If it makes you feel better, pretty much everyone you’ll be working for/with is temporary. Meaning that, at some point over the next several months, they’ll be unemployed again. I like to think the permanent Federal workforce is smarter.
I have heard so much bullshit since I’ve been with the Census. We got the Acorn comments until about November or December. Then we got the assorted Beck fans for a while. Now that the Census Bureau has begun to roll out its media campaign, most of the people we’ve talked to are actually rational and open-minded. Or else we’ve just gotten to work events that aren’t populated by anti-government crazies. It’s hard to tell sometimes.
The prize goes to the winner who told me (in the checkout line at Rite Aid, no less) that the Census is unconstitutional. I had to requisition a new head after that, because mine assploded.
I worked as an enumerator for them last summer…really enjoyed it. (same pay rate, btw, plus mileage). We finished up my area a bit too quickly for my tastes, but it was great while it lasted.
They kept me on and wanted to call me back to do follow-ups but I was headed back to college and the timing was wrong (as in, first day or work also first day of classes!) I would have done it in a heartbeat otherwise.
My only beef to date is that I have yet to receive my damn W2 from them…have everything else I need, but cannot file my taxes until I get it. :mad: Not technically late yet, but…:smack:
And yeah, I ran into one nut-job out in the field…(to be fair, out of thousands I encountered).
Drunk, self-professed Viet-Nam vet, started out ok and then proceeded to rant and rage about Obama and liberals and abortion etc…as he followed me down his long drive (which I had to go up to confirm the lack of other living areas behind the house) raging all the while and finally screaming at me, “I bet you VOTED for that (guy), huh? I bet you did! I bet you LIKE killing babies, huh?” sigh.
I just walked really fast and marked him down as a potentially dangerous contact.
There is some scary, crazy stupid out there.
But overall, most I encountered were fine. Even the obvious census haters just grumbled about the gov’nent intrution and let me get on with my job (which was simply to verify and GPS addresses so the census can be mailed out.
I just got the call (and hired) today as an enumerator. Training is Feb 23-26th.
I am WAY too far from an office for those jobs.
I am a little worried about the backwoods anti-society types we have up here, as well as the fact that this area has a large number of marijuana growers. But, at least I can be sure of a little excitement to go with the extra money this spring!
We found out today that they can’t call this “the largest peacetime effort” because we’re in a war. So they’re calling it the “largest undertaking”, which means you’d be called an Undertaker, I guess. In all, when the enumerating effort kicks off, there will be over 1,000,000 employees engaged in this, largely paid for by stimulus dollars.
InterestedObserver: I heard the supervisor talking today about a bunch of the W-2s being issued with incorrect information because of a computer problem. They are probably scrambling to get them all corrected.
The Las Vegas paper was reporting that someone in the state government did some calculation and figured that each person counted is worth $735 in federal funds.
They used custom made HTC handheld devices that had WiFi, Cellular, and an RJ11 phone jack for connecting to the home servers. No word yet if they are going to use those for the main census as they used paper forms this last round to decide if the handhelds were worth the trouble.
In 2000, I was disappointed with the options to check off for Homo Whitey. Blacks and Latino’s get a couple of choices, checking Caucasian is a bit bland.
So, I created my own ethnicity, one that had to be non-existant in the Wonder Bread World in which I live.
I also did this as a micro-protest over races. There is only one race and that is the Human Race. Everything else is just a difference in how we celebrate holidays and eat food.
After careful thought and deliberation, I made myself: Hasidic Jew-Fiji Islander. Which makes me .1 of the population here. (Something that has been brought up in convo with locals as to “Pacific Islander …living in Michigan?” )
I’ve decided that this decade, I need a new race and cannot figure out if Vulcan-Jedi would be too dorkwad or Race-Religionist or maybe I could put down Gryffindor.
However much it works out to, it’s not a small amount. It’s also the counterargument to the “don’t count illegals!11!!!” people; yes, you want them counted so your community gets the money for the services they use. Otherwise, well, you get to wait in line because the money just isn’t there.
I don’t think they’re using the handhelds for the non-response operation, but I could be wrong. I’m not part of that, so I may be speaking out of turn.
We were told the amount works out to about $1400/year per person. For a city of 250,000, that works out to $3,500,000,000 dollars over ten years. That’s a lot of simoleans.
(Something that has been brought up in convo with locals as to “Pacific Islander …living in Michigan?” )