knock knock! ch-ch-changes!

i was a census enumerator

when the pando™ hit, i was actually quite busy. i still had more than 7 weeks to go in my semester teaching at brown, and the transition of a class i’d never taught before into the online space was plenty to keep me occupied. my students were magnificent. you can hear some of their work here.

after class finished, i turned my attention to my financial situation, applying for aid and loans and re-launching my private teaching practice, #CABINCOLLEGE. with that shored up as much as could be, i started writing. i made a fab video for a new song that i was proud of. i dedicated myself to my weekly writing group. you can watch me trade songs from that group, along with members natalia zukerman, matt the electrician, kris delmhorst, and glen phillips, here. i’ve also set in motion some plans for a new album to be recorded and released one hundred years from now, in 2021.

but all along, i knew that i would need something for the fall. my autumns are usually my busiest times. there are festivals, college gigs, wonderful trips to see productions of Miss You Like Hell, and the coffeehouse circuit is tailor-made for the crisper weather and slowing pace. this year i knew would be different. so, back in april, on a whim, i applied to be a census enumerator, the fancy term for a door-knocker.

my application was accepted, and after passing a background check and fingerprinting (administered by a fan of my work, which was head spinning), i was officially hired by the US Census.

i’d always been curious about the census. i’m definitely a History Person, growing up at the site of major revolutionary and civil war battles will do that. summer vacation in historic charleston? why yes, a visit to fort sumter, if you please. census numbers were always coming up in my reading. as a Political Person, i also knew their importance. why not get under the hood and see how it all worked? why not give some of the time on my hands to something Noble?

the census sees itself as diverse and non-partisan. its current training modules reflect this self-image. contemporary controversies not withstanding, i'd have to agree. the project of the census is that of building and maintaining trust between a citizenry and a federal government with a complex relationship to its people. the census does not work if people wont participate or cant see how their participation is a contribution to a project greater than their own self-interest. it is sacred in its own way. thus, it felt sweet and quaint and important to take an oath of discretion and loyalty, standing in the icy air-conditioned basement of a health center here in western massachusetts. my fellow enumerators and i raised our right hands, mumbled through our masks, and speaking for myself, got a little thrill when handed my official badge. i thought of the boy scouts, i thought of convocations, i thought of the army. a little ceremony goes a long way toward cohesion and morale. 

learning the census application and the protocols for working in the federal government were not necessarily hard, just confusing at first . but i worked my way through, feeling a nice sense of accomplishment as i got more comfortable with everything. it’s good to grow new muscles, especially after a long time using the very specific ones i have as a self-employed artist. i enjoyed not being in charge. for once, i was not expected to lead, make strategic decisions, or be an example of any sort. it was a nice change of pace.

but again, as i found when working on my first musical, the many skills i have learned as an itinerant singer-songwriter translated beautifully to this new vocation. for example, i am very handy with a smart phone, the instrument of choice for enumerators. i am highly experienced at deciphering the difference between google maps and Reality. i am unafraid of roads not traveled and new addresses. and everything i need to know about talking to strangers i have learned and perfected at the merch table.

from my first moments in the field, i fell in love with the work. it was a thrill to grab my bag in the morning, toss the census worker placard on my dashboard, and spring into my case list. there’s no regularity to census work. some days i was in my hometown, others i was quite far away. some days i was on foot working my cases, some days i could do them on my bike. other days i was in and out of my van 50 times as i rode through gorgeous forests and hill towns where houses were miles apart.

i saw immaculate historical mansions that were mere second homes and cabins falling in on themselves, still occupied by folks. i saw some gut wrenching poverty. in those places, i sometimes spied kids out of the corner of my eye and wondered what it would feel like to grow up amidst that chaos. other small fry came right up to me and boldly asked, “who are you?”. to which their parents often answered, “that’s the census lady”. which made me laugh. for a few weeks i guess i was the census lady.

sometimes i encountered people who had never heard of the census. sometimes i encountered people who were clearly on something. sometimes folks were happy to see me, often they were not. i learned not to take it personally. i thought of my work like dentistry. nobody likes getting their teeth cleaned, but its very important. my job was to make it as quick and painless as possible. only a couple times was i scared. i was mostly curious. i was very nice to everyone. i actually liked how i felt at the end of a long day of being very very patient and kind. it was energizing. it rearranged my often curmudgeonly molecules.

the census questions are intimate. they basically ask the occupants of a home for their age, race, and relationships to other members of the unit. some people gave this info freely. some people were jerks. some people took exception to the questions. some of them i take exception to. but i ultimately never wavered from the trust in the process and the usefulness of the data. i cant tell you how many times i said, “i totally understand” to a respondent and meant it. it felt like good purpose and right work to truly listen to what people had to say. 

and i’m not being silly when i compare my experience at the merch table to my census work. it was the bedrock of my method. at the merch table you learn to be friendly, to be a good listener, to build trust with eye contact and humility. you also learn to keep conversations at arms length and to move people along, kindly. 

pretty early in my census work, while finishing up a routine interview, i was attacked by a dog. i was bitten badly on both my legs before the respondent could control their animal. it’s not fun to get bitten; as a runner and cyclist i could already attest to that, but it’s especially a bummer in a pando™. and most especially when it’s at a job you loved. i returned to work the next day and continued working for a few more weeks. i’m a perfectionist. i felt like i made a committment to myself, and cheesy as it may sound, to my country. however, the more i recovered and came back into my body, the more i realized i couldn't continue to work a job that regularly put me in a position to be bit again, so soon and perhaps worse. unsurprisingly, dog bites are the most frequent census injury. let me be clear, i love dogs, but i have deep disrespect for people who do not pay enough attention to their animals or don't care enough to protect other people’s safety. it's selfish and dangerous. in the end, i made the very difficult decision to stop working for the census, for this reason only.

like any job, there were also frustrations, especially where the communication between census admin and enumerators could have been much better. for example, there are many arcane, detailed problems within the census related to why we had to door-knock, what happens when someone does the census online, and how all this work was rolled out with the added obstacle of the pando™. these problems were never explained to us on the ground. it would have helped. i happen to have a college roommate who is embedded at a high level in the bureau, and she was my source of much important info, never my training or my supervisor. not to get too in the weeds with it (i cant believe you’re still reading this entry), but the bureau does need to sort that stuff out because ultimately it undermines the trust in both the enumerators and the bureau itself. and trust is the only thing that keeps the census from folding in on itself. 

by way of closing on a positive note, my census work reaffirmed for me that most folks are truly good-hearted and willing to do whatever is necessary if you explain it to them simply and honestly. i got a real sense of my community, warts and all, from this work. i fell more deeply in love with western mass than i already thought possible. thus, i remain a census evangelist and am rooting for the bureau to have all the time and resources they need to complete their work. my mind is turning with ways i can continue to have similar important communal experiences, minus the dog attack of course.
 

and now, this concludes my report on my census adventure. thank you for reading!! stay strong, stay sane and i will see you all online, very soon i hope.

x erin

 

¡ME GUSTA! : SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS

• need your soul restored after the last few weeks of lies and gaslighting from republicans? re-watch the roll-call from the democratic convention. america is so weird and wonderful. sign me up for that country.

• i am such a fan of newsletters. most of them have some sort of sneaky "just trust me" link in them. this one comes from ann friedman's weekly missive. i laughed out loud in surprise and delight.

• speaking of weird and wonderful, this beautiful short doc about the folks who go to graceland every year to mourn elvis.

• if you've seen me live over the last decade, you're likely familiar with the force of nature that is Saxophone Tina, my comrade in many an epic performance. tina is a tremendous musician and a gifted teacher. if you've ever wanted to take reed lessons, she's teaching in the pando™.

• one of my favorite pieces of theater from the last few years is now being streamed. "the B-Side" from the wooster group is as unique a stage performance you'll ever see. to me, it's one of the most important musicals to happen in the last decade. free online only until til sept 14!!