This paper looks at the micro-politics of trouble in one office of the Work Incentive Program, which is intended to help some welfare recipients in the United States find jobs. Clients who fail to cooperate with staff are called to a conciliation session, presented with a formal complaint, informed of the potential consequences of their uncooperativeness, and held accountable for their actions. This paper focuses on how the conciliation sessions are organized, and their implications for staff and client definitions of cooperation, accountability, organizational purpose, and professional identity. I also consider the broader implications of my findings for studying trouble as a feature of all human service institutions. Emerson and Messinger's (1949) approach to the micro-politics of trouble emphasizes the emergence of personal troubles as problematic features of ongoing human relationships. These personal troubles become public problems when institutional officials intervene. Moreover, personal troubles are frequently redefined and reorganized as they become public problems through the interpretations of the officials, the reinterpretations of the disputing parties, and the selection of remedies to the troubles. Emerson (1981) shows how such public problems continue to develop and change based on the efforts of officials to find new, more effective, and acceptable remedies. Those who resist the best efforts of officials may face drastic responses, which are viewed by officials as resorts to be avoided as long as possible. Of the several advantages that this approach offers students of social problems and social control, two are especially important for this paper. First, this approach defines trouble and social control as issues extending beyond the formal, institutional processes associated with labeling persons as deviant; rather, trouble is treated as a potential feature of all human relationships and institutions. A central concern of sociologists of trouble, then, is how persons negotiate and define features of their relationships with others as troublesome and how they deal with these troubles. A second advantage of Emerson and Messinger's (1977) and Emerson's (1981) approach is their focus on the relationship between the selection of remedies and the definition of public problems as a process involving technical and moral (or symbolic) elements. This focus is partly reflected in the process used to select a remedy because a remedy that might be useful in eradicating a condition may also be morally unacceptable except under extreme conditions. The dialectic linking technical and moral elements is also evident in the relationship between the remedy selected (particularly, appeals to last resorts) and the claims to competence and credibility made by professionals and others seeking to define the condition.