In a seasonal business such as ours, summertime is the bread and butter months. I didn’t mind figuring the information out in the dead of winter, but last summer was the last straw. I failed to comply for three months, and finally a soft-spoken Elizabeth called when I was in the office. I explained I didn’t have time for this, to which she told me to give her an estimate.
An estimate? She didn't want me to really count?
I complied, but only because she was nice.
All winter, I was plagued by a nagging feeling. I didn’t know what these statistics were being used for. I searched online, and nothing. Nowhere on the worksheet did it say where the information was going. It also didn’t mention a penalty for noncompliance. Besides, didn’t the government already know how many employees we had and which ones were women? We file quarterly tax reports. It’s pretty obvious from them who is working and when.
So this year with another hectic summer coming up, I decided to pre-empt the Department of Labor by resigning from my head counting duties. (I might relent if they come up with the report it’s being used for. I love reading, even upcoming Congressional bills and tax manuals.)
Perhaps I'd be more likely to share the information with my government if I knew what they were going to do with it. If its sole purpose is to give Elizabeth a job, they can find someone else to harass. If I'm assured a spot in heaven along with my mother, I might reconsider. But if they're going to use the information for evil, not good, I'm not sure I should share.
I long for the days when the government didn’t want to know anything about me.
Article comments
1 - Clavos
I too, worked for the Census Bureau, Joanne. In '99 and 2000, I was an Enumerator and Crew Chief, and then an Instructor, training new Enumerators.
Like you, I learned a lot about the importance of the Census, and I find the Administration's involvement of the advocacy group ACORN in the 2010 Census troubling, to say the least
2 - Dan(Miller)
Joanne, I have two unrelated comments, beyond that I enjoyed the article.
1. The story is told of an Army company commander who got frustrated with the many silly reports he was required to submit to higher headquarters each day. Therefore, he decided to make up his own, an enumeration of the flies captured each day on the fly paper rolls in his company mess hall. Soon, HQ began demanding that all other company commanders submit those obviously required reports. Why not make up and complete an official looking form on something really dumb -- toilet paper consumption in the men's, women's and bi-sex restrooms for example, and submit it -- every week for a month or two? It would be fun, and might do some good.
2. The fact that the Government has lots of information on us all is not a valid reason for it to demand more. The possibility that one chocolate bar won't harm us is no reason to consume hundreds.
Dan(Miller)
3 - sugi
This article's title doesn't match the body. How can a piece titled "On Privacy: If Big Brother is God, It’s Time to Find a New Religion" contain the sentence “If Uncle Sam wanted to horn in on my personal conversations, who am I to object?” Could the author not see the glaring irony? After the first page, the topic is totally lost.
The payroll story was particularly mindless. If the author is a small business owner, couldn’t she just go find a payroll sheet and count the employees? Is that really going to take that much time?
All in all, even though there were 3 pages, there was little content and no good ideas. It was a collage of recollections, random bitchings over private/public sector interface, and mistrust of the government most likely fueled by conservative “news.”
See, there are things wrong with the government worth discussing, the census is worth discussing and this article does nothing to engage those, or any meaningful conversations.
“I worked for the census” - who gives a shit.
“I understand how important it is” â€" yea, like how?
Epic fail.
4 - Joanne Huspek
Thank you Sugi, whoever you are. I'm not a journalist (of course, no one else is either), I'm a blogger, hence my presence in BLOG Critics.
The world is full of glaring ironies, dude. As a blogger, I point them out, it's all I can do. And if you would like to volunteer your time to counting pages and pages of employees, may I thank you in advance? Me, I've got more important things to do.
5 - Ruvy
Seems like I also worked for the Department oc Commerce counting heads in 1990. But ore interestingly, I got a visit one day in Ma'ale Levona from a nice fellow with a laptom computer who was from CBS - not not the Tisch network of shame and infotainment, the Central Bureau of Statistics for the State of Israel. On ands on he went with the same boring questions about each of us, questions that I had to dance around some, as my income is rather low, but the Income Tax people here think everybody is out to cheat them.
It was a long form on a laptop. Who knows when some bureaucrat will use the information to suddenly harass us?