Counting souls...

I'm a census enumerator. I count people.
In case you weren't aware, my job description is to BE NOSY. It's not creepy, I'm not an ass, I'm not here to steal your land (Unless you're Native American. Sorry, but when you take a job with the Federal Government, they make you swear an oath.) and I'm not going to sell your information online. I'm really not trying to make your life harder. I'm doing a job. A necessary job.
Think about it for a second: Even though we say at the door that this will take "about ten minutes," for most people I interview it barely takes five. Five minutes. Not just that, but five minutes every ten years. We don't do this every day. How long do you spend in a day getting coffee? How long do you spend checking your email? It's not that much. I'm not unsympathetic. I don't like answering my door for strangers. That's fine. You DON'T have to like me. You are, however, required by law to talk to me.
It isn't exactly a pointless conversation. There are any number of tangible benefits: voting districts, school districts, and (here's the one you'll really love) money. Money, in this beautiful, benighted country of ours, is apportioned by numbers. How much the government takes, how much it spends, how much it apportions out to the various institutions, funds and purposes; all this is determined by a decennial census. Seriously, in terms of proportional difficulty this rates alongside raising your hand when the teacher called your name at the beginning of class. It's not hard.
I swore and oath at the beginning of this process to uphold the secrecy of your information. This oath was sworn before my god, which isn't your god, but which I take seriously nonetheless. Are there dishonest folks out there who will misuse this information given half a chance? I have no doubt that there are, but the crucial point is that they are the vast minority. We're just people, doing what is (at its core) a patriotic job. Please, don't treat us like crap... please?