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First, census workers were ‘hired’ as contractor workers, the amount of the contract is an 8 week maximum. Also, each contract is for a specific job. So the guy who said he was ‘hired’ for a position and fired. Then ‘rehired’ for another is absolutely true in a technical sense. Especially if time in between each job would be longer than 8 weeks. Each position (codes represent each position-I had to turn in two pay forms. one for eunumerator work, one for crew leader ass. work with a seperate code on the form) requires a new contract. Wasteful, probably. But we are talking government. I have never worked for the government before, it’s just as much bullcrap redtape as I imagined.

Second, the handheld computers would have been FABULOUS but apparently they were a big damn waste of money and whoever authorized and contracted them out should be fired. Millions wasted on a piece of crap that never got used.

Yes, I had MANY people tell me they mailed in their forms. However this is a matter of idiots laying out the program. The date on the form said APRIL 1, 2010. However the address binders that were assigned to the eumerators were printed just a week later! How on earth would they have time to process all of them? They couldn’t and it was a big damn waste of money to go out and recheck places that had forms turned in, but unaccounted for. You would think as much money as they soaked into advertising they would have let it do it’s job. But as I said, stupid government.

So that’s all I have. I will say I was never ‘promised’ 8 weeks of work and actually only had four weeks worth. I was told my contract would be 8 weeks maximum and if they needed me for longer, I would sign a new contract.

Lastly, I do not know what 1raider has against me for dispelling myths that people have stated or explaining what we were trained to do. I was merely stating my experience and that all census takers were not ACORN members out to break into people’s homes as some were hysterically fearing. But whatever, I can only say what happened in my district.

autumn,
I second your effort to add sanity to these census strings that portray us as rude, crude malevolent stalkers. I joined to satisfy myself that it wasn’t a biased ACORN operation. In my area and within my exposure, the team leaders and enumerators are doing the best they can within the rules and given the minimum wage support we get from the regional office.
People make the mistake of thinking the census is personal. In fact we are just tasked with estabilishing whether an address is a legit housing unit and if so, how many people reside there. That’s the constitution. I question the purpose and intelligence behind the remaining questions but really, they are pretty benign. And people can REFuse to answer any question at that.
Our team has had one dog bite requiring rabies treatment and one case where a man came to the door with a shotgun (oddly the enumerator still got form completed anyway). Had several drunks answering doors mid-day and one of our ladies tolerated some sexual harrassment. The only enumerators we’ve lost were due to lack of activity(not going out at all), poor production(too few results relative to hours charged and/or miles driven), one enumerator with a drinking problem, and one where the enumerator was making up info. Team leaders took care of these in a competent fashion.
Like you, I can only speak for my territory/teams, and I also conclude that the goverment is much less organized/efficient than a normal business would be. But thus far, all seems on the up-and-up.