I think my first case manager was bending to the point of snapping the actual rules. My understanding was that we were never supposed to be able to directly email our case managers, but that worked so much better. It was an unofficial twist. She probably did get reprimanded for it. That may be part of the reason why she took a transfer or was transferred. I've never really found out.
Neither of my case managers after that have been willing to do email. The first one also turned around and—I'm pretty sure this was breaking the rules—gave me her direct phone number—not her personal cell number, but her work cell number—so that I could contact her. If I missed a call from her, I could call her back and there was no problem.
My second case manager accidentally gave that to me. He forgot to block the number when he was making an outgoing call. I so rarely had any emergency while working with him, I think I only called him twice and it was completely fine. With the third one, there was absolutely no way was she going to do that. There was a barrier there. It's a barrier that's right in the system itself, that they're not supposed to have that level of immediate contact.