
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I mean, it was harder than walking into places of business and handing them a resume. The authority I worked for tended to hire in classes so you kind of had to just keep calling to gauge if they were hiring a group, especially during the years-long gap in which there was no civil service test offered. Once they exhausted the entire list of acceptable candidates that had taken the test, they would hire off the street, so at the end of the day difficulty is kind of directly correlated to timing.
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School Teacher
How do you feel about the idea of year-round schooling?
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Never been offered anything like that. If it were to happen, it's a bit tricky. Collectors on the road that I worked on are audited every shift by both axle count and money totals. Additionally, patrons have a ticket that must be surrendered upon their exit. If you accept something in lieu of money, the axle count will be off, and the processed ticket will add to your money total for the night. If you were to accept something from a driver, you would still somehow need to account for the axles coming through your lane and the money dictated by the exit ticket. So if a driver gave me something instead of his $1.50 toll, I'd still need to account for that money.
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Did this happen to you? Generally a good idea to stop and make a report when things like this happen. I didn't work in Kansas so I don't have any familiarity with the idiosyncrasies of their system. Without seeing the incident, it's impossible to assign fault. If the gate came down while a car is passing through then MAYBE that would suggest a malfunction but again I can't really say.
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Congratulations! Full-time work in this field is good if you can get it. Happy to hear that you've been able to work your way up to it!
Thank you so much for your kind words. I hope that I have been able to give people an accurate insight into a day in the life. At this point, you're probably more qualified than I to be answering questions about the job. I've come across so many people whose eyes light up when I tell them I used to be a collector. It just seems to be one of those mysterious jobs people wonder about and I hope I've been able to convey that we're just people standing in metal boxes in the middle of a big road(with some good stories).
People are terrible. But sometimes they're okay. And that's enough for me to keep showing up everyday. Good luck out there brother.
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