"Frederik Pohl - The Census Takers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pohl Frederick)

The Census Takers
IT GETS TO BE A MADHOUSE around here along about the
end of the first week. Thank heaven we only do this
once a year, that's what I say! Six weeks on, and forty-six
weeks offthat's pretty good hours, most people think.
But they don't know what those six weeks are like.
It's bad enough for the field crews, but when you get to
be an Area Boss like me it's frantic. You work your way
up through the ranks, and then they give you a whole C.A.
of your own; and you think you've got it made. Fifty
three-man crews go out, covering the whole Census Area;
a hundred and fifty men in the field, and twenty or thirty
more in Area Commandand you boss them all. And
everything looks great, until- Census Period starts and
you've got to work those hundred and fifty men; and six
weeks is too unbearably long to live through, and too im-
possibly short to get the work done; and you begin living
on black coffee and thiamin shots and dreaming about the
vacation hostel on Point Loma.
Anybody can panic, when the pressure is on like that.
Your best field men begin to crack up. But you can't
afford to, because you're the Area Boss. ...
Take Witeck. We were Enumerators together, and he
was as good a man as you ever saw, absolutely nerveless
when it came to processing the Overs. I counted on that
man the way I counted on my own right arm; I always
bracketed him with the greenest, shakiest new cadet
Enumerators, and he never gave me a moment's trouble
for years. Maybe it was too good to last; maybe I should
have figured he would crack.
I set up my Area Command in a plush penthouse apart-
ment. The people who lived there were pretty well off,
you know, and they naturally raised the dickens about
being shoved out. "Blow it," I told them. "Get out of here
in five minutes, and we'll count you first." Well, that took
care of that; they were practically kissing my feet on the
way out. Of course, it wasn't strictly by the book, but you
have to be a little flexible; that's why some men-become
Area Bosses, and others stay Enumerators.
Like Witeck.
Along about Day Eight things were really hotting up. I
was up to my neck in hurry-ups from Regional Control
we were running a little slowwhen Witeck called up.
"Chief," he said, "I've got an In."
I grabbed the rotary file with one hand and a pencil
with the other. "Blue card number?" I asked.
Witeck sounded funny over the phone. "Well, Chief,"
he said, "he doesn't have a blue card. He says"
"No blue card?" I couldn't believe it. Come in to a