Cutting Down Trees

So what are you doing this weekend. Cutting down trees. It's Paulo's favorite thing to do.

He even helps others cut down trees and make firewood for the winter. I'm not sure we'll have enough. He made the NY Post. Thanks Tina.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/realestate/residential/tool_time_QxkWQ1JPkXX1iFbrUuk2uM

Census again

I've been working as a streetwalker for a few weeks now. It's fun and enjoy meeting people. However, the requests we are getting from headquarters leads me to believe they are all a bunch of people who have no understanding of what technology can do.

First a had an official census map that did not resemble the area. So I redid it with g map of the area. Second we are being asked to duplicate and triplicate work because they never organized properly and they never worked in a business environment. So they will now have to add more and more layers of ridiculousness.
If they just computerized properly in the first place we would have been finished. It's almost as if they want us to bill more hours than neccessary.

Too bad they can do undercover boss for the census.

I want a real census gig in 8 years so it will be managed well.

Where do I start?

Census 2010 - Streetwalker

I'm your friendly enumerator and loving it. I'm meeting people in my hood and like them. Off to work.

More Census Stuff

In case I want to do more in 10 years - here's the schedule.

Fall 2008
Recruitment began for local census jobs for early census operations
Spring 2009
Census employees went door-to-door to update address list nationwide
Fall 2009
Recruitment began for census takers needed for peak workload in 2010
March 2010
Census forms are mailed or delivered to households
April 2010
National Census Day—use this day as a point of reference for sending your completed forms back in the mail
April - July 2010
Census takers visit households that did not return a form by mail
December 2010
By law, the Census Bureau delivers population information to the President for apportionment
March 2011
By law, the Census Bureau completes delivery of redistricting data to states

Census as A Business Case

The US census business model is brilliant. But even more important it works. Over a year ago people took a test to qualify. The test was not difficult. However, it was time consuming. There was one manager question on the test (the question I got wrong). They call you a few days later with your score.
A year later they call the highest scorers with the correct answer to the manager question first to determine if he/she still want a trainer job - Crew Leader. For 2 weeks they go through Crew Leader Training. They then call the rest of the job pool for to serve as enumerators to for the $18/hour job for 4-8 weeks. The Crew Leaders work in pairs. Each one is responsible for an area. They train all the Enumerators together. It takes 4 days of training to cover everything from how to fill out your time sheet to what to say to people who refuse to answer the questions. At the end of the training the Crew Leaders select Crew Leader assistants and assign them enumerators to supervise. My supervisor is Susan. I would have picked her to be a Crew Leader assistant. It's funny that they didn't pick the detail-oriented enumerators - but the ones who are friendly and personable.
I'm amazed at is the quality of the people working to collect census data. Some have children in school and other PT jobs. Others are retired and need extra income. But in all cases they are pretty smart. They are the ones I would have been friends with in school.
The training can be done much more effectively and efficiently. And somehow this system works.
Local Census Office - Ass't Manager for field operations - Field operation supervisors - Crew Leader - Assistant Crew Leader - Enumerators.
It's 4 weeks from the crew leader call to knocking on doors across a district. Pretty amazing.

The only thing I'm wondering about is why if I live in Valley Cottage is my area of Valley Cottage not included in the Valley Cottage/Congers group. They pulled the entire West Hook mountain area and moved it to another area. We have the same zip as the rest of VC - so why aren't we included? And who are we included with? And why wasn't I selected to be an enumerator with that group?
I'm not sure I will ever get to the bottom of this. When my assignment is over I will find out from the LCO.

Other Facts
75% of Clarkstown residents filled out their census forms. So we don't have much work to do.
If you don't produce enough completed forms - you will be let go.

I love this business case model. It works! I want to do the e-learning on it in 10 years.