WESTSIDE LOS ANGELES--I ended up lasting only three weeks as an enumerator (formal job name for census taker). The problem wasn't the enumeratees, it was the field office I worked for, and the head office they worked for, and whoever they worked for. These were all great people trying to do an impossible job under a shrinking deadline -- thanks to the Trump administration's sadistic and self-serving attempts to sabotage the whole operation – and that made it impossible to do mine.
What with the innumerable calls, texts, and emails to and from tech support and my supervisor (who was replaced out of blue with another supervisor, who then had to reinstate me to her team after I was accidentally kicked off it, which cost me a key day of work, which disqualified me from the bonus program I'd signed up for . . . well, you get the idea), I started to feel I was spending nearly as much time seeking permission to work as I was working.
My last day was a stifling Friday, on which I was sent to a record number of door-slammers and "no such address" addresses -- at one point, twenty straight. I felt futile and exhausted.
Pedaling home, I approached what was the final stop of my short career: a drab stucco apartment building surrounded by a don't-even-think-about-it wrought-iron fence. With ornamental spikes. The unit where I was to interview was visible from the gate. The intercom buttons were useless, their wires having been cut. No neighbors or possible proxies in sight. There was no place to discreetly tuck a Notice Of Visit (NOV) form. But dammit, spikes or no spikes, I wasn't about to strike out on my last at bat.
I locked my bike to a street sign, checked for spies, and swarmed up and over the fence like Liam Neeson in Taken 3. A sprint to the front door – knock knock, nobody home – fill out the form, tuck it under the door, over the fence, back on the bike.
A block away I braked when I spotted a confused-looking kid in his 20's, staring blankly at his phone in front of an empty, weed-filled lot. The telltale kit bag of a fellow enumerator slumped over his shoulder. I showed him my soon retired badge with a smile.
"How long you been on the job?"
"First day."
"How's it going?"
"Not good."
He seemed like a nice guy. We sat on the curb and for 10 minutes and I dumped on him every trick I'd learned in the past 20 days. I didn't need them anymore.
Then I rode home and mixed a martini.
—MM
--MM