Recently I wrote Census 2011: What do I do? about the “occupation” questions on the UK 2011 Census form. The issue was to summarise what I do in a way that would be as understandable as “School teacher” or “Car mechanic” and I tried to list everything I do in my earlier post. Particularly because the question asks about your main employment, following a helpful suggestion from commenter Liz, I put “Educational Advisor”. I feel like I’ve been sold short by being pigeonholed, but it’s better than everything else I thought of. The second part was to describe what I do in only 34 characters (including spaces). “Higher education funding and staff development” was too long, so I put “HE funding and staff development”, which isn’t really right in any case.
And the Census failed to capture that I am a student part time alongside work, which I think is a missed opportunity. And it didn’t find out I take the bus to the railway station on the way to work, so my local Council’s pleas about allocating funds to local areas won’t be helped. There are some other issues (BSc or PhD? What’s the difference?) but let’s stop there.
Sigh.