Comments on: About Census Test Help

By: Lydia

Lydia — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 01:31:02 +0000

Oh and today, the skills of the high scoring supervisors proved just how NOT qualified they are to lead. We took our open book trainee final today. In the supervisor manual it stated that the supervisor needs to take the lowest scoring enumerators with him in the field to practice on a real responder. The other two assistants took the rest of the class for the same reason. This supervisor actually said “it says in the manual that I need to take the lowest scoring people with me” and proceeded to call them by name in front of everyone!!! Way to solicit loyality and build confidence! So the government only qualifys you by score, yeah, that works. I am not disgruntled, just mystified at the hiring practices of our government. I’m sure the five enumerators will not soon forget the embarrasment. I looked over at one of them and I could actually see the confidence of this once enthusiastic trainee dissipate into the heavy air.
The supervisor could have turned it around by selecting the same five without explanation and they would have felt good about being chosen. It was not necessary to explain his choice, he was the boss and the class had to be divided into three sets. He could have even taken each one aside individually and explained that he wants them to succeed and its his job to see that you do so I want to spend some extra time with you. Instead, I’m sure the entire time in the field they felt inferior instead of confident. We are not talking about a huge grade difference. Nine incorrect answers was failing and they had between 4 and 6 incorrect. The rest of us had 0-3 incorrect. It was just appalling , you can’t unring the bell and the worst part is that I don’t think the supervisor was even aware of the damage he did. I should have insisted on retaking the supervisor test that I was not able to finish because of the incessant chatter of the procters, that yes, were also younger than 25 years old. Who am I kidding, at age 50, I’m too old to have been selected anyway.

By: Lydia

Lydia — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 03:06:27 +0000

I took both the numerator and supervisor test. I scored 94 on the numerator and 78 on the supervisor test. Needless to say I was disappointed and should have requested to take the test again but I was just so annoyed. The test procters were chatting while we were taking the supervisor test and I had to re-read many of the questions several times before I finally asked them to please stop talking. They did stop but it sure was not a great way to introduce myself to the staff. I have been in supervisory work for years and also worked for the census the last two times as a census assistant. Both times my supervisor was a minority. This third time my supervisor is also a minority and I just can’t help wonder what is up. The language skills and basic English pronuncation of words of my supervisor is inexcuseable and most of the office and superisory staff is all minority. Now I know I have more education and ability then most if not all of them yet I end up on the bottom. Granted, my supervisory score was lower than I would have liked but I wonder if there is some scaling going on. I can’t believe that some of these folks scored 90′s on the supervisory test. Is it a practice for the lower supervisory jobs in the district field offices to be staffed with more minorities? Sure they have spanish skills which are useful for our large spanish-speaking population but is this the way the government works-on scores alone? I am not a racist and believe in merit based work but I can’t help feeling there is an undercurrent of reverse discrimation going on.

By: orlando

orlando — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 15:54:11 +0000

The orginazational part. I really don’t see & understand, what they are asking.