Census 2010

Well,
Life has kind of been crazy, mostly due to the census. I have learned that you never really know what to expect with the census. In fact it is quite a quirky operation. I mean, what do you expect when the majority of the work is done once every ten years by thousands of temporary employees?
Anyway, I started off being a QAC Rep., sitting at Lake Erie College, waiting for people to ask questions about the census, how to fill out the questionnaire, or asking for a Be Counted form. Nobody really came. I think I talked to 5 people about census-related topics in the 3 weeks(?) I was there. Then I got called to be an enumerator, for which the training would start this week. The next day Kassie got called to be an enumerator, and I got called again, this time to be a crew leader instead for which the training started the week following the phone call, which was also supposed to be my last week at the QAC. They said I could just close the QAC (Questionnaire Assistance Center...I know you've been dying to know what that stands for) early and do the Crew Leader training. So, I did. At the end of the training, I was told they had no spot for me as a crew leader but that I would be a Crew Leader Assistant with a crew that was currently working on the early enumeration. The early enumeration was slightly different from the normal enumeration and was done so that off-campus college students could be counted before they left for the summer. So, I did that for a week and finished it up.
That was last week. This week I have been as Kassie calls me 'a government gopher.' Basically visiting training sites and taking paperwork back to the office and stuff. When I am not running errands, I have been doing office work. Until...
Today I went into the office because they didn't have any errands for me. I did a little office work. Then Christine, one of the office people (I don't know her exact title, but I think she is somewhat high up there) told me she had a job for me. If I hadn't heard her talking on the phone earlier, I wouldn't have thought anything of it because she had been the one assigning jobs to me all week in the office. When I was working earlier, though, I had heard her asking about possible people who could do a replacement training next week. As it ends up, I am the person to do it. Which means, for the rest of this week I am preparing to train enumerators.
This is a little bit different from the normal enumerator training though for a few reasons. First of all, it is in the evenings rather than the day. Secondly, since it is a replacement training, I won't be their crew leader after the training. Instead, they will be placed with other crews that by that time will have already been working for a week and may need more people. And I...I don't know what I will do after next week, but I am assuming I will probably be assigned as a CLA with one of the crews, possibly the same crew I worked with for the early enumeration.
So, it's been an interesting few weeks, not knowing what I will be doing from week to week or sometimes day to day or hour to hour. But it has been a blessing to have a job, not only as a source of income but for something to do each day.