Set copiers to make double-sided prints. Reduce or eliminate binder copies of
reports. Reduce the number of color printers. Use alternative fuel vehicles within
the Lab fleet. These are a few of the more than 100 suggestions that come in to the
save-dollars e-mail at the Lab.
The Directors Office set up the e-mail to solicit employees suggestions, following
an announcement earlier this month that the Lab would go through significant
restructuring in the wake of budget shortfalls.
All suggestions go to a special kitchen cabinet led by Deputy Director Steve
Liedle, to look for ways to reduce Lab operating costs. The committee will consider
the various suggestions and communicate any actions via Newsline and News-
OnLine.
We are getting a number of worthwhile suggestions from our employees,
Liedle said. I encourage employees to continue providing their input to help our
Laboratory reduce its costs and become more efficient.
While many of the suggestions will take some study by the committee, Liedle
said there are a number of things employees can do individually to help the Lab.
The Laboratory is launching an effort to reduce energy consumption by 9 percent
below the 2003 level. Employees are encouraged to do their part by shutting down
computers at night, turning off printers and copiers, reducing the use of space heaters,and lowering office thermostats by a degree.
In the meantime, employees are encouraged to continue sending their suggestions
to reduce costs and energy to save-dollars@llnl.gov .
28 comments:
We all were under direct orders to keep our computers on so updates and backups could be performed. All everyone needs is a offical email saying we now have a new prime directive??? If we have leadership.....well lead?????
hey December 6, 2007 7:51 PM
L lost you. Can you rephrase your comment?
December 6, 2007 7:51 PM
Exactly what was your point? Was it they directed you to keep your computer on to do backups and security updates or, was it to imply they now know everyone who has been posting to the blog from work. Just where does leadership play into this request.
Leading is all well and good. The problem in this case was a lack of understanding on the part of ULM as to how computers are generally managed in a business environment.
Well, if the budget comes in and it is a 25% cut, we can run the lab nine months then shut it down for a long holiday. That should save some energy, as well as avoid a mass layoff.
Long Island Lighting Company, in the '80s, encouraged employee suggestions.
They got a lot of good suggestions and implemented many of them.
The carrot?
An employee received a check for 10% of the money saved.
One big winner was to check customer's electricity meters every other month instead of every month.
Hey Dec 6, 2007 7:51 pm
The point was, for the past two years or so, before the transition, we were always told to keep our computers on 24/7 for updates etc. It never made sense to waste all the power when you could schedule one or two days a week for everyone to leave computers on. Last week ULM made some statements regarding saving money...... but here is the POINT. If you want to truly save money ULM, step up to the plate and make some ongoing policy changes affective immediately. In laymans term SHOW SOME LEADERSHIP!
Thats all I was trying to say...thank-you
December 7, 2007 8:16 PM
Yeah ULM show some leadership. How about getting rid of 50% of the people on that 17 pages of management we now have with LLNS by sundown tomorrow. Then take a cut in pay whereby you'll only make 10% more that a top notch _experimental_ physicist something most of you in those ungodly position never did or weren't very good at.
Modern computers pull much less power when idle. Furthermore it is pretty much impossible to get people to do something like leaving their computers on only a day or two a week.
We are creatures of habit. Turning computers on and off constantly also leads to additional wear and tear which can shorten the life of the system.
Things could be done to improve the situation, but it isn't trivial.
8:50 p.m.
"Then take a cut in pay whereby you'll only make 10% more that a top notch _experimental_ physicist"
So that is the benchmark for LLNL? I thought our mission was national security, not experimental physics. You need to get off the LDRD heroin.
It's funny. A lot of people here seem to think ULM at LLNL sucks. Some also think that being in a position where mistakes potentially impact thousands of people directly and criticism is public and often very personal and cruel is only worth a 10% delta over what scientists make. I would have to disagree with that. I would agree that corporate salaries are way over the top but LLNL does not have that problem so far as I can see.
Check out the following..
http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_7676641?nclick_check=1
The most relevant text is " George Miller's salary was bumped $19,600 to $410,000, director of science and technology Cherry Murray's salary stayed at $337,000 and National Ignition Facility head Ed Moses' pay rose $18,000 to $330,000. And just like the rest of the employees, those raises have not yet gone into effect."
For somebody at those levels of management that is hardly out of line. So you have two choices here in my opinion. Either acknowledge that we are getting what we're (not) paying for, or acknowledge that while there are problems, excessive compensation of ULM is clearly not one of them.
Not so. Leaving desktop computers on when not in use for extended periods wastes a considerable amount of energy. Even just having the monitor go to sleep would save and shouldn't be an inconvience to anyone. It used to be that the Retrospect on my old Mac+ could be set to shut down the computer after the backup was completed. On my OS-X Mac, I don't even see such a setting.
How about eliminating all those meetings managers love to have? I swear there must be quota to meet as part of their performance evaluation.
Get rid of meetings and you don't need the fancy projectors, printers running off multiple copies of agenda items, etc.
Also the workers could improve their productity by not having to go to these silly things - adding 5% or more time to their working day.
And without meetings, a lot of managers would be redundant, hence could be let go with little impact to the organisation.
Why does it take 3 workers to deliver material to our dock,132s? Why not one, get a forklift that mounts on the back of the truck like the turf trucks have? Why are there so many street lights , turn off every third one and save one third? Many workers have poor motivation for work , i wonder why, parking, paper work, low challenging work,just a cog in the wheel, never see your boss unless there is a major problem .
I cannot believe that someone on this blog has not mentioned the biggest cost to the lab at this time and it's not computers. The folks in Global Security, yes Program Managers, who "assign" projects (mine, yours) to themselves and take a cut off the top under the guise of providing "oversight." These folks are making >$150K/year and without any service...basically parasites. I wouldn't have a problem with this if they were, for instance, going to Washington to meet with my sponsor to secure further money or writing my monthly and annual reports but there is no added value here. My "Program Manager" has never even contacted me! And I've heard that their costs are going to increase because they don't have enough money to cover themselves. Why aren't people screaming about this?
December 9, 2007 7:43 AM
For what some of these folks provide I think they are grossly overpaid. They don't even have a basic understanding of how difficult it is to get money...I feel that they are completely out of touch with us and this is a shame.
I do my best "buttheaded cowboy" imitation every day in the hope that becoming just like LANL will get us a better severence package.
Who cares about this nonsense. When do we get our raises?
..Turning computers on and off constantly also leads to additional wear and tear which can shorten the life of the system..."
We're getting fucked out of millions of dollars so Really Bechtel can buy Sam Bodman the finest hookers money can buy and you worry about your desktop?
I love technical folks....
Get rid of the managers and the mandates and meetings will disappear.
Get rid of NNSA and we can get back to work.
How about having ULM live in DC?
How about having the assurance office work in Nevada. Cleaner product at Moonlight Ranch....
It starts will Miller. He is surrounded by folks paid only by overhead. He hires, he delegates, he raises taxes, he forgets.
He is not serious about saving funds until he gores the burdens.
Lets build some wind farms. It is a bit tounge and cheek, but, we have hundreds of EBAs and tons of scrap lying around. Lets just do it.
If we get enough energy generation we can stop worrying about shuffling people between buildings (buildings are getting shut down now to avoid energy costs) and stop worrying about the on off switch on our computers, and just start getting the job done.
Anyone think it is ironic that we have NIF, a multi-billion dollar experiment to solve the worlds energy needs, and at the same we can't afford to run our own lights?
December 9, 2007 7:43 AM
Anonymous said...
"For somebody at those levels of management that is hardly out of line. So you have two choices here in my opinion. Either acknowledge that we are getting what we're (not) paying for, or acknowledge that while there are problems, excessive compensation of ULM is clearly not one of them."
I hate to say this but you must be lapping at the lowest possible exterminates or doing some serious lap dancing. I've seen some a lot butt kissing in my life but never before at this level. This post takes the cake.
Tell me master mind, just what the heck do these people do besides hobnobbing with the politicians all day long at their catered to luncheons while relishing in their menial exercises of needless management practices that in the end accomplish no more that a four year MBA could have done in a week.
These people got where their are through a route known as the _Peter Principle_, that would mean, " when you are no good at your job as an experimentalist physicists or engineer they move you to the next level of incompetence", where they thought you couldn't do any hard; but unfortunately it's where they now can do the most harm as we can see with our own eyes. That next level of incompetence is known as ULM "upper level management".
When I come to think of it most of the managers at LLNL are non skilled labor and the majority are not good people managers. That's not what they were trained for. So basically what LLNL has done is taken the worse of the college grads and those who should have been RIF'd decades ago and placed in charge, whereby they're over paid and given ungodly salaries for doing nothing. Do you get that. NOTHING.
In the three decades I've worked at LLNL I found a hand full that were good people mangers and excellent experimentalist . It's those well rounded individuals I have respect for. When I review the 17 pages of LLNS fluff I see no one that could hold a candle to the few good people know that are still around. So far as I 'm concerned LLNS could dispose of all 17 pages of the ones I noted by tomorrow and LLNL would never know the difference.
In conclusion and IMHO, "excessive compensation of ULM is clearly the most vagrant problem LLNL has now and it has been for 50 years". LLNL has way to many people in management portions and all of them are overpaid for what we get.
It would be in the best interest of LLNS to immediately cut ULM by 50% and then cut the remainder salaries, to where none of them make more than 10% over the " highest paid rank group one experimental physicists or engineer". Managers don't deserve a dime more, no matter what they are doing. Period. By taking immediate action at this level LLNS could probably save the lab the $300M required, however I personally don't believe that the RIF has anything to do with that $300M deficit. It's entirely something else that I will get into at a later date.
May your Christmas and New Years be bright. Joy to the world" Remember to be a _Responsible Drinker_
at the last RIF in 95/96 there were about 600 people who took an "incentive" package.
wonder how many will take a package worth less than half that?
maybe the double-dippers?
or the bright young fresh blood?
how about some nice juicy middle-managers who have been developing businesses on the side for several years?
or maybe we can all take a nice vacation to sunny Bakersfield together on leave without pay?
what's the future going to look like in FY09 and beyond when budgets continue to get smaller and smaller.
wasn't the new lab management going to be bringing in all this lovely new money for new customers?
so how many of you reading this blog are considering "firing yourself" in March?
"So how many of you reading this blog are considering "firing yourself" in March?"
Not me. I am TCP-2 and double dipping to the max. I am going to rise this fat hog into the ground and try to get back what NNSA and DOE have taken from me. It's going to be hard because my lifetime goals were destroyed and abolished in a flash of an eye by some bonehead that doesn't know is ass from a hole in the ground while financing a war that will never do us a bit of good. Yep, $11B monthly expenditure while we get screwed.
My biggest regret was to see how many people listened to the newlines co-hosted by what I believe the last blog nicknamed the _black widow_ who consequently has risen to the highest level of ULM. I guess those who serve the Gods are rewarded commensurately. If that's the path to wealth then I'll never be there and I'll have no regrets of retaining my self respect.
In the process I finally got to see first hand and up close a common communistic practice known as propaganda in action. The establishment obtained their goal through a newspaper and editors that were government sanctioned and federally funded. The end result of their weekly frontal attach made me realize how many non-thinking co-dependent people we have at LLNL. The majority believed everything that was printed in the Newsline. In the end 51% of the population were rounded up like wolves do their targeted kill. All that's left now is the RIF, where the chosen few will be cooked and eaten by the vultures of 111 and those who reside down town Livermore in the LLNS management center. May the feast begin Jan 12th, 2008. The motto outside the gate from now on should be, "all we ask is one employee a day". When it's over come April 2008 ULM will have gorged themselves as if they were preparing for hibernation. In the end the women of ULM will be sitting around their penthouse suites drink tea in pinafore's while the males lick their paws after a successful hunt. It's time to we prepared for FY-09.
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