i discovered that i could qualify for pandemic unemployment assistance (PUA) because i was supposed to start my census work back on april 1st but due to the coronavirus, that work was postponed until the end of july. i filled out the form online and was surprised when they accepted my application immediately. i'm not sure how much i could get, and that amount seems to be based on what i made last year, not what i'm supposed to make this year. worth a try though, any amount would be a bonus.
i watched a pavement company put up no parking signs around the neighborhood since they're going to resurface the road next week. yesterday i saw them paint dotted white lines on the road where they're going to rip up the pavement. honestly, it's long overdue, but that means parking will be even harder to find. i have a motorcycle so i can always find a spot, but it's going to be a pandemonium.
the weather was grey and cool for much of the day, though the forecast said it'd clear up by the late afternoon, with some sunshine. it was cold enough that i wore pants and a long-sleeved dress shirt that i rolled up the sleeves. i never tried this before, but i used google map to connect my case addresses so i could see the route i'd be taking today, a loop of 3.7 miles. a lot of the cases i'd already gathered the data in advance, it was just a simple matter of going to the location and closing the case with the gps coordinate.
i chatted with a nice elderly man on beacon street named daniel (he was wearing a bourbon st new orleans baseball cap) who worked the 2010 census. once again, another person recommended i take my census skills and look for a new job afterwards: daniel recommended i could become a professional investigator, as he was impressed with the extent i went through in order to find information about houses that haven't done their census survey yet. after he left, i realized one of the addresses on my list was actually in his building. i looked for him but he was already gone, and i ended up not being able to enter the apartment complex.
passing through harvard square, i stopped my michael's shop to chat briefly. we made plans to meet up again so we could chat further (there was a customer in the shop at the time) and he'd get new lenses for my glasses.
i bumped into a few more enumerators. first there was labor day liz, when i saw her sitting on the street corner. this time around she was enumerating a residence on story street. we chatted briefly, she was on the phone, i continued on my way while she left a voicemail for the property manager. and nearly home, i saw that same enumerator from yesterday who didn't see it. once again she failed to spot that i was behind her, and she was talking with a neighbor so i didn't bother her. it's weird though, i thought i'd enumerated all the addresses on my street, maybe it was a reinterview. i overheard her pitch to the neighbor, it's strange seeing another enumerator in action. i think because of her age (she has white hair thought she looks much younger) people treat her with more politeness.
i thought the work would go quick, but i was outdoor enumerating for nearly 4 hours before i had to race back home for a last minute 5pm conference call. by that point i just had one remaining case anyway, a proxy reinterview. i figured i'd do that afterwards.
the call was just to let everyone know that we are now not supposed to open any cases unless we can close them. cases that can't be closed should be left in our case list, in which point it will show up again until it can be closed. i call this the nightmare phase. there were also new job opportunities: the census want volunteers to enumerate the homeless population of middlesex county. they'd provide training first before pairs of enumerators (for safety purposes) would go out and do the interviews. with the coronavirus on top of the opioid epidemic, this seems like a risky assignment. and i thought regular enumerating was difficult! the pay's the same, but they kept harping on the 10% night differential, which makes me think the job involves working nights.
ever since i learned i could qualify for PUA, i'm more likely to quit now. having said that, i've become quite adept at closing cases. it's all about the preplanning and groundwork. i use a combination of property database (for cambridge and somerville) and an online people finder website. the people search is genuinely scary, i'm amazed by how accurate and detailed the results were.
i went out after 6pm to try that one address. i rang the doorbell, nobody was home, i came right back. i finished my shift with just 2 inactive cases, closing the other 14. the closer strikes again!
for dinner i made myself a meatball sub. i still haven't figured out a good way to reheat frozen meatballs. i've been using the microwave but the result is always a messy splatter of pasta sauce.
later in the evening i watched game 7 between the celtics-raptors. it was a close game, i almost couldn't bear to watch. but boston simply outmatched toronto, they managed to get the lead in the 4th quarter. the raptors came back and nearly tied it but their players seemed to run out of steam, especially after kyle lowry fouled out with less than a minute left in the game. the celtics held out and outlasted the raptors to win the game and go onto the eastern conference finals against the miami heat. boston is the higher seed at number 3 while miami is number 5.