i spent half an hour putting together my address list, then another half hour researching the addresses to see which ones were harvard housing and which ones were private residences. i made some oatmeal for lunch then left for work by 12pm.
i did manage to get into one harvard housing, a small building with just 8 units. the guy i followed behind was able to be me proxy for 2 cases, with a third i managed to slip an notice-of-visit under the door. but most of the day was frustrating, the kind of day that made me think about quitting. i bumped into another enumerator - shahrah - and we chatted briefly, she shared the same feeling. she confided that despite being an extrovert, even she found it difficult enumerating people who simply do not want to be bothered. there was also the heat today, temperature in the upper 80's, but not too bad because there was a breeze, i thought it'd be worse. another hot day tomorrow then the rest of the week autumn like with temperature in the 70's.
highlights? besides running into another enumerator, not much. i've decided to work at my own pace, not chase after phantom bonuses, and if the census opt to fire me, that'll only make my life easier. mondays we also have our weekly census conference call, which means i have an excuse to finish work by 6:30pm so i can get home for the meeting.
i only ended up completing 22 cases, closing only 10 of them. every case now takes 4x as long as i look for 3 proxies for every single address. i find myself working backwards: i find the proxy first, get the basic info, before ringing the doorbell of the case address. if they answer and are willing to do an interview, that's great. however, that rarely happens in this proxy eligible cases; the reason why they haven't been closed yet is because either the respondent are belligerent to answering the census questionnaire, or the house is empty and no neighbors are sure enough to was living there in april.
it makes me question if the census is a mess because of the administration or would it have been a mess anyway, regardless of who's in the white house. or maybe it's a mess because of the coronavirus, but trump playing politics with the census definitely didn't help build up trust in the legitimacy of what we're doing. our supervisor also told us that we might be sent to enumerate in other towns, potentially far away from our home district, based on censusing needs. she said a cambridge group was recently diverted to everett. all i know is the end of september can't come soon enough, just 28 days (6 more weeks) more of work before i'm done.
i feel so numb when i get home from a day of work. i could just sit in the living room for hours not doing anything, the work sapping away all my motivations and interests. 
i force myself to take a shower, and force myself to make some dinner. tonight i had a chicken burger. i'm dreading to find out where the census will send me tomorrow. if it gives me the same addresses again, i don't know what i'll do.