So yesterday was the first “real” day of training. It was largely uneventful. I had to drive on the highway to get there which super stressed me out seeing as for about the past eight years I’ve only had to drive when I’m at home visiting my parents. Until recently I probably hadn’t driven since some time in 2006. Despite ridiculously unclear highway signage I managed to find the training place and not die on the way.

I met my supervisor for the first time. She was really sweet and patient with the whole silly process. Not everyone in my group went to the earlier training so this session consisted of a lot of repetition for me and most of the rest of the group. I was seated at a table in between a young-ish dude and an older guy. To the left of young dude was an older lady. I have decided that these people are my census running crew because we all got along really well and had super sweet conversation about all kinds of things during the breaks. The fact that these people were all cool was a giant relief because the main thing I have to say about this training session is that people are a bunch of entitled, whiny brats.

To start there was a woman behind me who kept complaining about how boring the training was. Loudly. While our supervisor was trying to talk. She kept talking over the supervisor throughout the entire meeting. This woman had to be fifty or older. Are you some kind of child? Do not talk over people. And bear in mind that this woman is getting paid $20 an hour to sit on her butt and complain. But she’s boooored. Boo fucking hoo, lady. The training was only four hours and we even got out early. You are awful.

Then another woman in the back kept asking in this miserable, put-upon tone about “HOW AM I GOING TO BE COMPENSATED???” for various bullshit that she should have known about when she signed up for this weird job. I am going to try to remember what she said more or less verbatim. Something like, “What if I’m INTERRUPTED during my dinner, or if I’m woken from sleep when I’ve decided that my work day is done and I’m on MY TIME by someone calling me. HOW WILL I BE COMPENSATED???” I think there’s something very telling about how she put this. With this job, you get to decide when your work day is over, for fuck’s sake. Yeah, it would suck if you were sleeping and you got woken up by a work phone call. But in the grand motherhumping scheme of things, is it really worth getting all nasty at someone who is being very nice to you over a rather minor inconvenience that you would obviously be paid for? We fill out time sheets to get paid, so if you are working, you enter that time on the form. Unbelievably simple really. This same woman later, in the same accusatory tone, asked to be paid for any time she spent reading the employee handbook at home. When in the history of working at jobs has anyone ever had that privilege? I used to work at a fancy soap store and I would spend hours studying the ingredients of every product so I could tell people what was in them and what they did for their skin or whatever. You know, so I could be good at my job where I was paid less than half of what the census pays. And the census is also the only job I have ever heard of where your hourly pay includes the time you spend commuting AND pays you a stipend for every mile you travel. I guess I’m just incredibly grateful after being more desperately broke than dirt for months and months to have gotten this job that is paying me this much. That aside I still think this woman was acting like a ungrateful, entitled jerk and I hope she shuts up forever. Somehow I doubt that is going to happen.

The only thing that was really different about this training was that we talked about the importance of protecting confidentiality of the census records which (don’t worry, The Man) will be respected as I write this. Then we got our official census swag. I have government issue pens, which is particularly hilarious to me. Yeah, we all got a little plastic bag of pens, pencils, erasers and paper clips. Official census paper supplies.

I left carrying my bag o’ swag and despairing over human greed to take the worst drive home I have ever experienced. To start, as I was about to get on the freeway, a possum crawled in front of my car. It proceeded to shuffle at the slowest pace possible without actually ceasing to move. I think it was either extremely elderly or infirm. I realized that the cars behind me couldn’t see the possum and probably assumed I was having a heart attack or was an idiot. Stressful. Then on the freeway a few miles down I suddenly found myself in the middle of what looked like the aftermath of an explosion of lumber. There were huge chunks of broken wood strewn over all four lanes for a substantial distance. I think I even instinctively yelled “Why is this happening to me?” in my terror. The tires on my car are really not the best and my head was filled with visions of terrible wooden death. Then I managed to get lost. I still don’t understand what I did wrong. After finally getting back on track a police car swerved erratically out to the left then started following me. Mega stressful. Thankfully nothing came of it and I finally made it home. And tonight I get to do it all over again.