“Here’s another one, empty,” says supervisor Ann Zager as she guides me among vacant chairs and black computer terminals. Her staff of 13 determines eligibility for assistance, and half of them are not here.
“I mean sometimes I don’t see or hear from them for days,” Zager says.
Zager has figured out that she needs only five or six staffers at a time to handle face-to-fact client meetings. Everyone takes turns being in the office, and otherwise schedules themselves as they wish.
“At first it was really hard for them,” she says. “They would come to me and say, ‘Ann, I need to take off next week, or I need to do this.'” Zager would remind them that if they were not scheduled to be in the office, they did not owe her any explanation.
“It was hard for them to believe I really don’t care!” she says.
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