Whoa, baby!

It is something like 2am, there is a full moon out, shining on new snow, and I can't sleep. Some nights I just wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep. If I get up and do things my body gets used to the idea and I will wake every night for night after night and go around with a major sleep deficit all the time. Also I wake sweet C if I clean house or do laundry.
I have reached my recruiting goal for the Census Bureau for the first operation. We get all worked up at the beginning with concern that we aren't getting enough applicants and "how do we get more people interested in doing the census?"; and then as our advertising begins to work, and word gets out that we will be hiring, and people start coming, there is no way to stop the onslaught. We simply have to schedule fewer testing sessions with the idea that they will get discouraged if they have to wait for weeks for an appointment. Then a year from now we go through it all again. The two biggest operations are the first, beginning immediately, and the last, beginning about this time next year. In between all the operations use far fewer people so we are able to hire those we have already used.
So, my job is winding down but I couldn't take the next thing offered because I had made other plans for the summer that would interrupt the last week of the job. (More on that later) Therefore the responsible thing was not to take the job. I feel a little jealous, though, of the person who did take on responsibility for "my" people. Also, address listing is probably my favorite operation with the Census Bureau. I like maps and love to see the houses and imagine what they are like inside. I won't get to do even an enumerator job with that operation as I will be recruiting the management staff for the new office that will open in my county in the fall. That is another slightly sore point with me. Since I did this job ten years ago I have wanted to be on the management staff this time around. I really want the census to be accurate. However, as I am to be testing 100 applicants for each management position there is very little chance I will be chosen. Not enough experience. Sigh.
Well, whatever job I do, I will be doing my best to see that we have an accurate count. It means so much to our state, and to each city within our state, to have accurate data. And that is the civic reason to do the census. The personal, or maybe I should say the religious reason is that census data is one of the more important ways we find out about our ancestors, people who have lived here before us. That is why I care about the census. That is why I got involved in the first place and why I will continue to be as involved as I can be.