too personal

I had just got home, taken off my bicycle helmet and dropped my backpack when my doorbell rang. This is not a common occurrence. These days, most people call instead of ringing, maybe because they can do that from half a block away and thus won't have to wait for me to come down to open the door for them.

The only people that use the doorbell are EDF agents reading the meters and assorted parcel services delivering shipments. Sometimes Jehovah's witnesses come by, promising paradise or warning of doom. As I've never let them in, I don't know which it is. The other class of itinerant proselytizers, my Mormon coreligionists, have never stopped by, and overall, my doorbell doesn't get much exercise.

That's why I was so surprised when I heard the bell this evening. I opened the door and let a woman with a clipboard into the corridor. With a mild Slavic inflection, she explained her presence. "Your postcode has been selected for a post-census survey. Would you mind answering some questions for me. It will only take five minutes."

Just this afternoon, I had a conversation about the census. With the problems various government agencies have had keeping confidential information confidential, it should have been a no-brainer to return the form anonymously, never mind the legal obligation to the contrary. But when I filled the damn thing in, I chickened out and used my real name. I must have had negative brain activity, and I've been banging my head against walls ever since.

With purple-and-white questionnaire in my face, I saw a faint light of hope that I could correct my earlier lapse, but no such luck. The woman was going through a subset of the census question in some sort of control experiment. Matching the answers from people that were asked twice would give the Office for National Statistics a measure of the overall accuracy of the exercise. And so I answered questions regarding my age and professional and cohabitation status again.

Eventually, inevitably, the question of first name, last name came up. There was a short pause. I'm not a particularly confrontational person, but if I can avoid making the same mistake twice, I will insist on it. I explained my position to the poor woman. The I asked her why the name was necessary in the first place. Besides "most popular boys' names" rankings, no useful statistics can be derived from it.

I didn't want to give the poor woman a hard time. She was just doing her job, earning a little on the side in tough times. I recalled her saying that the post-census survey was voluntary. While I was contemplating pulling out after already spending five minutes on it, she relented. "Can you at least give me your initials?" I happily did so and a moment later we parted, both content.

The initial blunder remains, and my exposure to bureaucratic incompetence, but there's no point bewailing it. I went back up, cooked some stew in honor of our Queen's visit to Ireland, and popped in a CD while I ate. Then the telephone rang.