Leave a note, We'll call you back

"Participating in the census is one of the most powerful ways of having a voice in the United States." -- The official 2010 census website.

I, like many people who are just learning about the census, want to know more about it. It makes sense that a community's local census office would be the best place go to, I would think twice about that now.

Two weeks ago I started researching about local census offices in Liberty City and neighboring communities. It was somewhat puzzling to find out that Liberty City does not have an actual office. The city's zip codes are managed by the Miami East office located in Biscayne and 47 st. This office also deals with Miami Shore and Miami Beach. Besides the fact that the office is nowhere near the city and that in itself is an obstacle for the people of Liberty City to have an active part in the census, they also take more than a week and a half to answer a phone call.

No wait, I'm still waiting for the call back.

I called at least four times wanting "general questions about the census" answered. First, I called explaining how I am a student from FIU, that got me on a post-it with a promise of a call back from the recruiting manager. This was after speaking with two different people who were happy to transfer me along and along.

I finally called today and used the "reporter" card, and that got me on another post-it with the same promise of a call back but now it got more concise. I will be called after the office manager forwards my information and the recruiting manager gets a response via email. With not that much patience left I asked why the hassle and all the office clerk could say was, "I don't know you know this is government stuff."

"Government stuff?" Isn't this for the people and an organization that has to be as easy and accessible as possible? Tomorrow, I want to personally go. I'm honestly more interested in finding out how I will get treated than the actual information they'll say.

I know this is not a representation of all of the census offices, at the beginning of this research the office manager at the Hialeah location was more than extremely helpful. This is why it's more than frustrating the run-around I'm getting.