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.
I always found toll collecting and reading/studying to be a dreadful combination. As soon as you pick up your book and read a line, voila- a car appears! Put the book down, handle the customer, pick the book back up, read the same line over again, put the book down for another customer, rinse, repeat.
At slow times, this may not be the scenario, but slow times are generally early mornings, late evenings, and overnight hours. Not optimal times for consuming content that will need to be retained.
Everyone is different, of course, and you may be able to study in this environment but I had a difficult time of it.
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Part-timers like myself had the ability to set our own availabilities. Outside of holidays, we could make ourselves as available for as few or as many days as we wanted. I guess the only caveat to that is that the days that we made ourselves available didn't automatically translate into shifts. So you could make yourself available for weekends only, but there would be a high likelihood that you wouldn't work all weekend days.
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As far as jobs go, you could certainly do worse. I did not particularly enjoy the work, so that will color my list of upsides and downsides. Ulitmately, I stayed as long as I did because for the area, the pay was right, and it afforded me enough flexibility to attend school full-time.
Upsides
- Pay is typically higher than minimum wage
- Opportunity to meet all kinds of people. (I consider this both an upside and a downside)
Downsides:
- Tangible face of state/authority that is taking money directly out of drivers' pockets.
- Noisy and exhaust-filled work environment.
- Toll roads don't close. They are staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Some holidays are typically required. You will likely work difficult hours. You may have to report during and work through difficult weather conditions.
- Money is disgusting. When you get your first handful of dust-covered, greasy, motor oil-covered pennies, you'll understand just how dirty I'm talking.
- You will answer the same set of questions hundreds of times every day.
- Congratulations, in addition to being a toll collector, you have also become a tour guide.
- People in cars are IMPATIENT!
- A lot of people travel without cash
- A lot of people like to argue the merits of toll roads with collectors as cars pile up behind them.
Some people I worked with were very good at taking all of this in stride. Some people walk out after the first day. I was somewhere in the middle. Good luck!
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I have no idea. A google search yielded the following:
https://jobs.mdot.state.md.us/JobClassDetails.aspx?Postings=733
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There are a few situations that require collectors to exit the booth and take down license plate numbers. We are required to take down license plate numbers for cars that paid with 50 and 100 dollar bills. We are also required to take down license plate numbers of vehicles that do not have, or have lost their entry tickets. Finally, when customers with no cash pull in, we are required to take down the information on their drivers license along with the plate number of the vehicle they are in.
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Simple enough. Full-timers have a set number of paid days that they can take off each year. I'm sure exact numbers vary based on seniority. Part-timers in my system submit availabilty well ahead of time, and can make themselves unavailable as many days as they wish, excluding holidays. Part-timers do not receive any kind of vacation time. Part-timers frequently slide in to cover full-timers during vacations.
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No way for me to say. I'd give them the benefit of the doubt in regards to the 4-8 week estimate. Government agencies tend to move slower than private entities, particularly when it comes to hiring. Good luck!
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