IMAGINE BEING propositioned by a member of the same sex, chased around by dogs, barked at by suspicious business operators and having to get clearances from community leaders, or dons in some instances, just to do your job. Sounds like some private eye or someone from the criminal underworld, right?
Well, think again, because the reference is actually to your friendly field officer from the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN).
Meet Donna Wilson and Herbert Wallace, two supervisory officers of the institute, whose functions relate to sections of the Corporate Area and central and western Jamaica, where as front-line field officers in the past, and now as supervisors, they can readily tell the tales of the good and bad that are encountered in the line of duty. The two were speaking in a recent interview relative to the institute's ongoing drive to bring about better public understanding of its roles, functions and responsibilities to individuals and the nation.
GENERAL OUTLINE
The two, who now provide support and direction for numerous teams of interviewers in the field, gave a general outline of the typical experiences on the job. For example, they said rural area householders were generally most accommodative of the interviewers among all categories of respondents. In the urban centres, they said, the middle and upper income householders were in general most difficult to access, while interestingly, the least problems were encountered in the inner-city or ghetto communities.
"The inner-city people will sometimes quarrel or say things about the government, but they are easier to get on board. But people, say in the Duhaney Park, Washington Gardens areas, where there is more of a middle income standing, are much more difficult to deal with," said Ms. Wilson, whose area of responsibility after 18 years with the institute now covers much of St. Andrew, along with Eastern Kingston.
UPPER CLASS FOLKS
"When it comes to the upper class folks, the biggest problem we encounter is to find them or access them at home. You have to generally speak to the security guards at the gates and most times they tell you the householders are not there or they say you have to make an appointment, and when you do so and go back there, you hear: 'Oh, it's Sunday and I am resting'," outlined Ms. Wilson. Her colleague nodded in confirmation.
Wilson said she has been attacked by vicious dogs on a number of occasions, resulting in her clothing being torn by the animals on more than one occasion and her falling to the ground in the process. A major part of the problem, she suggested, was a general suspicion among businesspersons that information supplied to STATIN may end up being passed to the tax authorities. She said the law prohibited any such action and the volume of information that comes into the institute made that an impractical scenario, as the data compiling system was far remote from any special note about individual interviews.
Ms. Wilson recalled being seductively stroked on the hips by a female respondent while being protected from dogs in a yard. "Come in, come right in baby. Yuh think mi coulda mek dog bite yuh with dem ya big broad hips ya, yuh must be joking," she recalled the robust looking woman saying before she was gracefully restrained in her actions. Likewise, Ms. Wilson said she had gotten personal and confidential confessions from respondents and had ended up doing a bit of counselling from time to time. Similarly, in the inner-city areas, she has had to resort to the intervention of a community don or two in a few instances, to ensure calm while the interviewing process took place.
ACCESS
Mr. Wallace, after 21 years with STATIN, now supervises both supervisors and interviewers. He said in many affluent areas of Montego Bay, for example, interviewers travelling on foot were hardly able to access persons from the many gated communities that dot the landscape and it often necessitated supervisors to get the job done.
In recalling some of his own 'intriguing encounters' in the field, the now senior supervisor said on his first field day on the job he got an enumeration district to cover and in no time, got lost in the mire of confusion that arose in his young mind between the document and the physical landscape he had encountered.
"Confusion was definitely setting in and it became clear that I was not making any headway, but in the midst of it all, I met a young woman who was about seven to eight months pregnant," outlined Mr. Wallace. "She asked what I was doing and upon being told, asked for some of names on the list of persons to be interviewed. In little time she had me back on track and actually accompanied me for the entire day, doing the introductions all along the way. Up until this day, after 21 years, I still keep in touch with that lady, because I know that had it not been for her, I may have become fed up and quitted the job after the very first day in the field," he emphasised.
On the very negative side, Mr. Wallace said he was actually threatened and attacked with a machete in Manchester during a survey there many years ago. He said for no apparent reason, his papers were taken away and torn up and he had to resort to the use of a piece of wood to ward off his aggressor.
