Back in 1980 when I was 16 years old, I was hired to be an enumerator for the U.S. Census. I reported to the home of the area supervisor which also served as the field office I guess. I remember it was just an apartment in the same lower middle class area of Woonsocket, RI that I lived. My supervisor was a middle aged single guy who smelled of booze and was quite disheveled looking.
So my first day on the job was a dude with a hangover, five-o'clock shadow, wrinkled t-shirt and cutoff jeans meeting up in his run-down apartment with a fresh-faced 16-year-old boy. Meh, nothing to be worried about back then. Today, I would guess this would look a little funky.
I did my Oath which was all formal said with raised right hand and all (as I'm smirking a bit 'cause it's just the two of us, who's gonna know if he did it formally like this or not?), got my plastic satchel, a starter pack of short and long forms, my red, white and blue paper "badge" and I was on my way. Thankfully, my hometown was laid out quite compactly since I was, of course, on foot the whole time. Man, I do remember getting quite the tan and leg workout that summer.
Back then the pay was determined by the completed form, piecemeal. The more forms you completed, the more you made. And, though not 100% on this, I think it was something like $12 for the short form and $16 for the long. I did as many as my supervisor could give me. I'd racked up well over two grand over the course of that job which, as census taker jobs are, was just for the season, so maybe about six weeks to two months. Though this was 40 years ago and like my 3rd or 4th job ever, I made more factored on an hourly wage basis than any of the other jobs I've had to this day.
Ten years later, I had found myself census taking again, this time in my new home of East Providence, RI. I was working full-time at Amego but these were during the years that working only one job just wasn't enough so I worked the census around it. I don't remember nearly as much about this job but I do know I had my shitty Ford Focus to get around so it was a lot less walking, but it seemed it was harder to get forms completed due to a lot of games. People never seemed to be in and when the residence did have someone there, they were never the head of household so I was told to come back often. I think, unlike Woonsocket where the situation seemed to be either ignorance or neglect as to why they didn't fill out the form on their own, people in EP were more likely to have language barrier and/or immigration status issues so I was being given the runaround a lot.
Now in 1990, the pay had changed to hourly, but, you had a quota to meet. And with these freakin' shenanigans people were playing, it was getting hard to meet. Having only about 20 or so hours a week to devote, and wanting to make my quota, I basically learned to, er, help the elusive ones out by filling the form out for them. Wasn't I helpful?
All corruption aside, I think I eventually left the job before the end of the season probably because, I think, I got promoted at Amego to RPS which was 9-5ish weekdays and more pay so...
In 2000 and 2010, I was employed in full-time, normal workweek jobs so I didn't seek to do census work. But, here we are in 2020 and I definitely have the time.
As of yesterday, I got hired for this year's census and I should be receiving the initial paperwork and training assignment sometime this week. Then I'll be off in my little poorly air-conditioned Spark in the blazing Florida heat, pulling up to all-manner of homes flashing my little government badge. From the heroin-running, gang-ruled black neighborhoods of Avon Park, to the non-English-speaking undocumented orange grove laborers of East Sebring to the isolated dirt road, off-grid homesteads of the redneck "Stand Your Ground" types out in the gator-infested swamps towards the Everglades.
And in the digital age, I may find it a bit more difficult to graciously complete the forms for the folks without even meeting up with them since I would expect fact-checking to be an easier to accomplish task.
Oh brother, what have I gotten myself into?