Census Shenanigans!

Census Training has been all that I ever could hope for and more. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call sarcasm. Anyway, it has thus far been 16 hours of verbatim reading. And filling out 12 forms. And that's all. Government progress at its finest! There have already been some classic moments, but here are two to get us started:

Item #1-

This is the picture on one of my many, many, many handbooks:


Does that make ANY sense to you that these people are all apparently making a difference by being "counted" by each holding up a ZERO? (Or a giant floppy disk from 1989?) The irony of that image is killing me, smalls! I mean, you add up four zeros and what do you get? Hi-grade amusement, that's what!


Item #2-

Because two of the trainees did not show up yesterday, we got a new replacement trainee in our group today. He is younger kid and has actually already been out "enumerating" (the fancy-schmancy word for counting people) for the past two weeks. His name is Joe, and during the course of one of our many riveting discussions, someone asked him a question about his experiences so far. I was totally zoning out at this point, but the needle scratched and fell off the record when he said "Yeah, when we were out counting homeless people in the woods it was a little difficult to use our binders." Wait, what did he just say? I got a large q-tip and swabbed my ears out, because I thought he said that he was counting homeless people out in the woods. And clearly, that was just a joke. Or was it? Oh, no my little friends, that was not a joke. I talked to him further to get the scoop and on March 31st from midnight to 7am, Census workers all over the US count homeless people in the woods! Just for that one night so they don't double count. I am not making this up! He was assigned an orange saftey vest, a flashlight and a clipboard. REALLY? REALLY? The weirder part is that no one else in the room even blinked when he said this. They all nodded their heads like it is common knowledge that certain census workers are assigned to count homeless dudes in the woods. It absolutely made my whole day :) He also told me that he worked out in the woods behind the Lakeland DMV, he counted about 5 guys, and would they give out their names? Joe said, and I quote "If they were awake and not mad at your for waking them up." That is total awesomeness. Lucky guy also has gotten to count people at soup kitchens, halfway houses and prisons! So counting you in your uppity "house" is no big deal. Seriously, the Census doesn't screw around, they are serious about counting everyone. Everyone!!!!!