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.
Speaking from a part-time position only, I started at 9.36/hour. Five years later I was around the 13-14/hour range. I never exceeded 20k in a year. No health benefits. Under our contract, full-timers received pretty decent benefits from what I gathered and also received first dibs on all overtime opportunities. Becoming full-time was not a frequent opportunity, and almost always came with relocation. I can't give you an exact yearly salary, though.
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I actually can't speak to this directly because we didn't have exact change lanes in my area. I guess the best advice I can give is to not end up there! I suppose if the lane is unmanned and has a bucket or something like that you might just have to try and back up out of that lane, much to the dismay of everyone behind you. If there is a person staffing that line, I'm almost certain they will have some sort of change. Still, I wouldn't recommend trying to find out.
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It's been a blast. Everyone has had much more thoughtful and in-depth questions than I expected and it's been a pleasure answering them. I was hoping someone would mention license plates because I had a funny story to share. I was working at the smallest station in my section one day. There wasn't much surrounding the station but it had a knack of attracting some of the weirdest people you can imagine. I was working the exit side one day when a large white SUV pulled in carrying the largest four black women I've ever seen. Customized licensed plate read PUDDIN. I did the best I could to hold it together during the transaction. Also the guy with the GETATAN plate turned out to be a jerk. Shocking.
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This is a really difficult question for me to answer because honestly, there was very little that I enjoyed about this job and I think that ran over into my work sometimes. I feel that I worked hard, moved traffic as quickly as I could, looked out for my co-workers, and tried to maintain a safe environment for customers and co-workers. But working with people is incredibly exhausting. Especially people that are decidedly NOT happy to see you. I want to tell you I greeted every customer with a smile, that I waved at every child in the backseat, that I took the catcalls from every nook of the car with a good-natured wink. It was hard to hold it together some days but I generally just tried to keep my mouth shut, treat people in a straightforward manner, and make the whole toll-paying experience as much of a non-event as possible.
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Yes! I always thought the rules were pretty clear for oversized vehicles but when you get drivers from all over the country and Canada, confusion sets in. We'd have to shut down lanes, get our manager out to direct traffic, and get the guy out of there as quickly as we could. We always had to be on the lookout for overheight vehicles as well because overpasses and vehicles over 13'6" didn't go so well together on our road.
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I just kept calling the local toll plazas to see if there were openings. I lucked out because there was a civil service test being offered around the time I was inquiring. It contained three sections: vehicle classification, money counting, and totaling up deposit slips. They kept those scores on record and went down the list when it came time to hire. When they ran all the way down the list, they would hire off the street. Sometimes it felt like the only qualification was a warm body. But I suppose other perequisites included 18+, ability to make change without a cash register, customer service experience, etc.
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As long as there is cash, there will be tolls manned by humans. I think you'll see a continued push to inconvenience cash payers in the form of pulling off the main road to pay, and higher cash prices but there are just too many people from too many places to be integrated in one system. It's taken years for states to cross-honor other state tags under the EZ-Pass system, and that system will never serve 100% of the population.
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