Hey, that’s great! My town is demolishing houses left and right to combat urban blight. About forty percent of the addresses I get sent to are no longer there. But the people I do get to talk to are pretty cool. One lady gave me fresh tomatoes from her garden.
Don’t psych yourself out. It’s not as tough as it looks. Follow the script, carry some water with you, and make sure to wear your mask (my CFS told us there are spies everywhere checking on us.)
!0 minutes to go to end of shift…and my last is a very large family that needs (and fortunately has in the family) an interpreter.
Still loving it, though.
Starting my first shift this afternoon. I just signed up for 4 hours to ease into it…
A recent NPR report on time pressure for the Census: Census Bureau Workers Worry Rushed Count May Yield Inaccurate Data : NPR
That NPR article was interesting. I can well believe that some of the enumerators will have trouble with the Iphones and software.
I got through my first shift ok. I’m glad I only did 4 hours because I was getting a bit tired towards the end.
Anyone having problems with FDC? I had a couple of cases get flagged to my supervisor.
One was a property that I think was being remodeled, FDC prompts me for 3 proxy addresses which I attempt to collect. The other property was in the process of being sold, again FDC prompted for 3 addresses which I attempted. They both got flagged as “unconfirmed addresses” (I think!) and generated an alert to the supervisor. Apparently it’s happening to other enumerators as well so it’s not just me…so there may be a bug in FDC or in the process somewhere.
Update: I decided over the weekend that all the obstacles I was facing were a sign that I was not supposed to do this, and called my supervisor on Monday to give him my resignation. I asked if there were other jobs available in our area, and I found out that right now, this region is hiring enumerators only.
I felt really terrible about this, because I did make a commitment and it’s a big job that needs to be done, and I was actually looking forward to doing it, but it was going to happen with or without me, and later that same day, I heard on “All Things Considered” that all the technical glitches are leading about 1/3 of the enumerators to make the same decision. That, to me, speaks volumes.
As for why I didn’t come here earlier and mention this, I was in the way of the Midwestern derecho, and my power was off for a grand total of 3 days 4 hours, and it finally came back this afternoon.
I’m doing okay. The nice people make me smile for 15 minutes. The occasional bitchy grinch can linger in my mind all day.
The software isn’t killing me, but often I have no idea what to do. The commands for proxies can be befuddling. Sometimes the software asks straight out for proxies. Sometimes it just leaves an address active in the case list after I encounter an In Mover, without asking for a proxy.
Once in an apartment hallway an In Mover graciously went through all the questions, and then mentioned that the April 1 occupants now lived in the apartment right across the hall — 8 feet away. But the software didn’t prompt me to find a proxy, so I just noted the event in the comments block and moved on to the next case.
@nearwildheaven did you complete the training? I guess your region was having bad problems. It was your decision, of course, but I think you could have waited out the problems and still gone to work.
@baal_houtham yeah, I know what you mean about the variety of people you meet. All have them have been polite but most have been a bit guarded which is understandable. Because I’ve been doing afternoon shifts, I get a lot of no answers which often triggers the find-a-proxy mode. It gets a bit tedious…
I had my first, uhh, middle-aged paranoid dude. He wanted to know the Why of the census (“It was written into the Constitution — the main function was to make sure every state gets the right number of U.S. Representatives, since that’s based on population.”).
He wanted a close look at my necklace I.D. — and then he wanted to look at my iPhone screen to see if I really was using believable governmental software.
And finally he asked me to lift up my shirt, to prove I wasn’t carrying (“Okay; I don’t have a gun, but I’ve got a gut.”). After which he invited me to enter his apartment — which was in a very nice part of town. (“Actually we’re encouraged to conduct interviews in the open air.”)
After which, he spent 5 minutes answering my questions without further drama,
I turned in all my things on Friday afternoon. Like I told my supervisor, “How long do you beat your head against a wall before you realize all it’s going to do is give you a headache?”
Machine gives me the address.
I Can’t find the address.
I Google the address.
Address is in the middle of the highway.
I plug this information into the machine and it tells me to find a proxy.
A car stops at the stop sign and I ask if they remember a house ever being in the middle of the highway.
I report the information given by the proxy and move on to the next address.
4th floor apartment, no stairs. I go to the apartment number given to me by the machine, knock on the door, and tell the dude why I am there…and he tells me I have the wrong address. I look at the number on the door which matches the apt. number given to me by the machine, and I ask him if this is that address, and he says “Yes it is, but you have the wrong address” and shuts the door in my face.
The machine (iPhone) says my next case has had one previous census visit. The case notes say the person now living there (an In Mover) can offer no information so “Do not contact proxy again.”
But the iPhone is not prompting me to contact a different proxy, it’s telling me to return to the original address — even though the notes instruct me not to contact the person living there again.
Well, that seems like a paradox, so I ignore that case and move on to the next one. If it’s still on my case list tomorrow I’ll call a higher-up and ask for clarification.
Thanks for putting up with so much bullshit and doing your jobs diligently. The country is the better for it!
My wife is doing the Census and she’s had some of the same problems people are reporting in this thread. (She’s doing the door-to-door follow up for people that didn’t do it my mail or online.) Her training was in a big parking lot - and it was raining that day. Then the conference call, after which she was supposed to do some online training before the next call, but her supervisor never assigned the training so nothing was coming up when she logged in. And she did have a problem with her iPhone early on but a restart seemed to fix it. (We’re Android people and clueless about iPhones.)
She’s had some interesting experiences with some of the addresses she’s been assigned to. She had about 24 addresses one night for apartments under construction, and had to add a note for each one. We couldn’t figure out how to make copy/paste work in the app, so she had to type the same note over and over. One afternoon she got an address that was a state highway maintenance building. Apparently the people working there had tried to tell Census it wasn’t a residence, but they didn’t believe them. And she’s had her share of addresses out in the boonies that were difficult to find, and GPS was no help.
She was a little frustrated at first, having to deal with several family issues plus trying to find time to work. But I think it’s getting better and she’s mostly enjoying it now.
To avoid triggering the “find proxy” screen, use “cannot locate address.” Once the proxy screen is triggered, you’re stuck with it. I was sent to a very large mobile home park with multiple empty pads. If I said “cannot locate address” I was off scot-free. Any other response triggered the proxy screen. (I didn’t come up with this work-around on my own. Our CFS told us to do it that way.)
For the win: I got the IOOF hall meeting room where I trained for the job.
It probably means “Do not contact THAT proxy.”