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They used to process MetroCard/token transactions and give directions. Now they just direct everyone to use the vending machine and "Google it" on their smart phones. Their surly attitude and inaudible speaker quality isn't helping anyone. Nor do they lift a finger when a crime is committed like a robbery or rape of a passenger.
So, besides sleeping and reading novels inside the booth what exactly do they do?
They completely automated subway fares but kept the attendants who used to handle sales of tokens and metrocards. It’s like keeping toll collectors after all tolls are collected by E-Z pass and cameras. They must have a good union contract.
They used to process MetroCard/token transactions and give directions. Now they just direct everyone to use the vending machine and "Google it" on their smart phones. Their surly attitude and inaudible speaker quality isn't helping anyone. Nor do they lift a finger when a crime is committed like a robbery or rape of a passenger.
So, besides sleeping and reading novels inside the booth what exactly do they do?
Years ago when I was surrounded by a gang of four one night on a downtown Brooklyn subway platform, snapping off my watch and pulling on my handbag, the clerk heard my scream and called the police. Of course they had run off. She did compliment my loud scream.
I agree that it seems like their “jobs” are protected by a union. It’s not their fault that everything they used to do is now automated. The MTA made those jobs redundant by automating everything.
I would hope that the MTA plans to assign them different duties to compensate for the redundancy. Otherwise, these people are literally being paid to just show up. According to Glassdoor, it seems like the salary range for these jobs is 34.7-58K. A waste of taxpayer dollars.
How many of us will be redundant when more and more jobs are being automated?
Maybe that will be the primary role of unions: to keep paying people whose jobs have been automated.
"Union work rules require the workers to stay inside the booths for the duration of their shifts — a regulation put in place before the arrival of the MetroCard in the mid-1990s, when the booths housed stacks of cash and valuable subway tokens.
Andrew Albert, the rider advocate on the MTA board, said transit officials should consider expanding the role of the booth workers to monitor the entirety of subway stations.
“I would not mind seeing them coming out of the booths, take a gaze up and down the platforms, call the police when something happens,” said Albert. “They could provide directions. It would add to the safety of the system.”
“The token booth jobs became obsolete 30 years ago with the arrival of the MetroCard,” Albert added.
The MTA has for decades chipped away at token booth positions. Most of the city’s 472 subway stations now have just one booth with an attendant, a far cry from the pre-MetroCard era, when clerks would staff booths at nearly every set of turnstiles."
I wouldn't mind it if they went back to being cashiers who processed transactions. The machines eat your card and don't leave much recourse. Being told, " go to the MTA web site" isn't very helpful. These clerks should be the ones processing the forms at the least.
They’re present to provide a level of psychological security for subway riders, even if in reality they don’t do much to mitigate crime. Same reason why it feels safer riding near the front of the bus closer to the driver. The LA subway is completely attendant-free, and I have to admit, it does feel weird going down into an underground station and there’s no one there at all.
They watch you get mugged, and annoyed that you are screaming so loud. It disturbs their reading.
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