The voices of the front line soldiers of the welfare system -- social workers and others charged with day-to-day decisions about eligibility for benefits -- have been conspicuously absent in the discussion of welfare reform, perhaps because nobody asked. Though most of these workers are not in danger of losing their jobs, some are bitterly unhappy with the changes. A. Clay Thompson  takes advantage of an insider connection to bring us one caseworker's point of view.

My mom, let's call her "Sally," since she's forbidden to speak to the press, is freaking out. Welfare reform is driving her nuts. She's not a client, though she has been. She's a county caseworker in Virginia.

Mom was born and raised in a poor West Virginia town. In 1962, she became the first in her family to attend college. At the university in the Big City she got her BA, found a civil service job, and married my dad who also came from small-town America.

It wasn't always "Leave It To Beaver." Dad had a love/regret affair with demon alcohol, and was jobless for pretty long stretches -- one stretch passed the year mark. At times, we needed food stamps to get enough to eat.

"I will never forget the way people treated us when we were on stamps," mother says. "The guys at the supermarket would look at me like I was evil. I felt dehumanized, damned for needing help."

Today, the roles are reversed. She became a welfare caseworker when the county agency she worked for -- a therapy center for handicapped kids with poor parents -- was privatized.

"I've been on both sides of the desk. I try to be friendly and understanding," she says. "Even those people who are trying to scam -- like the guy who owned five nice cars and a house and wanted foodstamps -- deserve to be treated respectfully. My job is to say yes or no to SSI and foodstamp clients, not to dispense justice."

The death of welfare-as-we-know-it is creating hostility and paranoia. "My clients are frantic. They're outraged, fearful -- there's a lot of screaming and yelling at the office. Many don't understand what's going on. A large number are immigrant seniors who aren't literate in English."

I think of my friend Ra Sek who is 16. His father came here from Cambodia, disabled by torturers, and will lose his SSI coverage. Ra must find out what their rights are, what other programs are available -- he must piece out the puzzle for his family.

Mom has stories like this. "I have an old lady -- her son brought her over from Vietnam. She is 67, has cancer of the throat, and she can't swallow. Medicaid covers her treatment -- it's the only benefit her family gets. Now she's losing her Medicaid, and her family has no way to pay her medical bills."

They are angry. Mom is angry. No one consulted front line welfare workers about the implications of welfare law reform. The voices of caseworkers were conspicuously absent during the debate about "entitlement."

But these are the people, the public sector grunts, who have to implement the top-down policies -- those at the top treading on those who are down. Mom has to put into effect changes she finds morally abhorrent and socially disastrous.

Not all the employees in her office are so troubled. "Some of my co-workers are gloating -- since our caseload is being cut 25-50 percent, they think they're just going to sit around and talk half the day. " She adds, "A fair number of my colleagues don't seem to like our clients at all."

Will they be laid off if there's a big reduction in caseload? "All my co-workers figure they'll just get transferred to another county program. " Sounds like a kind of welfare. "Not to some of my colleagues -- they say 'Welfare is for poor people -- not people like us'."