What is the flex schedule that you talked about?

Well basically it started out having like you had to choose like a start and stop time, but you had variances like, I went from an eight to five to a seven thirty to eleven forty-five, twelve fifteen to four kind of schedule, you could do that. Then eventually they made a total flex time where right now, the way it works is that Mondays and Fridays are totally free days, you can come and go as you please; Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays you have to be here---the core hours are eight thirty to eleven thirty and then like one to three. And basically, you are expected with over a two week period to get to eighty hours of work in, which is pretty nice and for the most part, people tend to work the same schedules, so it's more organized than what it would appear, it's not as chaotic as it would appear. Tuesdays through Thursdays, that's when meetings are supposed to be held, you're not supposed to really schedule meetings on Mondays or Fridays because the expectation is that somebody may not be there and that's okay. And that seems to work out for the most part. Like I said for the most part people tend to work---you know we are creatures of habit, we tend to work the same schedules but it's so nice to have that flexibility to say I got a dentist appointment, I'll be back in an hour. That's one thing I mean, having friends that work in other places in the private sector, I mean that's something a lot of times they don't have that complete flexibility and that's just been a real gift, it makes up for some of the other things maybe we don't have, you know it really does. So I always thought that was kind of a cool thing.

Did that start relatively recently?

No that's been in since oh gosh I want to say in the'80s sometime. They were actually pretty forward things in that, I think. I remember doing a lot of reading about it at the time and I don't recall whether it was because I had to do something for school or what, I can't remember. But anyway it was interesting too, that it really does help morale and the fact that people do tend to work the same schedule so you are giving them something really nice, but it's really not as chaotic to the organization as it would appear. I'm not sure now, it seems to me people come pretty freely now, when I come in the morning there's no---I might come in at nine there's still not people coming in after that, I think well that's strange, but I don't care.

How is the reaction of staff members to the flex schedule?

I think it was probably kind of hard on the people that had worked here a long time, because that wasn't the way it was sort of thing. I just thought it was great, most of the people that I worked with thought it was wonderful. I never had any big issues with it, so I would say the majority of the people probably thought this is pretty nice and I'm sure there were a few that thought it was just awful, you know what's the world coming to, but you know, I think they got over it when they realized this isn't so bad. I think some of the supervisors were a little concerned and I never really had that issue as a supervisor too much, but I did make sure that when I'd get their time sheets if it didn't reflect, I said you know you got to make up---well see then we got this tool where we can make up to twenty-four hours of comp time every two weeks, you can carry over twenty-four hours and I always made sure, I said you got to use comp time for that because you weren't here. Because I said you know, you are always telling me you're going, but you have to follow the rules because the first thing you don't ever want to get in trouble with a time sheet or travel voucher, that's the first place they look if they want to do something, I said that's where they go first. But I never really had that issue with people, I mean there were some instances where I had to kind of talk to people, but for the most time people really respected it and took it for what it was and thought it was a good thing and they didn't want to wreck it.