I wrote this post eight days ago and I’ve just noticed it wasn’t published. I’m not going to waste a perfectly good post so you’re getting it now.

I’ve learnt a lesson with the Census.  It doesn’t matter how good people think you are and how confident you are you will always make mistakes.  I’m not sure if signing up for the Census was a mistake, I’m meeting a lot of people and getting lots of exercise and I’ll get paid, but I’m fairly tired and my back hurts.  I’m not sure that signing up for Blogopolis was a good idea on the same weekend when I should have been delivering the Census forms but it was definitely fun.

The last time I had anything substantial to do with the Census was back in 1986 when I worked for the Australian Bureau of Statistics in the Data Entry Department on the 14th floor of the Commonwealth Bank Building which was/is on the corner of Elizabeth and Flinders Streets in the middle of the Melbourne CBD.  I suspect it’s still the Commonwealth Bank Building, but there’s no bank there any more and the ABS moved to the Rialto on the corner of Collins and King Streets just after I left them in 1987.  I’m sure there’s no correlation between my leaving and their moving, seriously.  I didn’t see anyone special apart from my colleagues but I did get paid for it!  Things have changed so dramatically they’re now using ICR technology instead of typists.  That’s Intelligent Character Recognition for those of you who were confused.  I’m hoping it’s moved on a little from OCR (Optical Character Recognition) but I’m not sure.

I did three and a bit hours of walking on Friday (29th July) delivering forms and somehow managed to fit in my shopping and posting a parcel.  Thank goodness Mum cooked dinner that night.  Then I woke up early on Saturday to attend Blogopolis.  It was an awesome day with some inspiring speakers and some incredible talent.  The venue was centrally located and easy enough even for me to find.  One of the topics was on monetising your blog, an interesting topic but not really relevant to this blog. While I’m still selling pre-loved books and part-work magazines here I don’t see the point in ads, I don’t fancy driving all my potential buyers away to buy their books elsewhere.  There were lots of other topics but I’ll let @theblogstylist tell you all about it on her blog.  She was live blogging the whole day.  I’m using awesome a lot but it was an awesome effort, I think she sat at a table near me and her typing was very good.

Getting back to the Census before my eyes close while I’m in front of the computer.  I walked almost seven hours delivering my forms and I’m now a little over halfway through my patch.  The worst things I’ve had to encounter is a gorgeous little dog who just had to jump up and sniff me and an overeager cat who absolutely had to be patted despite my moving away.  I could mention the gentleman who told me to go away as he opened his door, but I’d then have to totally ruin the story by adding that when he saw I was the Census person he became polite.  He was expecting some extremely good friends who were late and thought I was them.  I was most amused by this.  I could talk about the gentleman who agreed with me when I asked if I could confirm his address, he didn’t actually confirm his address, just agreed he could.  Anyway, I’m back out tomorrow and then again on Tuesday to finalise the last few before reporting in to see if my supervisor wants some help with something else, yep, you guessed it, I’ll get paid for helping extra.  Sometimes I’m gullible and sometimes greedy, I’ll let you decide which.