Wednesday marked my second and final day of training to become a Questionnaire Assistance Center Representative for the 2010 US Census. It was mercifully shorter and filled with more practical information…eventually. Although the first 30 minutes were back to talking about our own wage form, which had me worried. The second 30 minutes was about safety. Now I think safety is important to talk about for employees, particular employees who are going to interface with the public in transitional spaces. However, It worries me that script included reminding us that we shouldn’t sit in our chair with it tilted to the back, and that we shouldn’t handle electrical equipment with wet hands. Yikes! But don’t worry, the training got better…ish. 
Around 10am we finally started talking about that which we were really there for, the Census questionnaire. (It tickles me that there is a Hannah Montana clock in the Chinese Community Center! Sorry, I got distracted.) I must admit I hadn’t seen a questionnaire until this morning. They gave us one in our representative materials that I finally got a chance to open up. The first thing I wanted to check was the question about race, because someone tweeted me the day before looking for assistance. I was surprised by what I found. There is a question about Hispanic heritage first, and then there is a question about race. @sneakpeekatme asked me what she was supposed to put down for race after she claimed her Hispanic origin, because there was no race box for “Hispanic” and that was confusing her. It confused me too. But worst of all it confused my supervisor. When I posed the question to her in our training she said she didn’t know. She told me to tell @sneakpeekatme to call the assistance telephone number for the Census Bureau. Wait a minute, I thought that was what we were supposed to be training to do, provide assistance? Are we just going to give out an 800 number in answer to every tricky question? Luckily one of my fellow trainees had read ahead in our manual and told me there was an explanation about the race question inside. Apparently the US Census Bureau relies on the race definitions as determined by the US Office of Management and Budget. OMB does not consider “Hispanic” a race. So, if that is how you define your race you need to write it in under “Some Other Race”. I tweeted @sneakpeekatme back all while my supervisor continued to read from the script that was to teach me how to give assistance to the public, in the form of an 800 number, in 50 some odd different languages.
But 3 hours later, my days’ time sheet completed, I had my assignment and my official badge, and I was released into the wild. Chinatown that is. Starting Friday I will be stationed at Richland Realty on Wentworth through April 19, 2010. My hours are Monday’s from 11-1 (after I teach at Grace Place). Tuesdays and Fridays 9:30-2pm, and Wedensdays and Thursdays 2-4pm. If you stop by I promise to give you all that I know, (which is definitely more than I learned in training). But if all else fails, there’s always that 800 number.
SMILE On!
ML
Miss Lori can be found Musing from her Minivan at MissLori.TV , Wearetherealdeal.com , YoungChicagonista , and ChicagoMomsBlog. She is also the new Chicago Family Entertainment Blogger for Examiner.com and a Discussion Leader for MomsLikeMeChicago. You can also see her Activating to Be Great at Miss Lori’s CAMPUS on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
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