Census redux

I am working for the census again.  And here you thought the census was over once you mailed in your questionnaire.

The next census operation is to verify the housing units that were found to be vacant or were to be deleted for a number of reasons, such as, it couldn't be found, it burnt down or was otherwise destroyed, or was a duplicate address to another housing unit or location.  The census bureau wants to double check they aren't missing someone.

This is a smaller operation as the number of vacants or deletes are a small minority of all housing units.  This operation is called NRFU-VDC for Non-Response Follow Up - Vacant Delete Check.  Of course, with all of the barns, chicken coops, hunting sheds and garages that were initially mapped as housing units, and the large number of vacant for sale or rent, or foreclosed houses, we may have a few more 'housing units' to double check than I expect.

Last week I, other NRFU crew leaders, and potential crew leaders were trained about the new operation.  As the Field Operation Supervisors (FOS) were not chosen yet we were trained by the FOSs' supervisor out of Missoula.  The class got rocky at times as the supervisor got defensive a few times to our questions and/or comments.  We weren't criticizing her but questioning some of the procedures we had to follow and trying to explain some real life situations we encountered and how best to handle them.

The crew leaders and crew leader want-a-bees then taught this class later that week to the people who will be double checking the vacant and deleted units.  In my - and other people's - opinions the class was overkill.  We could have quickly highlighted the differences between NRFU and NFRU-VDC when we met our team and gave them their initial assignments.

As the VDC operation is smaller than NFRU, some districts were combined.  Less districts means less crew leaders.  Another change was my former FOS moved and we got a new FOS.  It appears she decided to 'clean house' and go with a number of new people as crew leaders.  There is a little bit of controversy and hurt feelings about how this was handled.

Because I will be going over to the 'dark side' in July Missoula decided not to make me a crew leader again.  This somewhat makes sense as they weren't sure I would be around until the end of VDC.  However the person they chose to handle my old district - which was so large it wasn't combined with any other districts - apparently blanched when he was assigned my old district.  And he was an experienced crew leader.  After sleeping on it overnight he decided he didn't want to do it and quit the census.

I hadn't heard anything about census work since last week until this morning when the new FOS called me asking (with desperation?) me to come back and handle my old district. Suddenly my going over to the 'dark side' was no longer an issue.  I accepted and then spent the rest of the day getting up to speed on all that I missed.  Because I wasn't part of it from the start I had to go forward with decisions the 'crew leader for a day' had made, and not all of those decisions were ones that I would have made.

But such is life.  Well... I am up for the challenge.  I better get to bed as I have to meet with some of my new team members later this morning.