Blue Hill Ave Fun Times!!

I apologize for neglecting my blog for over a week! In addition to having some extra-curricular distractions last week, I had absolutely no desire to go out to enumerate. I felt somewhat depressed at the thought of knocking on doors so I just completely blew it off. Knowing that I was waaay below where I needed to be in terms of hours and completed work, I jumped at the chance to work over the weekend. Our Crew Leader, Ron, had the idea that we go out as a group with a few binders that hadn't been touched yet, and bang out a bunch of EQs. Cool! I'm in! We met at Forest Hills at 10:45am on Saturday to take the bus over to... Blue Hill Avenue. If you're not familiar with that part of Boston... well, you're probably better off. It has the reputation of being one of the worst areas of Boston. We were counting right where Mattapan and Roxbury meet. As soon as we got off the bus at Blue Hill Ave and Morton Street, we all noticed how much trash there was all over the place. We walked past a group of teenage girls on the sidewalk, and one of them had just bought some make-up- she was opening up the packaging and was casually letting the plastic and cardboard fall to the ground. I was tempted to stop and say something, but I had the good sense to just keep walking.

It was a beautiful day, and we really lucked out there. We split up a bunch of the assignments, and I set off with Sarah- a high school senior who had gone through training with me. So, I don't know if I would call it a revelation, but as bad as this neighborhood was, we still found really nice people who were welcoming and helpful- after the initial "WHO DAT?" when we'd knock on the door. I found that people there were much more defensive when they'd first come to the door- often demanding an introduction before they would open the door. Only about three quarters of the occupants who opened their doors knew what the census was, so I got really good really fast at the super short description of what the census is and why it's important. "We need to count all of the people in the country so we know how many schools we need and other things like that." That worked really well.

The other amazing thing about this neighborhood was how crammed in people were. We'd visit an apartment building with units that I would think could hold 4-6 people comfortably, but we'd consistently find out that there are 8 or 10 or even 14 people living in one apartment! There would always be lots of cousins, and cousins' kids and cousins' girlfriends. Frequently, the respondents wouldn't know the first and last names of everyone that was living there!

We went into one apartment building in which we found dried blood and cigarette ash all over the stairwell. Surprisingly, that particular apartment building housed some of the nicest people we met all day. I was invited into a couple of apartments (by women), and I felt completely safe to do so. I met a lot of kids that day, too, and I gave them all animal stickers.

We decided to go back to the same neighborhood on Sunday- again the weather was really nice, but as I was leaving the house Sunday afternoon, I really really didn't want to go back. I forced myself to because I knew that I would feel awful if I didn't get up and go. There was no excuse for me not to. We waited until the afternoon on Sunday because we knew lots of people would be out at church in the morning, but man did we pick the wrong time to go over there... it was Haitian-American Day, and there was a big parade down Blue Hill Avenue! It was really cool to see everyone out, waving flags, playing loud music, etc, but it made our job impossible because most people were out of the house. We only worked for about 90 minutes before giving up to watch the parade.

I managed to get out again tonight... in the rain. I'm trying to get my last few down so I can grab another set of assignments from Ron- hopefully I can grab those by Thursday or Friday of this week. Then, all I have to do is get those finished and that should be it for the census gig.

Dookie and Cox?

Well, that was definitely the most entertaining daily meeting I've been to yet!

I don't know if I've described our daily meetings yet, but we meet our crew leader, Ron, daily in a park in our neighborhood to turn in timesheets and completed EQs. It's a really nice spot, and I love my commute because I get to cut through the wooded section of the Forest Hills Cemetery to get there. Perfect! Well today, we were joined by another enumerator I hadn't met yet. He's got a block over off of Blue Hill Avenue.

When he pulled out his timesheets and completed EQs, I could tell instantly that they were all jacked up. Check marks instead of Xs, horrible lowercase handwriting (we're supposed to write in very specific uppercase lettering), and lots and lots of missing information. Ron handed off his pile of EQs to the crew leader assistant to check, and yes... there were more mistakes than correct entries. Boxes not checked, whole sections skipped, Male and Female options BOTH checked for EVERY member of one household... you name it, it was wrong.

Meanwhile, while his EQs were being reviewed, Ron was going over his timesheets. Again, everything about them was totally jacked. "So I see here that you worked 8 hours yesterday, and you're claiming 23 miles for mileage??" Reply, "Yeah, people don't want to answer their doors so I just circle around the block a whole lot." What? This guy was apparently just circling the block over and over again- and mind you- it's not a big block at all. From what I could tell, he was averaging .5 questionnaires per hour (we're supposed to average 1.2 or greater). When asked about entire sections being skipped, he said that he skipped them because the interview was taking so long! Really, everything about everything here was simply comical.

I kept glancing at Ron to see how he was reacting, but he was keeping as cool as a cucumber. I had a really hard time getting a read on him while he was having this conversation. As they came to the end of the conversation (which took almost an hour), Ron told him to leave his binder and all of his EQs with him until Sunday. Aha! You're finished, d-bag. After the guy left, the first thing that Ron said was, "W...T...F." We all started laughing at the absurdity we had just witnessed.

Ron will have to take this situation to his boss, and I hope he doesn't catch any shit for this. That guy had been running around for almost a week doing this bullshit so they could possibly come down on Ron for letting him run free like that for that long. Also, Ron hadn't conducted his observation on him, and he really should have within the first few days of field work. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed for him.

Just as I was getting ready to leave, Ron said, "It's as if he just made up all of the information he put on those forms!" As he said that, I glanced at one of them and pointed out, "Well, look at that... the last names of the people of this household are Dookie and Cox! What do you think?" ...and we all ROFLed".

Wicked good evening

I had a ton of luck enumerating tonight. It was a perfect evening, so I met a bunch of people outside of their homes doing yard work, etc. I'm finding people to be really friendly so that's nice. There used to be the sweetest elderly man on the street, and everyone on Tower Street knew who he was because he was so friendly, and he used to shuffle up and down the street soooooo slowly. He would always stop, though, and say hello or comment on the weather. I was worried about him because I hadn't seen him in an awfully long time. I interviewed one of his immediate neighbors tonight who informed me that his daughter had taken him away. Place an X in Vacant. Sad face.

More LCO Bull

Someone from the local office called this morning at 10:45am to ask me to come to the office before noon to fill out a new hire form that they said I never completed. However, as soon as I saw it, I remembered that not only had I filled one out the first day of training, I ALSO filled one out the evening of my original application testing! I asked the HR lady to check my file to MAKE SURE there was nothing else that was missing. It sounded like they wouldn't be able to pay me on the current payroll if I didn't sign that form by noon.

This was the second time they called me in to the office to fix something that I was not at fault for. Thank goodness I have an understanding and flexible boss! These two snafus took three hours of my time at the conservatory during the busiest time of the year. If I don't get paid or if they call me again for another reason, I will not be a happy camper.

First night out!

I apologize for leaving you hanging for a couple of days. It's super busy jury time at my regular job. I have barely had a chance to get to the bathroom let alone spend time blogging! After today or tomorrow, action at the conservatory is going to completely die down. Then, it's almost 4 months of complete nothingness!!

I decided not to work Sunday. The weather was really nice so I spent the day with friends. Unfortunately, not working Sunday means that I will have to really work hard to get my 18-20 hours in by Saturday. I pulled out my Tower Street assignments, and I hit the pavement last night! I'm finding that you really have to have a good system for juggling all of the materials. I spent a decent amount of time organizing myself before heading out. I grabbed a big subdivided file folder to help keep things separated.

I was pretty dismayed at the number of apartments that no one answered at. I left at lot of "NVs" (Notice of Visits) taped to doors. I finally got to conduct first my first REAL interview right at the end of the evening. Hooray! It was quite the pleasant evening, too. I met a couple of neighbors I hadn't met before, and I ran into all sorts of friends as I conducted my work.

I'm going to my first district meeting tonight in the park on Wachusett. Those meetings will be occurring daily going forward. Weather may be a factor tonight for work- there is a hefty line of thunderstorms coming in from Western Mass right now. Yikes! I had better not get those EQs wet!

It Is What It Is. *sigh*

Where to begin for today. Our training ended the same way it started: being yelled at by angry women. Before I explain that, let me back up to address another issue which defined our training. Basically, all of the information we received having to do with our actual field work was pretty straight forward. Follow the script, follow the process exactly, most answers to complex issues can be found in your manual, bring special circumstances to your crew leader. Fine. The BIG problems had to do with clerical admin issues- especially how to fill out our timesheets. Also, the plan for training (location, length, order of modules, etc) changed on a daily basis- if not hourly. That, I totally get. Our trainers actually did an excellent job thinking on their feet. For basically "winging it", they were awesome.

I GET that this is new territory for everyone. I GET that it's been 10 years since the last census. It's all good! I don't expect it to go totally smoothly, but for crying out loud... SOMEONE PLEASE TAKE CONTROL OF THE LOCAL OFFICE!!! It's a complete shit show over there, and I've had that impression from the get-go. How this effected all of us is this: every single day, we were given different instructions for how to fill out our timesheets. Every person gave a different set of instructions, and when we said that someone told us to do something else, they would usually reply, "Forget that... do it this way." Okay, we're flexible. We'll do it your way. The problem was that it kept happening! Even today a whole bunch of us (including me) received rejected timesheets back because we had followed the instructions given to us on that particular day, but someone in the mean time decided they wanted timesheets a different way! We were understandably frustrated by this process by today- especially when these people started to tell us that we could be written up for incorrectly filling out timesheets!! THEN they said that every FOS (Field Operation Supervisor) wanted the people under them to fill out timesheets their own way, and we should ask our crew leaders how we should do it within our own district! Are you kidding me? It seems to me that one simple thing could have solved this whole issue: whoever is the fancy pants operations supervisor for our local office, Boston South, should have given out a specific set of instructions to the people under them, and so on and so on until it we down on the bottom got the same message. It seems ludicrous to me that different enumerators within the same local area would fill out timesheets differently, because the same folks over at the LCO are entering in our pay.

AGAIN... if only I ruled the world.

I haven't even mentioned that these timesheets are not complex in any way shape or form. While not every person in that training class was the sharpest crayon in the box, if we had only been given one set of instructions on day one that didn't change, there would be no problems by now!!

Okay. Back to this afternoon. Now, I have to be careful about what I say on this particular topic because the person that this concerns literally threatened us. Yes. She threatened that if we reported her for what she told us, she would find out who we are and "find us". She would find us in the database and "hunt us down". Yes, these were her words. She said this after giving us some legally-questionable advice regarding how to log time on our timesheets... the details aren't too important. She basically stood up in front of all us, told us how to fraudulently fill out our timesheets and then threatened us if we tell on her. This was AFTER she spent 20 minutes of our time (on the clock) yelling at us like we were children, "instructing" us how to appropriately fill out our timesheets. I. Was. Livid. You should have been there to get the full effect. It was incredibly offensive- the way she spoke to us. She was trying to address a particular question, and instead of answering it in an effective way, she spent 20 minutes telling to make sure we include our middle initial in the middle initial box... make sure you spell out your whole name, crap like that! It was the LEAST PROFESSIONAL behavior I witnessed all week. I did the math: Assuming there were 60 people in the room, that we each earn $22.75/hour, and that this particular lecture took 20 minutes: this jerk face wasted $450.50 of YOUR tax money. All of this, again, was before she threatened us.

The other crappy part of this story is that the other guy leading this particular session today originally said that we would spend the time she hijacked going over some admin policy issues and the certification test we took. We didn't get to do any of that. Tempers really started to flare today while all of this was going on. One of the highlights was when crazy sweatpants lady raised her hand, and in front of everyone went on a HUGE tirade about this whole process. "I AM APPALLED AT OUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT" she started. She went off- it was great. "WHAT ABOUT ALL THE VIRGIN FORESTS??? IS THIS RECYCLED PAPER???" Totally the best part of the day.

Sigh. Arlene (one of the great training presenters) said it best, "The unofficial motto at the Census is It Is What It Is!" So true, Arlene. So true.

The rest of the day went much more smoothly. After the debacle that was our last day of training, our district crew went out to work the field in a group. We went to several houses on Tower Street, Weld Hill and Hyde Park Ave. I was the only one out of the four of us who did not have a chance to conduct an interview. I'm sure I will tomorrow, though. I have 33 assignments to work on so I plan to jump right in tomorrow. Again, I'm pretty psyched about our district. Our crew leader and crew leader assistant are cool, and I adore the three other enumerators I've met. I really couldn't be happier with the people I will interface with daily. In that, I really lucked out.

Okay... more to talk about later. I really don't mean to be so down on our local area office. I understand the challenges here. I am flexible, and I'm happy to go with the flow. I suppose it all makes for a good story, so that's what I'm trying to tell here. At the end of the day, it's just the census. No one is going to die (well... maybe... if they redraw congressional districts and then the congressmen then pass legislation... haha jk).

But seriously... whatever. It is what it is.

Almost there!

So we're almost there! There's very little left in terms of training modules for the NRFU training. I feel very confident with the whole process, and I'm ready to get out there! Tomorrow, we've got another module or two with the trainers and an open book test to take. The test is a big joke on many levels. Firstly, the test is in the back of our training workbooks, and we were directed to look at it ahead of time. Secondly, the questions are not hard at all. Thirdly, it can't possibly mean jack because we all basically have had an untimed, open book test of easy questions. Whatever.

Around 2pm tomorrow, we actually start knocking on doors! We met our crew leaders tonight. Our guy is Ron, and he lives right around the corner. I think we really lucked out with him. He seems to be capable, yet cool. He's exactly the kind of manager I would be. He's going to hold our daily meetings in the park up at the end of Weld Hill- that's pretty cool! I plan to cut through the cemetery to get there. :)

One of the coolest things about training is that on the first night, I chose a spot at a table, and out of 60 or so people, 2 guys came to sit right near me. We chatted a bit on Monday, and it turned out that we all live practically next to each other. I jokingly commented on Monday that all of the cool Forest Hills people just gravitate to each other. It must be true! Both of them have grown to be friends over the course of the week. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I was hoping to make a friend or two! Also, these two new friends and I ended up in the same district group so we have the same crew leader, and we'll see each other regularly.

Eventually, each enumerator is assigned their own binder which contains their NRFU assignments. Ron only had two binders when we met him today, so tomorrow we're going out in teams of two for our first "live" work. I was assigned one of the binders, and my new buddy James and I will go enumerate with that binder together. It contains many assignments in my immediate area: Tower Street, Woodlawn, Hyde Park Ave, etc. Our district area goes all the way east to Blue Hill Ave and all the way north to Seaver Street- it's a relatively huge area because it also contains the Forest Hills Cemetery and Franklin Park. I'm not really looking forward to enumerating in some of the neighborhoods in our district, but I probably won't have to much around Blue Hill Ave- there are other people on our team that live there.

I'm happy that the training is almost over- it was definitely a long week. I'm glad that I've made some friends, and I'm ready to get out in the field. I'll let you know how it goes!

NRFU? Oh no you di'nt! NERF-U!

First day of for-reals training today. I enjoyed it so much more than yesterday although other people didn't agree with me. The girl next to me kept sighing and yawning audibly throughout the evening. We covered the basics of what our materials will be and how to fill the EQ (Enumerator Questionnaire... they have a thing for acronyms) in the most simple situation. Our trainers were really nice, and they didn't yell at us like the ladies yesterday so that made the night more pleasurable.

So my official job is NRFU (pronounced Nerf-You) for Non Response Follow Up, and I started to get excited about the job once I got a good mental image of what I'll be doing... finding the locations, interviewing the occupants, etc.

They also told us today that they are still looking for more Crew Leader Assistants, and they will choose some from our group of 60 or so people. I hope they will consider me- especially because they originally called me to be a crew leader in the first place! When I mentioned that the girl sitting next to me, she said, "Whoa! You must have done REALLY good on the test!" Well yeah... I'm reasonably sure I got every question on the test right. I'm not being cocky! It was easy! Can you alphabetize? Yes! Can you read a map? Yes! Can you arrange dates chronologically? Hell yeah!

Day Three is tomorrow. I plan to sit in the front again, raise my hand and enjoy myself.

Wear shoes you can run in.

I just got home from my first night of training. It was a complete zoo. There were 80 people there! For some reason, they didn't anticipate that the evening training session would be so popular... someone actually said that. If you are looking for people who can work during the evenings and on weekends, it seems to me that the PRIMARY trainings should be nights and weekends, right? If only I ruled the world.

Today was the admin day, and we spent five hours filling out forms and being fingerprinted- although at 9pm, half of the 80 still hadn't been fingerprinted and had to stay. They were lucky in way- they got to stay on the clock (at $22.75/hour) while waiting around.

We received badges (no photos... we wrote our names on them) and black shoulder bags with our materials. We also were given a basic safety lecture, and I wonder if we'll receive a more extensive safety training later. The women talked about wearing seat belts, not putting your face right up to a dog's face, locking sensitive documents away, and oh yes... we were told to wear shoes we can run in. That was a highlight. It's good advice, though... if you're walking around the city in any case!

Tomorrow we start more regular training, and on Friday we'll meet our Crew Leaders (man, I wish I could have trained for that position). I wonder how much melt there will be as the week goes on.

Pre-training Update

I'm starting to feel like the Boston South Recruiting office isn't managed very well. When I was signed up for the night training a few weeks back, the girl said I would receive a confirmation phone call before the training. As of 2:30 today, I hadn't received that call so I called the recruitment office. When I said that I wanted to confirm the location, the woman said that I received a phone call from my crew leader this weekend... which I didn't. I was put on hold for several minutes, and when she came back, she didn't know what training I was in. I had to tell her I was in the night training that starts at 4pm today! She was abrupt and not very helpful. Sigh. I hope this wasn't a mistake. I don't really want to work for the organization if it is poorly managed. Wish me luck!

I'm the Enumerator

Census training starts on Monday. 4-9pm Monday-Friday and then all day on Saturday. It's quite extensive! I was hired as an "Enumerator", but let me explain a little about how I got here.

The local census office was conducting testing sessions at the school I work at, and when I heard about these sessions, I thought it might be a neat experience. Why not get involved with something that is so important for the country? Maybe I'll learn a thing or two about my community. The bonus is that is pays pretty well! I've got some big travel plans for the summer, and I could sure use the cash for the trip and gear. They require you to work at least 20 hours per week, so I will be forced to log lots of time. Many people have been intrigued about this particular escapade of mine, so I decided to blog about it!

To apply for the census job, you first have to take a 30 minute test which determines whether or not you can alphabetize, read a map, do simple math, etc. It was pretty easy- if you have half a brain. There was a brief introduction that spoke in very general terms about the available positions, but we didn't really receive many details. After the testing session, I didn't hear anything from the office for about month. I was first offered a crew leader position... management... sweet! Unfortunately, that position required me to attend a four day training during the week. I couldn't attend because I didn't want to take the time off from work- even though I could have. They put my application back in the pool, and I didn't hear from them again for a couple of weeks.

When they called again, they offered me the enumerator position for $22.75/hour (and I think that was the exact same hourly rate as the crew leader if I'm remembering right). Again, they asked if I could attend a four day training, and I said no. My heart sank a second time, but then she said there was an alternate training in the evenings from 4-9pm Monday-Friday and all day on Saturday. Sign me up!! I'll have to leave work early all week, but it'll be okay.

I'm looking forward to the training- I hope they make it bearable. Maybe I'll make some new friends. I'm sure I'll find out all sorts of information about what my job actually is and how to do it. We'll be fingerprinted on Monday. I guess that means I can't commit any crimes from here on out. Also, I'll officially be a federal employee! That's wicked hot.

So here we go. I'll update this blog as I go through training and start the actual work. Thanks for reading!