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.
Sorry, I didn't know how to answer this question 3 months ago. I hope you found your way out.
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I don't really know anything about operations at the Triborough Bridge but this might shed some light on your experience:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triborough_Bridge_and_Tunnel_Authority_Police
It looks like these officers may collect tolls from time to time, which might explain the potential ticket. Pure speculation from my perspective, though.
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What can you say, really? Drivers agree to pay the toll the moment they enter the portion of highway that is designated 'toll road'. I was never given official strategies to deal with customers that didn't want to pay a toll. If they had specific questions about the system or why they were being charged a certain amount I was happy to answer them but if you just drive up and complain about the concept of a toll my general response was something along the lines of
¯\_(?)_/¯
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We classify vehicles based on height and axles on the ground. Anything below 7'6" is classified a 'low' and anything above 7'6" is a 'high'. So an average car is classified as a 2L while an average tractor trailer is classified as a 5H. Luckily, we don't have to take weight or commercial status into consideration when classifying. I know that a different system was in place preceding my arrival and that it had been become somewhat complicated, so this system was installed in an effort to simply the process. (Something about noting the number of passengers on buses, etc...)
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Security / Bodyguard
Are you expected to take a bullet that's meant for someone you're guarding?
Audiologist
Are earbuds dangerous for my ears?
Movie Theater Employee
Why is movie theater food so overpriced?
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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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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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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