Another Census worker speaks
Looks like this will become a regular series. Yesterday, I published an e-mail from a Census worker outlining the waste and inefficiency at his government job. Another Census employee in Texas writes in to confirm those details and shares his own experience:
I wanted to confirm the email regarding the census. I also participated in the address canvassing last summer. I am a retired engineer and thought this would be good for some coffee money and exercise. We were trained for a week with full pay. Then our team started the job. I am in Texas and our city was estimated to take six weeks. After one week we were past the halfway point and then the problems began. First we were told to slow down. Next we began having a one hour “progress” meeting each day. We were told to take at least five minutes per house. I could have drawn the map by hand faster. The last tactic was to start layoffs.
I volunteered to be laid off. Some of the people working had been without work for some time and really needed the money.
I can only guess that some high level manager was not willing to finish sooner and compromise his high paying job.
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Wow. I’m glad that these people are stepping forward.
My son applied for a census job, and missed one question. He is disabled and was told that he would get preference as a dependent of a military vet, since these kids move around so much and it’s hard for them to build up a resume.
No call. My neighbor tells me that the jobs are being rewarded to the party faithful.
I see no hint of political party bias in the jobs my daughter’s were hired to do.
Lots of conservatives working with them.
Well, that’s not the buzz here, and people are starting to ask questions.
2010 Sins U.S.
As I stated in the other post, our situation was different. We were supposed to have 11 weeks of work & at the one month point they told us to hurry up & finish the job. We were all to be terminated the next week.
As someone else pointed out, there were people in the group who had been laid off from their jobs & really needed the money.
Waste and inefficiency at a government job – who would’ve thought? And the Dems wonder why we don’t want them
wreckingrunning our health care.and MSNBC, CNN and the other ALphabet Netwroks will start investigative reporting of the situation in….oh wait I forgot Obama is President, move along nothing to see here.
Why is anyone surprised by this? It’s standard government practice to make sure you spend your entire allocated budget, otherwise your budget for other similar tasks or the following year will be cut. I bet the budget babbledabble was working under was allocated for something else, which is the only reason their task was completed early.
Back in January I filled out the forms and took the test (I missed one question, it was a face palm when I realized I misread the question), but I have heard nothing but crickets. thankfully I finally found gainful employment at a real job and no longer have to hope to hear something from them. But I am of the wrong race, gender, and political orientation. In my testing session, I was the only white applicant in the room. I was also the first to finish the test.
You might as well been wearing a “Nuke the Gay Baby Whales” T-shirt. Same outcome.
“people are starting to ask questions.”
What people?
They’re slow-walking this process because they need to make sure that all these “jobs” show up in the next monthly employment figures. Wouldn’t do to get the thing done and over with too soon, because then Hope-a-Dope wouldn’t be able to take credit for the “turn-around.”
Another great example of why monster government is destroying our country and our lives.
GET READY! MAKE SURE YOU AND EVERYONE YOU KNOW IS REGISTERED TO VOTE AND READY TO GO FOR NOVEMBER.
If they do manage to stumble on the story and let some of it slip out you can bet the disgruntled workers will be painted as anti-government racists with an ax to grind.
I can attest to that.
A family member (even more conservative than I) took the test, got one question wrong, expressed a preference for office work, and was hired less than a month later. Reports are that a fair number of co-workers lean more conservative than one would think for this state.
Not sure what it’s like in other parts of the country though.
Classic government slackers. The only thing that gets their blood up is to threaten to limit their sweetheart gravy train. Been like that since Roosevelt. Even supposed “conservatives” working in government will go zombie when you touch the gravy nerve.
Character is indeed a rare thing. True sacrificial patriotism even rarer.
Or they will find a six degrees of sepreration way to tie it to the Tea Party.
Can’t say that you’re wrong, but likewise am not prepared to state that such bias is across the board.
Case in point, the family member I cited above is male, white, and a registered Republican (and this is Massachusetts).
My father, another retired engineer, applied for a census job in San Diego. He brought home the exam and showed it to me while I was visiting. I took it just for giggles. Just like him, I finished the whole thing in 10 minutes 100% correct…
He said that in his class, after the 30 minutes were up, he was the only one who had finished. Fully half of the remainder complained that they were not yet HALF finished.
The next weekend they called to inform him he would NOT be hired because he wasn’t fluent in Spanish.
I get the feeling that it may not be just some isolated managers who want to keep their job… but that the rules are a deck stacked by the highest levels at the bureau to make this process inefficient… so that a certain administration can pad its employment numbers on wreckovery.gov
One other note: while there is no doubt that such encouragement for inefficiency does exist in some census operations, it is not always the case. My family member was part of a group in the early stages of the census that was cited for the efficiency of their operation – they finished well ahead of the timetable that had been set for them.
Which meant that he was laid off for a time during the summer months; but because they appreciated his work ethic (and technical skills) they called him back when things began to gear up again this past fall.
But his story, like that of the two census workers our hostess has quoted, are only snapshots of the bigger picture. Having had other family members who have worked in the public sector, I am painfully aware of the inefficiencies that are too often built into the system.
That shouldn’t mean that all workers in the public sector (census included) should be labeled (or libeled) as slackers.
That’s my two-bits, for what it’s worth.
The Federal government needs a wrecking ball taken to it. It has to be defunded wholesale. Eliminate entire departments like Education, HHS etc, and fire all the deadwood. Get it under 12 – 15% of GDP and then watch it like a hawk with oversight from an independent board assembled by the governors of every state. If it takes a Contitutional amendment then do it.
We need Ronald from the movie Backdraft.
I too worked as a QC enumerator last summer. We were told that we had 6 -8 wks. After about 3 wks there were threatened firings. I volunteered to quit to help an unemployed lady. They didn’t want that. After about 3 weeks were were also told to hurry up and get done. It was crazy. It was like they knew they would not be using what we had done. I put a lot of miles on my car running and verifying addresses.
We need Ronald from Death Valley Days.
regarding js – I’ve heard a LOT of people asking questions. Important questions. Serious questions. Questions that matter to us, and everyone.
By all means, keep asking the questions, because you’re right; they are important – to all of us.
My own objection is to those who use the broad brush to paint anyone connected with the census as corrupt or a slacker.
I thought the broad brush was the liberal’s tool. We’re [supposed to be] better than that.
No wonder the CB is always over budget. When temp employees are told to stretch out the job thereby reducing productivity, it means that the CB’s total employees should be slashed. All the intrusive census run surveys need to stop, reduce the decennial census to 1 question and use the money saved to pay back the Chinese. The only thing the gov does well is to bully people.
What is so very sad is that Ronald could still do a better job running this government from where he is than the guy who currently occupies the Oval Office.
Sounds like a particular economic model is in play. “From each according to his ability. To each according to his need.”
Sunlight! Yippee!
If these census emails are the tip of an iceberg, I hope this starts a whole wave of people narcing on government waste.
These census folks and or other whistle blowers will need strong media backing like Michelle and Breitbart to counter any defamation.
And yet we get Ronald McDonald…
We need Stallone from ‘Rambo’
(the most recent one…)
for the lionhearted amongst you…
You see, we didn’t even need ACORN for this Census Bureau gig to get corrupted. Whenever you work for the government, there’s one worker for every six or seven employees. I used to watch cobblestone layers in Germany repair streets. One works, three observe and two go for beer. Rotate.
To repeat a point I made yesterday, the “organizers” have to be union bosses only interested in stealing more of our money. This entire administration is just flat out disgusting.
I agree Stranger. And if you think about it, that is the rub. Plenty of good, hard working and ethical people to go around, and if you pared it down and managed it properly, small government could accomplish at least as much good as it does today with a fraction of the resources.
Do these email confession folks know the number for fraud, waste and abuse? It’s posted everywhere, but just in case
Telephone: 1-800-269-0271
Otherwise, you are part of the problem.
And I’m curious after reading these comments, do you all feel the same about Defense Department workers? I’m curious if this is just about agencies you don’t like or all of them.
Thanks.
Here’s my dilemma. I received and filled out a census form last week. Today I received another form to fill out. They both have the same pre-printed address. Do I fill it out or deep six it?
I have worked around several government agencies. No job that could have been completed in 6 weeks was ever completed in less than twice that time UNLESS there were political factors, such as catching the attention of a political appointee and thus becoming a possible embarrassment to the agency or administration.
Government does nothing well. At least 85% of what Government does is unnecessary and unconstitutional. Almost everything the Federal Government does could be done better at the state and local level.
This is why the founding fathers LIMITED the federal government.
I have to say where my daughters are working it is a sampling fairly of our area. I’ve heard nothing from them, other than the typical job crap, that is an indication of any sex, gender, race or political orientation bias.
Does not mean it isn’t happening. Just no sign of it here.
Surey, I gave census workers in my area good reasons to pay me a visit before too long. Only the basics were answered…number of occupants, gender, age and AMERICAN.
The part that got me about the census form was the question “How many people lived (past tense) at the address…on April 1st, 2010?”, and was sent a month prior to this date.
I liked the commercials about “reply so we can get more busses”!!
This is not about busses or roads, it is about correct representation so we can remain a free country, not a fascist state!
I noticed those stupid ads too. Not one single point raised in any of the ads has anything to do with the census. More buses? More teachers? Are they telling me that a county or town doesn’t know how many kids live there until the Census Bureau tells them? Nonsense!
When the census worker came to my house two weeks ago, he said he needed to give me a form since my house was not on the map of houses in our county. When I asked him when they made the map, he said last spring. I told him I had been living here for nearly four years and it was hard to miss my two-story house which is only about 100 yards from the road. Couldn’t they have just mailed me the form and saved some money on time and mileage they are paying?
What gets me are the stupid census ads on tv, one of which implied that the census was a way of giving power to the people. Yeah right, and the census is now part of the white house, too.
The last thing this administration and congress wants is power to the people.
Without further commentary I offer this link:
Returning the Census is Our Constitutional Duty
Posted by Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC)
I have NEVER in 40 years received a census to fill out, nor has anyone knocked on my door. Do they “pick and choose” who to contact?