I signed up to do the census specifically to see how it was run from the inside. My concerns revolved around ACORN involvement and use of statistics to infer population patterns.
My 19yo son is also an enumerator thereby earning a better-than-average wage while he’s on break from college.
We had 4 full days of training on confidentiality, safety, specifics at to what qualifies as a housing unit etc.
We were and will be assigned to our local areas - this is SOP so just remember, the person you dis at the door is a neighbor.
We all know the constitutions requires a head count every 10 years. That’s what this is about. There are no extended questionairres related to the 10yr census. There are other studies out there that can be intrusive but you are under no obligation to participate.
We are not there to force responses - if you don’t want to answer any or all questions, we mark you as an REF and move on. If someone at the census wants to bug you from then on, it’s not our doing. We don’t invent the questions or the wording but we are obligated to read them to you as written. And yes, it seems silly to ask a person if they are male when you’re looking at them BUT them’s the rules we were given. And we try to laugh it off best as possible.
There are many houses out there that could have people in them that are not being counted - that’s what we’re paid to find out. Likewise, people either didn’t turn in forms they received or moved and missed their form or ????? - we are here to fill in the holes. We see plenty of screwups by the census bureau with respect to multiple mailings, bad maps, messed up census books but we try to work around these occasions to get the best count possible. I would much rather do that than trust some statistician in Obama’s crowd to “infer” the result of their choice.
So far I think the census folks have done a pretty good job in my area. They try to answer our questions and they try to schedule us efficiently and keep costs down. The classes I trained with were well represented by black/white/young/old/asian/male/female etc. I’ve seen no signs of bias, favoritism or fraud.
All of us MUST wear badges. On the back of the badge is the phone # for the local census board. Call them if you have a problem with the enumerator. There are undoubtedly some bad apples and I’d rather see them fired than tolerated. But give the rest of us a break OK?
It isn’t all that much fun to walk house-to-house in the sun dodging dogs. But most of us thought it important to “get it right”.
Is there any part of my post that says to you that I have treated these people any other way than politely?
You have a lot more faith in the DC mafia than I do- I'm sure that they are going to jigger the results to favor their agenda, no matter what care honest working folks like yourself take to get it right.