Census

Did you know that this is a census year? It's taken every 10 years and this is the year. AND I just 'applied' to be a census worker!! It's short term, 6-10 weeks. It could really work out for me b/c most of the work is in the late afternoon in to early evening, all 7 days of the week.
What happens is every house, whether lived in or not, is mailed a census. By law, you are required to fill it out. If you don't then workers, like myself, will contact you via phone OR come visit you if you don't turn it in.

Now let me tell you about the process I had to do today. My niece is also applying, so we drove together to the test sight. We had to take a 30 min timed test. When i heard that, and even as I type it, my anxiety kicked in big time!! And let me say, the test SUCKED! It was hard. BUT I passed! Not with flying colors, but I didn't care. I was happy with what I got. Well actually, I've been thinking about retaking it b/c that 'got to do better' attitude has kicked in.

Before we took the test, we had to be walked thru filling out the forms, having them check your ID's, etc. I got online and printed out the forms and we filled them out before we got there:) Over achiever I am:)

In this group of 14 was quite a diverse group of people. My niece and I being the youngest by at least 15-20 years. There was a lady who had this horrible, absolutely disgusting chunk of exposed flesh on the top of her head, there was a lady in her 70's with like orange/red hair (my niece said like I love Lucy, red), there was a dude next to me that had some felony's of some sort and then the topper was the old man-80 yrs old!? Probably encouraged by his wife or kids to go work for the census thinking it would be a good idea. (I'm thinking they probably did it whomever could have a break from him for 2 hours) When it came time for the worker to check ID's he says:
'You'll have to talk loud. If you mutter I'll never hear a word you say, I can't hear!!" This was said in a very gruff sort of way. Really, you can't hear and you are applying to go to peoples houses and talk to them....now that ought to be interesting.
It gets worse. When he shows her his Medicaid card, or something like that, she says 'I'm sorry sir but this is not a valid' he yells 'What??? I told you I can't hear!!!!!!!!!!!"
She repeats, he repeats and this continues till the lead trainer comes to assist. She explains that since 9-11 these measures NEED to be taken. Well he proceeds to tell her that he's been with the Gov't for more years then her and "they know who I am"
At this point niece and I are about rolling thinking yeah you will NEVER work out here. You can't hear, your bull headed, and your just an old grump.
Eventually he whips out something from his wallet and literally tosses it across the table to her and says 'HERE'.
They proceed from there.

Well then the tests starts. I've already told you, it sucked. I'll just leave it at that. They can 'grade' it right there. It reminded me of getting my drivers license accept that I didn't stand there while they circled the wrong answers in RED! I HATE that ink color. Seen way to much of it in my younger years. Screams failure to me.

Anyway, I passed and so did niece. But old man frumpy?? They took him outside to talk to him about his test. There is no way he could have passed. Niece and I struggled enough as is and some of the older people didn't even finish. I'm surprised he didn't stand up and say what kind of test is this anyway!?

Now we wait and job preferences are given to those who tested best and then goes down from there. No I don't think there's any window washer positions, although, mabye old man frumpy could do that!? There are other jobs that would be fun, like in office jobs, but i just can't work 40 hours/week, nor do I want to drive 38 miles to work in an office. Will have to complete 40 hours of training and while it's paid training, I'm sure it's no more then $10/hour and I'll have to pay a sitter and drive some where for it. But yeah, first they need to call me for an interview and will go from there.

Of which, the interview is done over the phone. That floors me. Really you can tell what a person is like by doing a phone interview? There are people out there I wouldn't let on to my driveway, let alone them to know where I live. They do back ground checks but that's not going to show up that some ones frumpy, old, rude, blah blah....

My other concern in visiting people's houses is what if the house is a complete dump. Smells of BO, old rotten food, pets, etc I wouldn't be able to do it. I wonder if i could ask them to step outside to complete the questionnaire. Those that know me personally know I don't do smells. Perfume, pets, BO, Lysol (thanks to the guys I used to work with getting Lysol happy), pigs, etc, etc.

SO, I guess, if you don't want people coming to your house, fill out the census!! I'll keep everyone posted and if you're interested in part time/temporary work check out www.census.org