JUSTIFICACION DEL PROBLEMA:

DAFS’ production of GP was occasionally threatened due to actors’

competing valuations of the ‘good’ to be performed. Veronica’s case is an example. Sensing a conflict between her personal and DAFS’ valuation of GP, she decided to re-articulate the latter to justify her preferred ‘good’. Her decision, which diverged from management’s definition of the ‘good’, the business process, monitoring tools, procedural manuals, and other such devices, caused an imbalance in the configured network. As an Intake worker, Veronica conducted initial reviews of child support

164 applications and case referrals. When confronted with a case requiring further review, rather than passing it on to the next team, Veronica decided to carry out the

assessment. Her decision to go beyond the confines of her work, an indication of an overflow, was triggered by her familiarity with case management work. The

knowledge and experience she acquired having worked in different departments compelled her to address the case immediately instead of allowing it to drag on. But because her decision meant delaying the processing of other cases in her caseload, she failed to meet her production goals, was put on a Performance Improvement Plan, and consequently lost her AWS. Management was not supportive of her decision. Backed by workflows, devices, and data reports on production outputs, they expressed their disagreement with her decision and reminded her to keep the cases flowing according to DAFS’ business process. Veronica, annoyed by the reprimand, felt like a prisoner of her own devices that tracked her every move. She felt that her professional discretion and valuation of ‘good case management’ were being discounted by the prevailing ‘good’ inscribed in and imposed by the devices and procedures to which she as a caseworker was attached and ‘locked in’ (Callon & Rabeharisoa, 2008; Dambrin & Robson, 2011). Her professional boundaries established by the

specialization, along with the operational tools, presented constraints to the delivery of case management work. Veronica, in a focus group, described the conflict in this way:

….so my Supervisor will say, ‘Veronica, don’t do Locate’s job, don’t do Establishment’s job.’ And I’m like, I’m just doing the job. If I see something, whether it’s a social security…. If he’s in jail, I’m gonna look Google and see if he’s in inmate search. I’m gonna at least make that attempt. Now Locate can do a fuller, you know, research on it if I can’t find him right away. But, why would I not do that? I’m in the case already. […] I don’t know. And I guess just sort of my experience, I know more, I see more. I mean, I was a clerk, I’m in the… a court clerk. I worked for Enforcement for just a brief time, and Intake. I just… I don’t know, I feel I’m well rounded so… that’s hurting me with my numbers, but yet I’m getting the cases done correctly. (Veronica, FG4Caseworkers)

165 Supporting Veronica’s views, Sheila jumped in and expressed a similar

sentiment.

Sheila: We’re both on the same page in that when a case leaves Intake, we want it to be perfect for the next person that touches it. I don’t want anybody coming behind me having to clean up a mess or having to do any unnecessary work, for example, a pseudo is assigned to the case. All you have to do is look in DMV and get the ‘social’ and update it. But that’s too much work.

Veronica: It’s an extra step.

Sheila: It’s an extra step. But the person that comes behind me, if I update that ‘social’ in the system and it hits the interfaces overnight with the different computer systems that we have, the next person that picks it up is gonna probably have an employer, an address, whatever. But all I had to do was update the ‘social’ to help them do their job.

KM: But that’s not encouraged because that’s not what you need to do. Sheila: It takes too much time. I’m doing somebody else’s work.

(FG4Caseworkers)

Considering herself a ‘good worker’, Sheila’s attempt to immediately address the issue at hand was her way of expressing and mobilizing her preferred ‘good’. But, like Veronica, her decision to act in this way was not well received by management because of the disruption to the process and tracking devices supporting the

organization’s strategic approach and coordinated work. Indeed, such deviations would be perceived as a betrayal of DAFS’ network to act as one (Dambrin & Robson, 2011). But, the disruption to the reproduction of the circulating ‘good’ was perhaps Veronica and Sheila’s prefigurative form of organizing through which they could express and enact their desired change in the present (Reinecke, 2018) and challenge DAFS’ developing structure and number-driven public service.

For these caseworkers, using their professional discretion meant putting their monthly targets (and preferred schedules) on the line. Veronica, in particular,

struggled to meet her goals because of the time required to perform tasks that were not expected of her. But for her, these tasks formed part of what she considered to be ‘good case management work’. She was annoyed by how some caseworkers ignored

166 what she thought were important steps in the processing of cases just so they could

meet their ‘stats’. Because of the potential tradeoffs that the monthly targets imposed, she expressed her frustration and said that ‘[the number] doesn’t allow the worker to work the cases’ – an indication of a weak connection between the numbers’

articulated ‘good’ and her version of the ‘good’. Despite management’s constant reminder to spend less time on each case, Veronica persisted in delivering her ‘quality’ work.

[…] So, they have to do whatever they need to do. But in the meantime, I’m working the cases after you, and I’m doing the quality part because I’m not gonna let this case just go […]; and so, I’m taking longer on this case, but you’re getting your easy stat. (Veronica, FG4Caseworkers)

The establishment of specialized functional units to contain the production of DAFS’ GP was bound to overflow due to caseworker lifers who had worked on cases from ‘cradle to grave’ and acquired the cross-functional knowledge and experience to handle cases differently. The restriction imposed by their specialization made their connections to the ‘outside world’ (Callon, 1998a) – that is, outside their specialized unit – more visible, offering them a broader landscape for their own framing to help in their decisions and actions on specific cases and urging them to deliver the good work that at one time was highly valued. Hence, such lifers, like Veronica, found it difficult not to step out of bounds. As Allison said,

… because some of the ones that have been here longer when we were the ‘cradle to grave’, there’s some of that stuff they know, so they wanna dig in deeper. So, it’s that constant reminder to them that… and the way we’ve kind of explained it is ‘the cakes come in, you’re doing the icing on it; somebody else is really going into the meat of it, because you get the case in, you figure out the general information, when you send it to Paternity Establishment or Enforcement, they’re going to take it from here to figure out what’s needed,… (Allison, InterviewManagement, emphasis added)

If Veronica’s views were shared across the wider unit, this could cause major disruptions and encourage a disgruntled group to emerge. Allison’s language,

167 re-articulating the boundaries of an Intake caseworker’s job under the specialized

model. This rhetorical device was her way of reproducing the model that the employee perhaps could appreciate. By using this language, she further framed not just the employee’s role, but also the actions that constituted that role. Hence, the employee, the role, and the actions were ‘reformulated’ to better align with the area of specialization and enable the enactment of the measures within the established

network of relations. Whether this would change Veronica’s approach in the long run remains to be seen. For now, at least, the subversive behavior seems to be under control.