when i woke up this morning i had 5 new cases, all in the harvard square area. my supervisor texted me, said i was the only person working today, and these 5 cases were must-close cases like yesterday. i'm not sure if i was manually assigned these last cases because i'm the best enumerator or maybe i just got lucky (or unlucky as the case may be). i may be one of the few enumerators who've actually met and spoken with the census field manager, so maybe she remembered me and gave work for today. there are so many things i don't understand working for the census, it's better not to question and simply do the work.
5 cases should be a breeze. one address was clearly a non-residential business (a violin repair shop), another address i called the realty company and in a rare turn of event they actually called me back (normally when i make calls and leave messages 9 of 10 i never hear back from anyone) and gave me enough information to do a full proxy interview. a third address i was doing research and seems like it was an airbnb unit. that left just 2 addresses for figure out.
i made an english muffin sandwich with a bowl of salad for lunch. i left by 12:30pm, walking to harvard square. it seemed cold so i wore my black chongqing dress jacket over my hooded sweatshirt. it was windy because out to sea there was a hurricane (there was no rain unfortunately), but still warm after a stretch of walking.
the case i thought was an airbnb turned out not to be the case when tenants from another unit came home from grocery shopping and served as my proxy. the violin repair shop lady was actually in the store and served as a proxy for another unit in the building which was empty. and finally the last case i managed to get into the apartment and after knocking on half a dozen doors finally found a neighbor who actually knew about the case unit, so i finished that one with another proxy interview. once again i got lucky, was at the right place at the right time, and also because i was able to wait outside an apartment either to be let in or run into a neighbor that had some info.
highlight of the day was running into my old supervisor. i've worked a few cases on her street, i was hoping i might bump into her. of the 3 supervisors i've had, she was the best, the right amount of personal attention yet still gave us space to work independently. i think maybe she was too nice because they relegated her to a standby position, in charge of 45 underperforming enumerators who didn't receive much work. we reminisced about our old group. we both agreed that P was the best enumerator (i wonder what ever happened to him? maybe he volunteered to go traveling) and my supervisor revealed that A was actually the worst, my supervisor would get alerts for her all the time because she next made any proxy attempts; A eventually resigned from the census and moved out to california.
i returned home by 4pm. i bumped into renee, who saw me yesterday carry back the carboy. she asked if i wanted another one, because she had one in her basement she was going to throw out, so i took it from her. that one came with an orange carboy handle. it was a little dirty because it'd been used and kept in her basement, but nothing a little washing can clean up. she couldn't even remember how it got there, maybe a previous tenant had left it behind. so in the span of 2 days i ended up collecting 2 free glass carboys. if that isn't a sign that i have to make some fermented beverage, i don't know what is.
today felt like my last day of enumeration, so there was a sense bittersweetness and things were drawing to a close. my supervisor sent us a group text in the early evening mentioning there was only 5 cases today (all mine!) and that were would be on standby until the courts decide whether or not to extend the census deadline. i hope they don't because i really want it to end, but i won't say no to making more money, provided my hours get reduced, i'm not sure if i can continue working 40 hours a week. if we do get work, it'd be the thousands of multiple-attempts-automatically-closed cases. those are the more difficult cases, though some are actually easy, the enumerators that were assigned these cases initially just didn't take that extra step to find the info.
i didn't take a nap today, unlike the past few days. i didn't feel like doing anything, just wanted to sit on the couch and space out for a few hours. for dinner i made myself a meatball sub. it was cold earlier, but as the evening wore on, it grew progressively warmer for some strange reason. i think the cold weather is finally gone, we have some warmer more seasonable weather to look forward to.