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They’re more than money changersBy JENNIFER FARRELL © St. Petersburg Times, published February 2, 2001 Believe it or not, there's more to working in a toll booth than taking cash and making change.
"I thought when I was hired as a toll collector, all I had to do was stand there and take people's money," said Johns, 62, of Spring Hill. "It's more complicated than that." There's giving directions, for instance. And knowing what to do when an ambulance comes along, or a National Guard convoy rumbles up to the gate. Then, of course, there are the drivers who speed through without paying. All of which keeps life interesting in the slow lanes. In preparation for the new Suncoast Parkway, state Department of Transportation officials are training about 70 people to staff the road's first toll plaza set to open later this month. By summer, with two more plazas projected to be up and running, between 150 and 160 collectors on three shifts will handle the traffic. On Tuesday, Johns was one of eight residents who spent the day learning how to handle the equipment (touch-screen computers at the newer plazas) and unruly customers ("patrons," in DOT lingo). Surrounded by computers and old-fashioned "button boxes" used to keep track of vehicles passing through older plazas, they gathered around a conference table in a one-story building in Tampa. "You're never going to get into a situation that you cannot back out of," training manager Kathy Martin told the group of Pasco and Hernando county residents. Starting at the beginning, with a lesson on how to switch the light over each booth between red for "closed" and green for "open," Martin took them through the finer points of toll collecting. "You'll be doing a multitude of things at one time," she said. "It can be interesting or it can be harrowing." Most in the group had already been "in the lanes," as they call it, for hands-on training at existing toll booths on the Veterans Expressway north of Tampa. During a break Tuesday, they shared war stories. "I've had people drop money on the counter and drive off," said Loretta Bermes, 51, of New Port Richey. "I was very nervous." And then there was the credit card incident. "A young fellow pulled up and he said, "I don't suppose you take these,' " Bermes added, shaking her head. "He thought he could use his credit card." Larry Steed, regional manager of the Tampa Bay Regional Toll Office, said the first few days on the job are the hardest. "When you're new and you look up and as far as the eye can see it's bumper-to-bumper traffic, it's a little intimidating," he said. "It just takes a little while to get your timing down. Once you get into a rhythm it's easy to do." Collectors make about $7 an hour to start, Steed said, adding that most are retirees. The state privatized toll collections in 1994, and since then, the job has been handled by Barton Protective Services. In hiring, Steed said, they look for people who have experience handling money, can count quickly and are accurate. "You either like it a lot, or you don't like it at all," he added. "If it's in between, you won't be there very long." Terry Duma, for one, can't wait to don the celebrated Hawaiian-style, Florida-themed uniform. The 69-year-old from Spring Hill is hoping to get assigned to the late shift, which runs from 9:30 p.m to 6 a.m. "I'm a night owl," she said. Asked whether her five children might try to dissuade her, Duma said she didn't plan to tell them. "If they don't know I'm out there, they won't worry."
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