Count me out

If all of the US Census workers are like the one that came to interview us on Thursday night....well, then, I think they should all just sit down and stop now, because AIN'T NO GOOD GONNA COME OF THIS.

We got selected for the special part of the Census, the part where besides just counting you and getting your ethnicity you get asked all sorts of socio-economic questions about the prior year. The point is that they follow-up with you a year or two later to watch how the picture evolves. We represented 2,500 households. So I'll just say now, please discount 1 out of every 2,500 people when the data actually comes out because ours will be all wrong.

First, the guy was hardly computer literate, and the whole thing is done by computers. He asks, we answer, he enters it on the computer, next questions please. Except he was having a really hard time entering it on the computer. There was one point where we sat in silence for over twenty minutes because he couldn't figure out how to get it to go to the next questions. That's a really good sign, no?

Then there was the part where he kept entering the wrong information. Like the part where he entered Edgar's mother's name as 'Diaz.' Let's think, Census guy. Have you ever met any woman by the name of 'Diaz'? Or any man, for that matter. We had clearly told him that her name was Elena, then he clearly spelled out her last name, of which 'Diaz' is only a part of it. But then he kept asking questions like "Did Diaz work for pay in 2009?" and "Where was Diaz born?" And it wasn't like he was just calling her by her last name (because just Diaz isn't her last name) because he correctly called Edgar's dad Jose the entire time with all of his questions about him.

Then there was the part where he couldn't keep our assets separate. The interview questions aren't structured well, or at least he wasn't very good at asking them, but he would ask a question that would just pertain to Edgar but look at us like he expected the answer to be for both of us. The questions were asking about our assets and our debts, and when he was asking about our cars, to Edgar, I clearly told the guy "The cars are not in his name. Do you still want the information? Because they're not his so they're not his assets." He was all, oh, only the stuff in his name, and so we were like no cars for Edgar, but then because we had already mentioned the cars he wanted it then. And we were all "These aren't Edgar's." And then he took it anyways. And the same when it got to my part of the interview. Because I was like "You already counted the cars for him. It's not a joint asset, they're individual." So he took them again. So according to the US Census we have four cars. Same with our savings account (my name only). Same with our credit card debts (our cards are individual). So basically, EVERYTHING WAS WRONG.

The packet of information he gave us included a copy of a letter from Congress to the President in 2007 urging him to not cut funding for this part of the Census because it's vital for them to get a good understanding of the economic picture in the country. But I have to say, if all of the Census workers were like this guy, and by 'like this guy' I mean that they're all idiots, then I might have to retroactively agree with Bush on this one, because IT'S A BIG FUCKING WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY.