So my new job is going very well, doing surveys for the GTAA. It basically involves driving around whatever local council area is employing us for that week and interviewing Gypsies and Travellers about what their and their families' accommodation needs might be over the next five years.
Councils are obliged by national law to consult Gypsies and Travellers every five years, and many councils contract out to the company I work for and me and my colleague head out and do the field work.
So we get a bunch of site forms every week and on one site there might be anything from nothing, or just one plot, up to several dozens, and it's a mix of public and private sites.
Some can be a bit rough, with dogs roaming around and rubbish everywhere, but I am reliably informed that I haven't seen the very worst of it. Other sites can be very well kept and even quite desirable.
Generally people aren't keen to take part, as we all well know that the council may consult, but it's unlikely to actually do anything to help marginalised peoples. So for the most part we get greeted with suspicion and they decline to take part as there's no point.
However others are very polite and quite happily do the interviews which can take only 15 minutes if it's all prompt, or up to an hour if they're more complex cases and require signposting.
This last week has been one of driving around smaller sites all over Somerset, so hours of driving, and then mostly no one being in, or not answering, on sites with 5 pitches or less...
One of the pitches was right at the bottom of Glastonbury Tor!
I mean, what a beautiful place to live!
And the beautiful thing is this is what it is, I managed to do around 6 interviews this week (it was 2 the last time) and that's well over my target.... they sort of expect a huge non response rate, the most important thing is that we've made the effort.
So around 75% of the job is literally driving around and shouting over fences and no one answering.
It's not the kind of job you'd want to do if you needed a sense of doing something worthwhile, but if you've already ticked that box somewhere else in your life, then this is easy money.
Long may it continue!
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