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NARR:
Tommy Conley doesn't mind the cold weather, the smell, the heavy lifting … or the noise of the garbage truck….
(AMB)
Eight years ago, he quit his job as a paramedic and applied to become a New York City sanitation worker.
He passed the test, spent about one year on waiting list, then landed a job.
Conley says the work IS messy, but ultimately worth it.
ACT: (Tommy Conley)
"That's the price you pay for the higher pay, the higher salary. The salary I was making before wasn't enough to live in New York."
"As long as you give your body enough time to rest, it's a good paying job. I like it."
NARR: NARR:
The starting salary of a sanitation worker is $26,000 - a little more than what a beginning police officer makes. After 5 and half years of service, sanitation salaries can reach nearly $60,000.
That may be why for the past four years… 22,000 New Yorkers have sat on a waiting list … all wanting the chance to haul trash and plow snow for the largest city in America.
By law … the sanitation department must offer a new test every four years. That's why the test is being offered this summer, even though about 14,000 workers still remain on the waiting list from 2003.
Once again, the test is proving as popular as the one given to would-be police officers and fire fighters…
The city says that's because workers are attracted to the pay, the pension …AND the prestige.
ACT: (Mark Daly)
"Working for the city of New York is considered certainly a step up,
That's Mark Daly, the spokesman for city's administrative services department, which runs the sanitation worker test.
Around the country by anyone else who is a police officer, a fire fighter or sanitation worker … we're among the largest departments in the world when it comes to those three jobs… anyone who wants to work in best city to work in, applies to work in New York."
NARR:
Daly said he expects even more applicants than in 2003 ….
Only a week and a half into the application period, the form to apply for the test had been downloaded 150,000 times from city websites.
Candidates must be at least 21 years old, have a high school diploma, and possess a commercial driver's license to operate the trucks. Applicants then sit for the three-and-a-half hour written exam. Daly says the questions are designed to measure general abilities that are needed on the job …
ACT: (:35) Mark Daly
"The questions themselves usually involve being given a scenario, or situation that a sanitation might experience and then having to answer several questions about it … It may be you're on a street, you see a problem in advancing your truck … what's the best thing to do … or what are the different types of trash.
NARR:
The applicants that score highest on the test, get the first shot at talking the next step … Daly says that's a physical exam to make sure they can do the heavy lifting …
ACT: (:30) Mark Daly
"It is designed to reflect the actual physical tasks that a sanitation worker performs when they are out in the street …picking up heavy trash cans, carrying them, throwing items in the can into the back of a sanitation truck…carrying the can back, lifting heavy weights …things like that. So people who take the written test and pass it get a description of the test before… so they can prepare themselves."
Anyone who is interested in applying to take the sanitation worker test can find out more information by visiting nyc.gov ….. or stoping by their local sanitation garage.
This is Ellen Gabler, Columbia Radio News.
(AMBI of garbage crusher ....)