Congrats on landing the job, Peter, even if it isn’t the one you’d prefer.  Who knows?  The other one might still call you up and say they’ve decided to hire you, in which case you can politely decline the other one. 

Congrats on the job Peter.  It may not be just what you want but it’s a step in the right direction.  Other opportunities will come along sooner or later but in the meantime you have a job. 

My apologies but I’m not comfortable with this though I’d still like to say ‘congrats’.  You went to university and this kind of work is not what student loans pay for.  While you may only be collecting data, I don’t answer the door for any kind of soliciting and in fact have a rather large ‘NO SOLICITING’ sign attached. 

I know that one method to encourage this kind of activity is reminding such employees ‘If you are hungry enough, you’ll do fine’.  There have been past attempts to criminalize this in some areas of the United States, sort of like the No Call lists. 

What kind of information will you be gathering?