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the census assigned me 27 cases last night. i was just happy they were mostly new addresses, that i wasn't going back to agassiz for the 5th enumeration in a row. the repetitive nightmare was over for now, to be replaced by a new series of repetitive nightmare. but 27 cases was a bit low, i can normally work about 40 addresses in an 8 hour period, but i'm also very good at milking the clock, and our supervisor encourages us to revisit addresses as well, so i could definitely make it work.

the fact that today was labor day weighed heavily on my mind, and i was not in the mood to work this morning. with an 11am start time, i really don't have time to do anything unless i start the moment i wake up. i thought about making a grocery run (can't remember the last time i went to market basket) but there didn't seem to be enough time so i postponed it until tomorrow morning. for breakfast i had granola with yogurt.

once i started working it wasn't too bad, and i soon found my groove. in order to stretch out the time, i decided to walk to most of my cases. the weather was nice, warm but not too hot, with a cool ocean breeze. because it was labor day, everything seemed so quiet, less traffic, less people out and about. the only downside of it being labor day is i wouldn't be able to contact any management companies.

i started with a handful of cases in somerville, which i haven't enumerated in a while. half a dozen cases, i managed to get 2 proxy interviews. one of them the in-mover gave me the name of the previous tenant through her mails and from that i was able to find her online and get her race and age information. as for the other interview, it was in a 3-unit multi-generational indian family compound. all the names on the mailboxes were the same. i managed to get somebody but after a long wait as he went out back to talk with someone, he came back and told me in broken english that the people i was looking for were not there. it seemed like a lost cause because there was a language barrier issue, but while i was outside trying to figure out what to do, a young indian woman got dropped off by car, escorting a woman that was probably her grandmother. they went behind the house and i followed them, waving to the woman to get her attention. her english was better and she came out and answered my questions. basic info i got from her, and the names i got from the mailbox.

i then came home to use the bathroom and get a drink of water before taking the bike to southern cambridgeport to enumerate a few addresses. one of them was a harvard housing address, which i was able to complete with the help of my supervisor who had a master list of all the harvard tenants as of april 1st and he gave me the name and occupancy. it was a japanese man and the name unique enough that i was able to find him online and get his age info. as for the other addresses, they were all in one 11-units apartment building that eerily was completely empty. but drove that point home was when i went to the back and saw the parking lot was entirely empty, no one single car. i did do some online sleuthing and managed to find the rental company, i'll give them a call tomorrow.

while i was there i saw another fellow census worker. he was just standing near the parking lot underneath the shade of a tree working his phone. i recognized his census bag even though he was wearing it so the logo faced inwards. he name was chris, we share the same supervisor. chris told me his last day was thursday, as he's going to argentina for 6 months. his normal job is an apartment rental agent, but with the coronavirus, it's hard to find renters these days. because he spoke spanish, i asked him if the census ever sent him anywhere to better utilize his language skills. he said one time they sent him to everett, but that was the one and only time. the rest of the time he's in cambridge, where most people speak english, although occasionally he might find a hispanic superintendent who might speak the lengua.

i biked back home and decided to take my break a little early. usually i like to work a full 5 hours before stopping, that way for my second shift i just have 2-1/2 hours to work, which makes it go by faster.

for my second shift today i reverted back to walking, as my remaining cases weren't particularly far. there were a few repeats but not that many. i did get 4 cases that all sent me to the same broken down house where a father and son lives and i remember the father was very belligerent the first time i met him. it's during my second shift i ran into two other enumerators, laxmi and liz. i found laxmi on a street corner working her phone. i remember her from yesterday morning's conference call. i noticed she also took notes, handwritten ones where she listed all the addresses in her neat handwriting. liz i found sitting on a street corner, also working her phone. like everyone else, she had the same supervisor as well. at one point she mentioned it takes her 40 minutes to ride her back into cambridge to work. i found out she lives in medford. she didn't seem to mind the long commute, since travel time counts as census work. i asked what she did on her breaks, she said she makes do, but i don't know where there's a public bathroom anywhere within the vicinity. she told me she didn't work this weekend (does most people work in weekends?) because it was her wedding anniversary. i asked how come she didn't take today off as well, she said her husband had to work, so she decided to work as well, but was going home to a special dinner.

i also tried helping a pretty young indian woman (wearing a red sox cap) fix her bike. she got her chain stuck in the sprocket. i could've fixed it for her, but i didn't want to get grease all over my hands since there was no place i could wash them later. i told her to get some tools to loosen the chain.

walking back from mid-cambridge it was already starting to get late. i tried two more cases, both harvard lecture halls, not dorms, not sure why they're still circulating in the case database. i had less than 10 minutes left and decided to go home and finally call it a day.

i was so hungry i didn't even bother to shower before tearing into the two leftover subway sandwiches from yesterday. game 5 of the celtics-raptors game had already started. boston took a commanding lead early and toronto couldn't make a dent. most of the game the celtics were up by 20-30 points. the raptors had already thrown in the towel by the 4th period, subbing in all bench players, while the celtics still keep their starters playing. boston would eventually win the game, just one more victory away from the eastern conference final, most likely to face the miami heat.

i finished watching the theater-recorded bootleg of tenet. the video and audio quality were terrible, i could barely understand the movie which from reviews i've already is already hard enough to comprehend when viewing a legit copy. besides tenet, the other movie i really want to see is that new wonder woman sequel.