U.S. Census

[Sarah]

Does anyone here know if there's any alternative to being interviewed in person in one's house by a census taker?  Me, I've got no problems with this time-honored method, but someone I know is a little concerned about giving personal information to her street's designated census taker:  the live-in girlfriend of a local junkie.

[Big Plastic Head]

I never remember being interviewed for a census. It was always just a form that you fill out and send back.

[JustSheaNo]

Does anyone here know if there's any alternative to being interviewed in person in one's house by a census taker?  Me, I've got no problems with this time-honored method, but someone I know is a little concerned about giving personal information to her street's designated census taker:  the live-in girlfriend of a local junkie.

Send general inquiries/comments to Ask Census or call 1-800-923-8282 or 301-763-INFO(4636).

[Bryan]

I worked for the Canadian census one year, and it was the weirdest job I ever had. In Canada, they only have door-to-door interviewers (as opposed to forms that one mails back) in regions where there is a very low voluntary return rate, which generally means low-income neighborhoods.

I'd expect that you could probably insist on doing the form yourself, rather than conducting an interview, but I don't know for sure. The agency responsible for the census would probably take concerns about their employees seriously, but I guess you don't necessarily want to rat this person out, even if you don't want them in your house.

[buffcoat]

I worked for the Canadian census one year, and it was the weirdest job I ever had. In Canada, they only have door-to-door interviewers (as opposed to forms that one mails back) in regions where there is a very low voluntary return rate, which generally means low-income neighborhoods.

I'd expect that you could probably insist on doing the form yourself, rather than conducting an interview, but I don't know for sure. The agency responsible for the census would probably take concerns about their employees seriously, but I guess you don't necessarily want to rat this person out, even if you don't want them in your house.

I would tell your friend to rat her out, Lubec.  If, that is, you feel like your fellow citoyens' information is in danger.

[Sarah]

Bah, she doesn't care enough.  It just gives her the creeps to be providing personal info to this person; she doesn't really think anything bad will come of it.

I think it's pretty funny that the census taker is associated with such a disreputable character (and probably disreputable herself, since generally if one lives with a junkie one at least dabbles oneself; it's the only way one can put up with the ambient goings-on), all the more so since the last census taker is a junkie now, too.  To think that ten years ago he was just a mildly substance-abusing illiterate boob (I had to read the questions for him).  How quickly they grow up.

[Bryan]

Demography exacts a terrible toll!

When I did this, it gave me a nice long look into a part of Toronto that I'd only previously seen glimpses of at dive bars. It's pretty amazing to go into dozens and dozens of strangers homes and ask them personal questions.

I had one old guy tell me, when I asked him his marital status that he'd "murdered his wife."
"So, uh, that'd be widowed, I guess?"

Doing this also led to a "you WERE right, but you've gone too far, and now you're wrong" moment for me, as I found myself chasing an aged superintendent up the stairs of his building, yelling at him...

There was one nice, young, fresh-faced suburban boy working with us - he was kind of like a gentler version of Steve Zahn. But this job aged him about ten years. By the end of the census, he was the most grizzled employee, going to the rooming houses and bribing the inhabitants with cigarettes in order to get them to answer his questions. As far as I know, he didn't wind up on heroin, though. (I hope!)

[iAmBaronVonTito]

i wish i'd known that those were the criteria for being a census taker.  i know some people who need jobs (they can provide their own stupidity and substances).