Office-Related Expenses Expected To Balloon Under Possible Weiner Administration

Apparently Rep. Weiner can be kind of a dick:

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.

. . .

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.