June 21 - 27, 2010

Fortie Family Flyer

June 21 – 27, 2010

Dear Family and Friends,

            Well, we finished up the regular census (I am writing this several months late so I’m not exactly sure about dates, etc) and our Salt Lake area finished first in the country and to my surprise, my crew tied for first place in the Salt Lake area, not only in being completely done first but in quality of work (fewer returned to be fixed because of problems). I did work hard but it was still a shock to me since I don’t consider myself a good paperwork person. I became close to my crew and they worked hard for me and about 5 of them were top notch people and could handle anything I gave them. In fact, one crew was having a hard time with an apartment manager and they asked for help so I gave Tim (one of my good crew members who happened to be one of Nathan’s friends from the singles ward when Nathan lived with us years ago) a very official looking letter from the Census Bureau and instructed him on how to handle the manager based on my experience with an apartment manager I went and talked to weeks ago that one of my crew members was having a hard time with. He went there with great confidence and did as I said and the manager immediately gave him everything he wanted. The other crew leader was surprised that it went so well for us when they had been working on it for so long. It’s funny how certain experiences can help you down the road with similar situations.  

After we finished with the main census the crew leaders and a few others were sent out in the Salt Lake area to take care of real problem people. That was my first experience going door to door (besides going here and there dealing with people my crew couldn’t handle) and I actually liked it; figuring out how to get problem people to cooperate was very stimulating. I found many people to be fine to work with; they were just hard to catch home. One guy kept avoiding me and even ran in the house when I pulled up to the house while he was sitting in his carport with his dog. I drove around the corner and then walked around the area getting information about him from neighbors. As I walked past his house again he was out watering his lawn (guess he thought I was gone). I walked up and started talking to him and was able to get him to relax and cooperate.

On the last day of finding problem people I came in to hand in my last few binders and a girl came in and said she didn’t dare go into the gate of one home because of some big dogs. The FOS turned to me and asked if I would give it a try and I said I would. I went there and found a big gate with no trespassing and beware of dog signs all over. I first went around to all the neighbors and found out what I could about the guy, and then I went up and rattled the gate to see what I was dealing with. No dogs came so I figured I got lucky and they were in the house so I made lots of noise as I opened the gate and went up to the door. The guy answered the door to the sound of some very big mean dogs that were in the house barking and trying to get out of the door to tear me up. The guy was in shock that I would dare come up to the house and he asked what I was doing there. I told him I was with the census and needed to get some information. He asked if I saw the no trespassing signs and if the gate was closed. I said I saw them and the gate was closed. He said well then I think I will call the police. I said he should go ahead because the census is part of the constitution and we are required to answer the questions and there is a fine if we don’t. I told him it would not be the first time the police had been called on me and since they have to cooperate with me when they arrive it would be very helpful to me. I just acted confident and said I didn’t want to be there and he didn’t want me to be there but since I had to be there we might as well get this over with. I really took him by surprise so he settled down and answered my questions then I smiled and said to him, see that wasn’t that bad, and he smiled back at my boldness and we said our goodbyes and I left.

I had a few others that were adamant about their right to privacy and I had gone to their neighbors first (that’s the secret with these problem people) and got most of their information and I just said I needed to verify that the information I already had was correct (I didn’t tell them where I got it). They seemed to always want to hear what I already had so they let me continue. When I read names and birthdays, etc. they would just answer if they were correct and fix any that were not. With my sneaky tactics I got more information than the average census taker. I learned some pretty good tricks in those few weeks. Too bad they can’t use people who know what they are doing over and over again with each census. Practice makes perfect but since it only happens every 10 years they can’t really get too many people who really know what they are doing to come back (actually some of the people who did the census have done it before).

After that program we were all told that since we finished early we might go help other states. We heard that we might go to Louisiana, then South Dakota, then Las Vegas – all places that were behind and might need our help. Most of us were very excited to be able to go; it would have been good money for us and a new experience. Well, the excitement didn’t last very long because a few days before we were supposed to go they called and said never mind. Then they thought we might go to St. George to help there, then they said no but we would help in Provo. When Provo found out about that they weren’t very excited about it since they wanted to get paid to do their own work and just because we finished early we shouldn’t get their paychecks, anyway it was a mess and I don’t have time to go over all the details (besides you would get bored if you aren’t already). Well Salt Lake sent us down there anyway and we did a few days of work with them not being very grateful (as I said, all this happened over a few weeks and I’m not exactly sure now which ones (I’m writing in January 2011) but I think it was all in the last few weeks of June).

I also believe I got my next group to train for a few weeks of work in Salt Lake to look for places that had been labeled as nonexistent. I was sad that I couldn’t have kept my top 5 people from my original group but they wanted new groups in case people were working together to fake information but not really do the work. During training one of the people in my new group told me he though I would make a good boss. I hadn’t thought that while I was evaluating them as to how good they were going to work for me, they were evaluating me as to what kind of a boss I was going to be compared to their previous boss. Anyway, the training went well and we prepared to do the work after the 4^th of July (I think that’s how it happened – can’t remember if the training was after the 4^th or just the work, oh well, it doesn’t matter that much).

Well, other than the census the girls wanted to paint their rooms since they had marked up the walls with tape from posters and junk over the years and they were having girls come stay with them for 2 weeks from France, so they figured out what they wanted and they went and bought the paint and I spent much of the week helping them paint. It was a big project but it looked good when we finished.

The girls and I (Tami wasn't feeling well) went to Park City on Saturday as JetBlue booked the entire place for all the employees to come and play in. We went down the Alpine Slide and got some of the free food but we got there so late because of our work schedules that the lines were too long to really get around to all the cool stuff that was up there. We did have fun and once while we were standing in line I heard someone yell from across the way, “Mayor Shinn,” I knew they were calling for me so I looked over and sure enough it was someone else that had been in the play so we talked for a bit. I get that now and then in the library or at Smiths. Kids will tell their parents, “There is Mayor Shinn” because they don’t know my real name but they recognize me from the play. It is funny to see the reaction from some of the people once in a while. The librarian thought I must be someone real important because everyone kept coming up and talking to me when I was standing near the counter. I’m not used to that.

Jennifer bought a new bed so I spent part of this week (or the next, can’t remember) putting it together. It is a nice bunk bed with a couch on the bottom that can be made into a large bed and a normal twin bed on the top. She sure likes it.

After some good response on Facebook to a picture I took a few weeks ago of the Jordan River and Oquirrh Mountain Temples in a row I decided that since that shot was a bit foggy because of bad weather I should go out and get a better shot. On Friday the 25^th I was out doing something early in the morning and I went over to the same spot and got some better shots. On my way back to the car I noticed some yellow flowers (weeds really) that had the sun behind them. I couldn’t resist so I took some pictures of them. To what end I don’t know but I took them.

Well, that’s all I can remember from this week.

Keep your journals up, it’s hard to remember a half a year later what went down,

Love you all,

Ken and clan