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It started as a routine conference call. But at some point during the call, Representative
Anthony D. Weiner became furious, convinced that his scheduler had not given him a crucial piece of information.
His scheduler, John J. Graff, who was in the next room, suddenly heard the congressman yelling at him through the wall.
Then, Mr. Graff recalled, Mr. Weiner started pounding his fists on his desk, kicked a chair and unleashed a string of expletives.
Two weeks later, Mr. Graff, a Navy veteran, became the latest of a sizable number of staff members who have resigned after an abbreviated stint with Mr. Weiner, a Democrat who represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens.
“I push people pretty hard,” said Mr. Weiner, who acknowledged getting upset at Mr. Graff. “And there are, from time to time, staffers who don’t take to it or just don’t like being pushed that hard. But I really regretted him leaving. He was a marine. I’m like, ‘How bad is this?’ It’s even worse than boot camp.”
It is rarely easy working for any member of Congress, with the low pay, long hours and endless politics. But Mr. Weiner, who is running for New York City mayor next year, is without question one of the most intense and demanding, according to interviews with more than two dozen former employees, Congressional colleagues and lobbyists.
Mr. Weiner, a technology fiend who requires little sleep and rarely takes a day off, routinely instant messages his employees on weekends, often just one-word missives: “Teeth” (as in, your answer reminds me of pulling teeth) or “weeds” (as in, you are too much in the weeds). Never shy about belting out R-rated language, he enjoys challenging staff members on issues, even at parties.
And, in a city saturated with transient career hoppers, Mr. Weiner has presided over more turnover than any other member of the New York House delegation in the last six years, according to an analysis of Congressional data. Roughly half of Mr. Weiner’s current staff has been on board for less than a year. Since early 2007, he has had three chiefs of staff.
Mr. Weiner’s actions as a boss of 20 or so employees, representing almost 700,000 people, offer clues about how he might handle perhaps 300,000 city workers, with eight million constituents.
“I’ve already found out that of the 300,000 employees, they only let you have 200,000 I.M. addresses at once open on your screen,” he joked.
The congressman says that his ferocity is simply reflective of his New York roots, and that he speaks at a high decibel level most of the time, so it may sound to others as if he is shouting. His district staff — perhaps more accustomed to an aggressive style — tends to be more steady than his Washington office.
“When you grow up in Brooklyn, you know, sometimes arguing is the sport,” he said.
Still, he admitted that he could occasionally be rough on office furniture, and said: “Very often people say things to me on the phone that frustrate me. I sometimes hang up phones with an excess amount of enthusiasm after a call hasn’t gone my way.”
Some former employees suggest that if he were elected to City Hall, the congressman might face a difficult transition to a job requiring executive aplomb and delegation. Do not be surprised, these former employees say, if a Weiner administration experiences a high degree of turnover.
But to other employees, Mr. Weiner is refreshingly dedicated and forthright. His command of the issues, coupled with his tireless devotion to constituent concerns, underscores a genuine devotion to and eagerness to fight for his native city.
Even Mr. Graff, who told Mr. Weiner he was a “petulant child” when the congressman yelled at him about the conference call, said he did not hold a grudge.
“I was given fair warning in my interviews that Anthony is very difficult to work for, and I was told all the horror stories — the telephone throwing, etc.,” said Mr. Graff, who now works for the Democratic National Committee. “But in the end I decided I could deal with that. I do hope that he’s able to work on his temper and get that under control. He’s really talented, and it was really an honor to have the opportunity to work for him. I’m rooting for him for mayor.”
Mr. Weiner attributes the high turnover on his staff, in part, to the high expectations he sets for his employees and the relatively low salaries he offers them. As for how he would manage City Hall, he said that he was devouring mayoral biographies to see how others had done it, and that he believed he could strike the right balance:
“What I’m going to try to do is try to internalize some of the things that have worked and not worked before. I think that having the police commissioner or any commissioner be afraid to take a step for fear of antagonizing their boss, I don’t want that. I want them to feel they’re empowered to do things. But I also want them to know that, every so often, they’re going to have a conversation with me where I really want to know what’s going on. I want to be involved in problem-solving.”
Mr. Weiner, 43, honed his instincts while working for Charles E. Schumer, the New York senator who is legendary in political circles for being a brilliant yet overbearing boss. And because Mr. Weiner performed just about every job for Mr. Schumer, he knows exactly what he wants — and then some.
“People joke that two years of Chuck equals one year of Anthony,” said one employee who, like most interviewed, insisted on anonymity for fear of alienating their boss, who also could be the next mayor of New York.
Marc Dunkelman, a former chief of staff who remains close to Mr. Weiner, said he relished the congressman’s hardball immersion course in government and politics.
“You’re sitting there at 8 or 9 p.m., on a Wednesday night, thinking about this data that you just got about how rent has changed in the five boroughs, and there are almost no lights on in the caverns of the House office building,” said Mr. Dunkelman, now a vice president with the Democratic Leadership Council. “I loved it.”
Those who did not love it, especially in Washington, typically did not last long with Mr. Weiner. “If you’ve come to Washington to be taken to fancy dinners, do de minimis work, schmooze with people and hope that 10 years on you will be hired to go downtown and be a lobbyist on K Street, this is not the place for you,” Mr. Dunkelman said.
The revolving door in Mr. Weiner’s office, however, has not gone unnoticed by people who interact with his staff. Several people said that the constant churn created an air of instability.
“You never know who’s there, because they aren’t there long enough to remember their names,” said one Congressional staff member who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Employees quickly learn how to read Mr. Weiner’s body language. He is known as a sports-loving wiseacre, but when he digs into an issue he cares deeply about and his temples are raised, seemingly ready to burst, watch out.
Lobbyists say Mr. Weiner’s employees are a different breed, too. They usually seek granular policy details and ask better questions than anyone else, but they also seem much more harried, as if fearful to face the boss, ever the micromanager, without the answers he wants.
“It comes across as more urgent and more specific,” said one New York lobbyist who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the prospect of working with Mr. Weiner. “If they didn’t identify themselves as being from Weiner’s office, you could tell.”
Mr. Weiner embraces the latest high-tech gadgets. He was using instant messaging and text messaging services shortly after arriving in Congress in 1998, when he was elected in an upset, said Serena Torrey, who was Mr. Weiner’s communications director from 1999 to 2001.
“He has no patience for bureaucracy and the molasses speed things are often done in government,” said Ms. Torrey, who is now executive director of business development and corporate communications for New York Media, the parent company of New York magazine.
Not everyone applauds his unending multitasking. During a panel on the middle class in January at the New School with the mayors of Miami, Honolulu and Buffalo, Mr. Weiner irked some audience members by constantly working on his BlackBerry, as an assistant continuously ferried documents to him on the dais.
“The clock is always ticking,” Mr. Weiner explained.
Staff members who go out of e-mail range for even a few hours sometimes risk rebuke. One described being unavailable once on a weekend afternoon and immediately calling the office after noticing a stream of increasingly exasperated e-mails among Mr. Weiner and his top lieutenants. A senior staff member curtly responded, “That’s why we have BlackBerrys.”
Still, those who have gained Mr. Weiner’s trust stay in touch, sometimes via instant messaging, and they say the congressman has often gone out of his way to help them land jobs. There is a camaraderie that emerges, some say, after surviving what one person likened to a Congressional version of “Survivor.”
Mr. Weiner, who described himself as a tough but fair boss, said he was setting an example by his own work ethic: “I don’t know anyone who works harder than me.”
But schedulers, he conceded, have an especially challenging time with him, because of his zealous focus on where he needs to be and who he needs to talk to.
“It is an impossible job, I freely admit,” Mr. Weiner said. “When you’ve been through a job being scheduler, you’re entitled to say whatever about me when you’re done. I have nothing but love for people who endured it, even if they endured it for a short period of time.”
