I know I’m not the only one with stories to share. While we do have to protect privacy, general descriptions won’t hurt.
I did a survey with a woman who had 3 children under 5. When we were finished, I thanked her for her time and she said in a very wistful tone: “Its nice to talk to an adult once in a while.”
I did a proxy interview (If someone doesn’t respond after several tries, we ask a neighbor for whatever information we can get) with a man who lived across the street from a young lady and got this: There were 2 people there on 4/1. One is the renter and the other one is some random guy. She always has a man staying there for a month or so, then kicks him out and has another one move in the next day. They never stay longer than a couple of months so none of them are on the lease…with much more until I was able to escape.
Moral of that story is if you don’t want to give your neighbors someone to gossip to, complete your census survey!
While most of my interviews are routine, there is the occasional standout. One man tried to give me the stray kittens in his yard. “I’d love a kitten,” I told him, “but I have a long shift and I don’t want the poor thing sitting in my hot car for the next six hours.” Another lady gave me fresh tomatoes from her garden.
The neatest story is when I went to a house in my hometown, recognized the obscure last name of the family as a variation on my grandmother’s maiden name, and discovered that they were relatives of mine I’d never met. (Half the family kept the original spelling and half Anglicized it. These were my grandmother’s older brother’s children.) This was in 2010 when they didn’t time us so I was able to chat with them for a good while before moving on.
I was in Turkey back in the 1980s when they had their last census under the ‘old’ rules. We were staying in a holiday apartment and there was a one-hour TV news show in English every evening, so we were aware of what was going on.
The rule/law was that everyone was supposed to stay home on census day and the enumerators came and took details. People in hotels weren’t affected but we were in private accommodation so were included.
We stayed in, since everywhere was closed anyway and sometime in the afternoon there was a knock on the door. Two men in shabby suits, flashing ID and carrying a huge ledger. They spoke no English so we resorted to sign language. “Passports?” My wife and I were no problem, though how they translated the names is anyone’s guess, but we also had two children - a 7yo and a 3yo, and their details were handwritten on their mother’s passport. (these days they would have their own, but not back then). This caused a major upset.
Much arguing and waving of arms ensued while we just sat there with no idea what to do. They gave up in the end so I have no idea what ended up for that address in Turkey on that census.
The last post made me think. How are language barriers handled? I know my next door neighbors had a census person visit. I don’t think any of the adults there speak English.
We carry a card with a bunch of different languages on it. The interviewee looks for their language on the card and reads the instructions there. Alternately, the iPhone app has a Spanish version you can toggle to. And you can use children to translate if the family gives the okay.
Today I was directed to an apt. complex. All the buildings were located on either “Elmwood E” or “Elmwood W” (although there were no street signs anywhere). My first case was at 123 Elmwood W; the guy answered the door, but when I read the address he said: “This isn’t Elmwood West, this is Elmwood East.”
It was on the west side of the apt complex, so I told him I had to go ask the rental office. At the office I pointed out the window and said, “Is that street Elmwood West or Elmwood East?” Their reply: “Technically, it’s Elmwood West, but the Post Office thinks it’s Elmwood East.” Hmm.
I ask if the building addresses are all unique: “Is there a 1002 Elmwood East, and also a 1002 Elmwood West?” They said, nope, there are no duplicate numbers. That’s good news. I think.
So, I return to the apartment unit and tell the guy, “Apparently either address is acceptable, let’s just go through my questionnaire.” He says, “Okay, but I’ve already filed a census return for 123 Elmwood E; if we do one for Elmwood W won’t that count this unit twice?” Damn. He had a point.
I told him, “I’m going to call it quits for the day and contact my supervisor.” So I returned to my car and sent my supervisor a text about as long as this post. And I mentioned that I had several more cases from the complex, so it might not be an isolated problem.
A couple of stories from 2010 (that I may have told before):
One old grumpy man was adamant that he didn’t have to give me his birth date. He said, “You don’t need know my my birthday - I’m 86 years old and these are stupid questions!” In 2010 all we really needed to know was his birth year (or close enough), so I was golden.
One person claimed he was in the witness protection program. I said “thank you” and walked away and reported it to my supervisor. We never collected any information from that house (that I know of).
A lady about my age (50) lived alone in this old, beautiful house full of antiques. She invited me in to ask the questions, while I admired the trim work and objects in the house. She then looked at my name tag and said “Is ***** your wife?” Yes she was, how did she know? My wife collects a popular doll variety, and the lady knew her from the collectors’ websites. Turns out she wrote the definitive guide to those dolls. (She has invited us to her house and we’ve been back and visited her several times since then, after realizing she lives in our town.)
My favorite: Something I noticed was that recent immigrants were usually very polite, and if you were invited inside (due to the heat), they often offered you water or lemonade. One apartment had a mother and her 12-year old daughter. I gathered information for the mother’s name and birth date, and got to the part about ethnic background. Her answer was, “I am Cambodian.” Just then the daughter spoke up with “I am Cambodian - Norwegian!” I can’t remember how I recorded that!
There is someone who was able to upset me so much on Nextdoor that we would get ugly in the public forum, warnings issued, threads closed etc. He was so good at pulling my strings that I finally gave up and became a Nextdoor mod because this would force me to pretend to be an adult.
When his address came up on my work list, I was not happy. I just knew he was as much of a jerk in person, if not more. He was so nice it was infuriating. He asked me inside out of the 113F heat and when I refused, he pushed the door open wide so the cool air would wash over me. He completed his interview with no hesitation and offered me a bottle of cold water for the road. I left grumbling because I would never be able to look at his posts the same way again, and I can’t quit being a Nextdoor mod because the whole thing would be too embarrassing to discuss.
I used to be a food stamp eligibility worker, so I am very comfortable using translators. (For those who aren’t used to it, don’t interact with the translator. Don’t say things like “Please ask Maria if she owns, rents or has a mortgage.” because this will make the translator have to do extra mental work. Say “Do you own, rent or have a mortgage.” Don’t look at the translator, make eye contact with the respondent while asking questions. Basically pretend that the translator is a machine.)
I interviewed someone who used ASL and used her child to translate. We did great with the whole machine thing, but I never once made eye contact with the mother. I looked at the child and at the mom’s hands. That was so rude that I almost feel like going back to apologize.
I was a manager/supervisor for the US census back in 2000. Our pay was $15.25/hour that year serving in the Metro Detroit area. I was only 21 years old and was in charge of about 10 enumerators that were all older than me.
Everyone was pretty nice and it all went pretty well, but the census office was a disaster. They messed up our pay every week, sat around watching TV all day, and honestly did a great job portraying “cushy government job” stereotypes to all of us.
I only worked for them for about 3 months. I heard somewhere that 20 years later, they still pay $15.25/hour. What happened to inflation?
Edit: Enumerators were paid $13.75/hour in my region in 2000.
I’d been dreading going to the “weird redneck” house, where a guy sits outside on a lawn chair most of the day, and mutters incomprehensible remarks to the people walking their dogs around the neighborhood.
It wasn’t bad. The guy’s roommate answered, and his speech was understandable. He made me take multiple guesses on how to spell his last name. We talked about dragging fallen tree limbs onto the neighbor’s property (because they had yard waste pickup service). He showed me the 9” incision scar on his back.
But overall, not bad. We had the same birthday and talked about the new dog across the street.
I was doing canvassing for the 1990 census in the summer of '88 where I would verify all addresses and map them for the census takers to use at a later date. A couple instances stand out to me.
I was driving in a rural area locating addresses and noted a small dirt track leading into some thick woods. I decided to go down this road noting several “No Trespassing” signs. The road eventually led to a small non-descript house in a clearing. As I was about to exit my vehicle, a large Rottweiler came around the corner and started barking at me. I stayed in the vehicle as someone came out of the house carrying a shotgun. I cracked my window showing my census badge and asked if there were any other addresses on the property. The person replied “No”, and I put my car in reverse and drove backwards all the way to the road as there was nowhere to turn around and I wasn’t going back to the house.
Another time, I accidentally locked myself out of my car when stopping at someone’s house. The car was running and I was several counties away from my home. Also, since this was before cell phones, I was unable to call anyone to come get me. I asked the home owner if they had a crowbar, which they did and I broke the lock on my trunk, climbed through the back seat and was finally able to unlock the car.
Things are going okay. In St. Louis the Bureau is offering up to 8 hours a week of overtime, with permission of your supervisor (which seems to be just a matter of asking.)
I visited the Census Reddit, and people were doing things I had already adopted on my own.
Condensing the script.
Folding Confidentiality Notices in half so the fit the side pocket better.
Holding up the bag’s Census label when knocking on doors (for door lenses and video cameras).
A complaint I identified with:
Why do the case handles flop down and obscure the Census logo. I’m going to safety pin one of the handles to the bag.
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Management is also soliciting people to sign up for travel to other states after Sept 29, when they expect St. Louis to start drying up.
Here in the AZ, we are allowed up to 12 hours of OT per week. My last day will be 9/30/20 and I haven’t heard anything about traveling out of state or even out of county.
I tried wearing a face shield because there are a lot of deaf old farts out here (my spouse included…I’m just an old fart, my hearing is still pretty good) and that lasted about 3 minutes in the 110F heat. I’ve found that wrapping my mask around my ice water filled sippy cup for a few minutes really helps for the first 30 seconds after I put it on and get out of my car, then its just hot. Hey, 30 seconds is 30 seconds, right?
Today, someone’s psycho cat ran up to the door when he saw me, then gave me a full on HISS, fangs and everything. I was starting to carefully move away and then he came over and rubbed on my legs and started purring. Then he jumped on the porch rail and stretched out to hold his head over the doorbell while hissing at me again.
I like cats. I have cats. I know other people who have cats. I understand that all cats are weird, but some are weirder than others. I have never before met a cat as weird as that one, though.
They have problems with apartments. One guy even showed me the confirm on his phone that he did it. He had something like, “123 Main St, Apt 1” where I had “123 Main St Building A, Apt 1”. In another case, I was looking for apt C in a building with apts 1, 2, & 3. I did my best bureaucrat impersonation & said that I was not able to find the correct address because C & 3 are different.
They really need to hire someone from UPS to teach them a thing or two about logistics.
I started on 8th St, then to 6th, then to 9th, then to 7th. Ummm, wouldn’t it have made more sense to go from 9th to 8th to 7th to 6th???
I looked at my list for today, and the 17th address on the list is 7663. No street name or number, just 7663.
I think I’ll call my supervisor about this one.
I was an enumerator for the 1990 census in Fairfield County, CT and can relate to many of the tales told here.
We had a lot of student rentals where they had too many kids in a house (eg 6 in what the landlord expected to be a 4-person rental) but since I had been in that boat just a few years before I was able to convince the kids to tell me the right number.
There was a new, empty condo complex that had been mislabeled so I was able to meet my required quota of daily units with a just a bit of paperwork for a few days, which caught me a little grief from the boss though it was technically legit.
I must have been good at it because they kept me on and started sending me to other neighborhoods. I did mansions in Southport and met a woman who had worked with me in the college cafeteria but had moved on to being a domestic worker. She told me that her boss at the mansion was asking about me and I briefly imagined that I was going to have a Penthouse letter experience.
But the thing that stood out most was the way I was treated in the lower-income “projects” in Norwalk and Stamford, especially relative to the wealthy homes in Southport. It was enlightening for me (a suburban white hippy kid) to see that behind the graffitied steel doors were often very nicely maintained homes, and usually the occupants welcomed me inside, offered a cold drink, and treated me with kindness. That didn’t happen once in the “nicer” parts of town.
Last night we had a wonderful monsoon storm, full of thunder and lightning (very, VERY frightening), wind and rain. Today, the PTB thought it was a good idea to send me, in my light, low clearance econobox vehicle to Crown King. (Old mining town, popular destination for 4-wheel folks.)
While the main road is “maintained” by the county, most of the rest of the roads are catch as catch can and the storms had damaged them enough that I couldn’t get through. I did manage to enumerate a 70 year old guy living in a building that was listed as abandoned. (Not as horrible as it sounds, he had a porta-potty and a hand-washing station by his front door. I could see that he had plenty of wood. He seemed pretty content and he grows some amazing bud. I think I’ll be hanging out with him again soon.)
Besides the Very Good Dog rescue, I have seen the baby spots on a fawn irl (AWESOME!), saw a baby roadrunner and was able to tell a rancher where his prized longhorn bull was.
This has been pretty cool!
Also, I have learned that when coming across a Trumper, the best way to get them to like me is to start complaining about how stupid the government is to have sent me out there in my little car. Once we start singing the same song, we are bestest buddies so of course they will try their best to help me out.
Who’s that countin’? Jane the Enumerator!
Who’s that countin’? Jane the Enumerator!
Who’s that countin’? Jane the Enumerator!
Count the list of the census rolls
You know Jane walked up to the home’s front door
To count Adam by his name
But he refused to answer
Because he’s naked and ashamed
Who’s that countin’? Jane the Enumerator!
Who’s that countin’? Jane the Enumerator!
Who’s that countin’? Jane the Enumerator!
Count the list of the census rolls
Jane came back the next morning
To count Adam true and free
Adam said, “Now I got my pants on
So you can 'numerate me.”
with apologies to Son House and Blind Willie Johnson