Greeted by a wolf, accosted in a laneway and lost in a sea of uncharted new housing estates - the occupational hazards for a census enumerator can amount to much more than aching feet.
"I have had abuse and doors closed in my face. They say 1 per cent of the population are lunatics. I know it now," sighed Lorraine (not her real name).
Her main complaint is not, however, the variety of strange encounters she has had on the road in her semi-rural, semi-suburban patch this past month. The pet wolf was actually quite docile, she says.
Her gripe is the mileage rate paid to enumerators for driving around to deliver and collect the census forms. She has already clocked up 525 miles but can recover only €160 in expenses, a rate of 30 cent per mile when the normal Civil Service rate is about three times that amount.
"I've been up and down country roads - dirt tracks, really - stopping and starting all the time and having to call back as many as four times to deliver forms. I can put up with getting the minimum wage [€85 for a 25-hour week\] but I never expected to be at a financial loss on expenses."
Mr Aidan Punch, senior CSO statistician responsible for co-ordinating the census, accepts the mileage may work out lower than industry or Civil Service norms but says payments are dictated by the Department of Finance.
Mileage allowances are set in advance by a decades-old method of estimating the internal mileage of each enumeration area, multiplying it by six and applying a payment rate. The equation was set years ago and the variables are only changed if development has altered the settlement patterns of the area significantly.
Lorraine says the mileage set out for her in no way reflects the actual ground she has covered.
Mr Punch says the allowance is set in advance so enumerators can plan their journeys in the most efficient way. "If they know they have call-backs to do, they can group them together and do them in one journey. If they're going back and forth all the time without restriction, it's a blank cheque.
"It is a very tough job, I agree. I take my hat off to the enumerators. But they're half way there and there is a bonus at the end."