Seeing all the television advertisements and reading press releases here at the paper about the 2010 Census, I am reminded that the Census Bureau doesn’t just count people and collect data every 10 years. The U.S. Census Bureau has staffers working year-round, every year, conducting a variety of surveys, compiling statistics on all facets of life in the United States. I found that out in the 1990s when I had my first encounter with a Census Bureau worker. I can very clearly remember the incident—I still cringe when I think about it.
I was working as a receptionist in the cardiac rehab department of Potomac Hospital in Woodbridge, Virginia when I was accosted by a census taker collecting medical data on cardiac rehab patients.
I guess accosted is a bit strong. The woman was perfectly reasonable. She arrived at my desk with a stack of forms and politely asked for my assistance in the survey being taken of cardiac facilities in the state of Virginia. Looking at all the documentation she was pushing toward me, I wanted to say no. However, then as now, funding for medical facilities depends on statistics. I had to cooperate.
I grudgingly listened as she explained how to fill out the patient information—ages, conditions, insurance company, number of visits per week, etc. Although this was before the Data Privacy Act, we still protected patient identities. Which made the forms all the more complicated.
In addition to filling out the pertinent patient information, I had to keep a separate, private list to remind me which of our wonderful patients was patient one, two, or three.
The form had frustratingly small boxes and narrow lines. Fortunately I was able to fill out the paperwork with a pencil. Several times I checked the wrong box or entered information on the wrong line and had to erase the day’s entries and start over.
Our office participated in the survey for about six months and I grew to strongly dislike the census lady. It was a busy office and I would sometimes forget to fillout the form. Then the census lady would show up to collect the worksheet and I would realize I hadn’t completed it for a few days. I’d have to go back through my patient records to find the data, irritated that I had to waste my time on the census.
I tried not to take it out on the census worker. She was only doing her job, after all. But every time she showed up, I resented the inconvenience.
So I was incredibly surprised on the day she came to collect her last form. She thanked me profusely for being so much nicer and more helpful than people in other offices she worked with. In appreciation, she presented me with a tin of butter cookies.
I was flabbergasted. I hadn’t completed the forms in a timely manner and I’m sure I wasted a lot of her time. I hadn’t been mean to her, but I hadn’t gone out of my way to get to know her either. If that was being nice, what had the other people done—kicked her?
I accepted the cookies uncomfortably and wished her well on her next assignment. I still feel guilty when I think about it. So be nice to the census takers if they show up on your doorstep—they may be pencil pushers, but they are people too!
Thetrue test of civilization is not
the census, nor the size of the
cities, nor the crops, but the kind
of man that the country turns
out.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Leave a Reply