Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Enumerate this!

Today was my first official day as enumerator for the Statistics Canada 2006 Census. Most of the good citizens have already sent in their forms and my job is to harass all those stragglers who forgot/never got around to it/hate the government. I haven't harassed anyone yet (in training). I did, however, finally get a straight answer about how I get paid.

Rather than getting paid by the hour, I get paid per form. If I can't get it filled out (because they refused, or because I can't reach them even after calling them at home and banging on their door six times) then I get paid a mere $1.50. If I'm a good little soldier and get the straggler to give me all their personal info, I get $3.50. If they have one of those annoyingly long forms, that asks about the number of pimples on their forehead and whether the budgie has fleas, I get a whopping $5.50 (provided we actually get it filled out). These fees are only if I fill it out for them, or if they physically hand it to me. If they randomly decide to mail it in or do it online, I get $1.50 and jack else.

I also get paid something like $25/week (don't remember the exact figure) for "incidentals" (parking, wear on my shoes from walking around, etc.), And of course about $140 for 2 days of training.

I'm hoping all this works out to more than minimum wage. Though even the tiny moneys I make are treats at this point.

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