Misleading Census Worker Story

Let's get this census worker sex offender story straight, because many news outlets would at least initially have you believe this guy was not a census taker, but actually a sex offender posing as one, trying to gain access to people's houses for nefarious purposes. ("She opened the door to someone she thought was a census taker, but it was a convicted sex offender!") That is a totally different thing, and it's not what happened. Not that I usually take a stand on behalf of criminals, but this is a misleading sound bite.

They don't allow sex offenders to be census takers, but he had used an alias to apply. He was employed by the US government at the time he talked to this lady. I don't understand how he can be charged with impersonating a public official, since he was one. I assume the false representation charge relates to his job application. I'm thinking that is his only crime here.

If the government is taking fingerprints and running checks, they need to complete that process before sending people out. It is ridiculous to say that because there are 600,000 people applying for these positions, it is expected that the process won't work well. Allow time for the checks. So simple. They've known the census was coming up for at least ten years now.

While this lady is being lauded as a hero, she and people like her are actually the reason we have census takers at all. She didn't mail in hers. ("I lost it," she says. Right.) She would rather someone come to her home and ask her the questions than fill out a form and drop it in the mail. For all intents and purposes, she invited a census taker to come to her house. Thanks to people like her, we have to spend millions on these workers.

From the Census Bureau:

It costs just 42 cents to mail back the census form in a postage paid envelope. It costs taxpayers $57 per person to send a census taker door-to-door to collect the same information if they didn’t mail it back... For every one percentage point increase in the national participation rate by mail, taxpayers can help the Census Bureau save about $85 million in operational costs.

Friends who didn't send theirs in- I love ya', but please don't tell me about it or I'll be compelled to fork your lawn.

Speaking of government jobs, I'm in the process of getting all the paperwork squared away for mine. There are three things I have to do:

1) take clerical proficiency tests (done!)
2) fill out employment paperwork
3) get fingerprinted

While all these tasks occur in the same place, it is required that there be a day between each. I'm guessing that's to make it as complicated and wasteful as possible. I won't complain too much, though. I would have been working all along for the government if I had gone into nuke-E twenty years ago. Or as Scotty calls it- nookie, which would be really fun to get paid for! Oh, perhaps that would be illegal. :/