Not a life multi-tasker, yet another rant about the census

I find myself once again, on this cool June evening, availing myself of the impassable yet sympathetic ear of my blog and ranting about the Census. Yes, yes. We have already established that I am not a life multi-tasker and am therefore struggling to think about things other than this fiddlesome job. But tonight my beef is too legit to quit (I just awarded myself 5 points for the early 90's music reference). The Census is refusing to pay for one of my workers prepaid calling cards and I think that is negligent and overly bureaucratic at best and downright CLASSIST in most lights.

So the census claims you do not need a phone for this job yet you are required to leave your number on the notice of visits you leave at every house. In theory, you could leave the main offices number, yet with no central database, the ability to follow up on phone calls made to the office is extremely remote. More than that, it is basically a grassroots campaign done in every district by people with little to no field organizing experience. Furthermore, it is a dangerous job in many ways and to not carry a phone would be foolhardy. Anyway, you need a phone.

Most of the people the census is employing do the job because they need the money. Prior to this job, it's not like they had caches of petty cash lying around to pay a cell phone bill every month. When it became apparent that they needed a cell phone, they bought the only plan that made sense: one with no activation fee with a pay as you go option because hey, they don't know when this job is going to end. During orientation, you sign a telephone reimbursement form that says you can be reimbursed for census related expenses, provided that you have an itemized list of your calls. This is where the problem comes in.

You can't get a formal itemized list of calls with pre-paid or pay as you go phones. And the census has decided not to accept handwritten ones.

This lady isn't even technically under my direct supervision. However, I feel pretty strongly that she gets her $40 back- not simply because she needs the money, which she does, but because it is SO unacceptable to allow bureaucracy to crowd out compassion and human sense in this manner!

I understand the census's concern. They don't want to be paying for personal calls but we have tried EVERYTHING we can think of to get this list and our request has been rejected three times! I spent an hour yesterday chatting with _Christoph B from T Mobile just to document our attempts and still nada! Even _Christoph B was sympathetic! My boss is great and doing what he can, it's just one of those things I guess.

I once visited an anarchist squatters club in Germany. It was really fun. I'm thinking now that they are former census employees.

End rant.