Thursday, October 4, 2012
LLNL Blog Role Call
Anonymously contributed:
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new topic suggestion:
"LLNL Blog Role Call"
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"For those visiting this site as anon., please give a brief general description of yourself, without being detailed enough to reveal your identity. Name one thing you hope to accomplish by visiting. Optionally, leave one brief sentence summing up your thoughts on LLNL and/or LANL."
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example:
"Former IT specialist.
I hope to learn more about what is happening at LLNL."
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37 comments:
The point of this being????
...perhaps you should begin by example:
"please give a brief general description of yourself, without being detailed enough to reveal your identity. Name one thing you hope to accomplish by visiting. Optionally, leave one brief sentence summing up your thoughts on LLNL and/or LANL."
NNSA is a fairly small community. It is fairly easy to attribute certain statements to a short list of possible names, particularly for messages that are well-informed and which clearly (or subtly) demonstrate being plugged in to the back channels.
Nothing good can come from this role call.
Former LLNL employee.
Accomplish? Its a blog, an open air asylum.
LLNL was an interesting place to work. Like any place, you pays your money and takes your chances.
Some you guys need to get out more, the level of paranoia and ignorance is telling. Try working the private high tech sector sometime; shareholder visits, incestuous contractors, serial predators wandering the hallways. Get a grip.
I pass links to all my colleagues. Many of the cast of characters mentioned here are well known and some infamously in Washington. The sometimes between-the-lines messaging is hilarious in reinforcing certain perceptions (and realities) of the labs and the way they operate and manage.
Having worked both, I can say that LLNL these past several years has been far worse on those criteria, with the only exception being a private high tech start-up going public (huge) there it got worse than LLNL for the 18 months prior.
So, yes, high tech world is worse when there are huge personal riches on the line (saw despicable behavior), but day-to-day LLNL (since Bechtel took over) is far worse.
Which is ironic, since there is no big life-changing money on the line at LLNL.
Just like a university environment...little $$$ on the line, but a lot of petty behavior over lab sizes, locations, minor slights, etc.
Give it up people. Nothing is as boring as a thread with no subject. And no reason for existing. Sheesh, scroll down a little for the interesting stuff.
Ok
I am a bitter mediocre ex lab employee. I hate scientists and people who question authority. I hate people who think they are special. I hate people that bitch and whine and do not do what they are told. I love the correct version of the true Christian God. I fear God and know others fear me because God loves me. I know the true value of family and a woman's place. I hate "The Other". I hate hippies, liberals, professors, college, and tree huggers. I love guns, freedom, pride, big trucks, and NASCAR. I hate soccer, formula 1, and Bertrand Russel. I love Daisy Dukes, Ayn Rand, and Rascal Flatts. I hate Yo Yo Ma, New York City, and Wittgenstein. I hate dicession, insubordination and talking back. I love being in groups of others that think just like me. I love Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and George Patton. I hate Steve Jobs, Bill Maher, and Gore Vidal. I love Jeeps, Harleys, and Chevys. I hate Peugeots, Volvos, and Fords. I love Bud, Miller and Dos Exes. I hate Paps Blue Ribbon, Guinness and anything from Oregon.
This is way I come to the blog to know that I am right.
I am foolish and weak.
Some say that I smell better than you.
I enjoy ice cream and girls.
Not necessarily in that order.
I enjoy ice cream and girls.
Not necessarily in that order.
October 5, 2012 10:13 PM
Is that you Tomas? You forgot to mention "young post-doc" girls.
I love Bud, Miller and Dos Exes. I hate Paps Blue Ribbon, Guinness and anything from Oregon.
This is way I come to the blog to know that I am right.
October 5, 2012 9:19 PM
That's Dos Equis and Pabst Blue Ribbon. God damn redneck. By the way, you shouldn't pass up anything from Oregon. Their women are hot, hot,....
"Ok
I am a bitter mediocre ex lab employee. I hate scientists and people who question authority. I hate people who think they are special. I hate people that bitch and whine and do not do what they are told. I love the correct version of the true Christian God. I fear God and know others fear me because God loves me. I know the true value of family and a woman's place. I hate "The Other". I hate hippies, liberals, professors, college, and tree huggers. I love guns, freedom, pride, big trucks, and NASCAR. I hate soccer, formula 1, and Bertrand Russel. I love Daisy Dukes, Ayn Rand, and Rascal Flatts. I hate Yo Yo Ma, New York City, and Wittgenstein. I hate dicession, insubordination and talking back. I love being in groups of others that think just like me. I love Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and George Patton. I hate Steve Jobs, Bill Maher, and Gore Vidal. I love Jeeps, Harleys, and Chevys. I hate Peugeots, Volvos, and Fords. I love Bud, Miller and Dos Exes. I hate Paps Blue Ribbon, Guinness and anything from Oregon.
This is way I come to the blog to know that I am right."
really are you joking....How do you know God loves you? That is a lot to assume by someone who seems to hate everything.
"That's Dos Equis and Pabst Blue Ribbon. God damn redneck. By the way, you shouldn't pass up anything from Oregon. Their women are hot, hot,....
October 6, 2012 7:01 AM"
Sorry about that I was having a few Pabst when I wrote it. The Oregon women may be nice looking but they are all hippie chicks and need to shave.
Sorry about that I was having a few Pabst when I wrote it. The Oregon women may be nice looking but they are all hippie chicks and need to shave.
October 6, 2012 9:20 AM
Yikes. Some people should not be allowed access to computers. Please go away - you give all the liberals and moderates good reason to hate conservatives. Don't you have a lynching to attend somewhere?
Signed, a conservative with an actual brain.
Bickering gerontologists.
Your time has past.
October 7, 2012 6:15 PM
Oh ya sonny, well at least we are getting our pension and social security, you will never ever see these...ever. Your only chance is to get to 1% or rot.
Bickering gerontologists.
Your time has past.
October 7, 2012 6:15 PM
I think you meant "geriatrics."
I think you meant "passed."
Your Alzheimers has struck early I guess. Now you can bicker with yourself! Nice try at appearing educated, but no cigar.
"The point of this being????"
You raise a good question. I wanted to know more about the people behind the postings. I received more than I bargained for, in ways that I did not expect. The quality of the writing does lead to one conclusion: Many posters are not from LLNL at all.
99% random trollers with no connection to or knowledge of LLNL/ NNSA
99% random trollers with no connection to or knowledge of LLNL/ NNSA
October 10, 2012 9:54 AM
Wrong. 99% low-level LLNL/LANL employees with an axe to grind and absolutely no knowledge of the real world of DOE/NNSA politics or of what actually drives upper management decisions. They all want to pretend the world is as simple as they think it is, and absolutely hate anyone who points out any complexity they can't understand. They believe any complexity in life should be ruthlessly stamped out. This blog long ago devolved to the lowest common denominator.
Thanks for the clarification, Ed.
Or maybe they are ignorant because the decision-making process is completely opaque and communications does not flow effectively down through line management to the employees and other stakeholders. But they need to know that it's opaque for a reason. It's a messy and complicated sausage-making operation. Alot of legacy issues that come into play as well. So alot of misunderstanding is to be expected. On the other hand, there have been some pretty bad strategies taken taken by lab managers in the past. But at LLNL no one admits, acknowledges, or refers to past failures. For LLNL, thats an absolute truth.
But at LLNL no one admits, acknowledges, or refers to past failures. For LLNL, thats an absolute truth.
October 11, 2012 1:47 PM
Name one publicly-funded institution that has "admitted, acknowledged, or referred to past failures." (misspelling and tense corrected). There are none, it doesn't happen, ever. What kind of world were you expecting? You can explicitly confront any public official, of any party, and he/she will adamantly deny the inescapable truth. And the majority of the public (especially of his/her party) will believe the denial, at least at first.
"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."
GSA acknowledged their shortcomings. A number of others even DoD numerous examples.
Sandia has had a number of very big and important lessons learned moments where they learned from past mistakes and made substantial organizational changes. Even public figures like Romney have made clear statements saying that he was wrong about something he said. It's a sign of weakness when LLNL cannot seem to learn from its mistakes. People keep referring to the con artists in the inner circle at LLNL. There is no internal mechanism for eradicating the rot. And so we wait to see what the next con is going to be.
9:200 PM has no grasp of history. His reality is based on the very limited information in his head but he seems to be absolutely certain that his broad generalization based on this very limited information is correct. Sorry to burst your bubble. LLNL is one of the bad cases. If you had a chance to work in high quality organizations in both the public and private sector, you would clearly see the difference in quality between those and LLNL management
If the contributor is suggesting an ongoing pattern of behavior, then i think the tense is correct. I think that is the message that the writer is trying to convey.
Dear 1:45AM
The point is that there is very bad management in the real world. The LLNL management is no better or worse than the real world and should not be held at a higher standard than the real world. You do not know anything about the real world because you have lived in you coddled, cocoon of first academics and than LLNL. You are unaware of the political realities, the way of the world in Washington and how the game is played...in the real world. Because of your ignorance you see LLNLs or LANLs as badguys who do not tell you what is going on, however without them you would have no job and would have to fend for yourself in the real world. You are not entitled to any better management than the real world, you are not special you are not above it all.
Bodman spoke of LANL but it is also true of LLNL
" Bodman testified before the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee about security problems at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He stated that "The heart of the problem is a cultural issue at Los Alamos." He asserted that the impediment to improved security was "Arrogance. Arrogance of the chemists and physicists and engineers who work at Los Alamos and think they’re above it all." [2]"
October 16, 2012 9:51 PM
As someone who lived through it in first person at LANL, I can tell you that you are wrong and Bodman was wrong (as well as being completely clueless as an Energy Secretary). The much vaunted "security problems" at LANL were the result of 1) individuals who had the brains to see the holes in computer security and take advantage while there were no penalties for doing so, and 2) clueless hispanic employees who thought that they were somehow above the rules because of who they worked for. In all cases, the fault lies with a computer security organization (even many months or even years after the Wen Ho Lee case) that hired and kept promoting people who had absolutely no technical expertise and who harbored a "cop" mentality, since many were ex-cops. If you came into the security organization with any actual technical expertise, you were vilified as "egg heads" and kept out of actual ongoing investigations that the security people involved had not a chance of solving. It was serious mismanagement at the very top of the LANL security organization, based on a lack of technical education and mistrust of anyone who really understood the risk and tried to mitigate it. Try explaining a file transfer security flaw to an ex-Army Colonel or an ex-State Police Officer. They hired idiots with no knowledge of the risk or the system they were charged to protect. JB Weld was one result.
"October 16, 2012 10:18 PM"
Bodman rests his case.
If you were to look at a distribution of "quality" for organization namagement, LLNL is in the lowest quartile. Just because you can find worse cases in the private sector doesn't justify not calling out LLNL. We should be calling them out until they start to fix things (which is likely to be never). Comparing a bad organization against another bad organization is no excuse for either. Start pointing out a better organization, and a case can be made by doing a comparison.
Funny to hear someone claim I don't really know the labs or NNSA. Just copying another contributor's argument about the general statements regarding the complex game several times doesn't give you new knowledge or insight. I would bet that you are not even close to the game, or have only some fleeting, tangential connection to it.
So here is some advice. Find a well managed organization and then take LLNL/LANL take your pick, and do a comparative analysis, looking into the detailed history, events, players, actions, events, etc. Report your findings and analysis. Analyze actions and the drivers behind them, and tell then deduct the likely strategy being employed. Then do an analysis of alternative options. Oh what's that? you don't have all of this information needed for the analysis? Well then.
Funny to hear someone claim I don't really know the labs or NNSA. Just copying another contributor's argument about the general statements regarding the complex game several times doesn't give you new knowledge or insight. I would bet that you are not even close to the game, or have only some fleeting, tangential connection to it.
So here is some advice. Find a well managed organization and then take LLNL/LANL take your pick, and do a comparative analysis, looking into the detailed history, events, players, actions, events, etc. Report your findings and analysis. Analyze actions and the drivers behind them, and tell then deduct the likely strategy being employed. Then do an analysis of alternative options. Oh what's that? you don't have all of this information needed for the analysis? Well then.
"We should be calling them out until they start to fix things (which is likely to be never)." Yep, that's why it is a complete waste of time.
"Do a comparative analysis.." over and over again. Hey, do your own homework, bud. For, me, I choose to just get out, and find some real human beings to work for. No further analysis needed. You need to "analyze" after you get socked in the head?
Glad to see this thread finally sink "below the radar. It was a bad idea from the start, and obviously everyone else thought so too.
7:26 PM Okay, so you're NOT close to the action. At first I thought you were just a web troller, but I think you're actually a really angry and bitter person. LLNL do this to you?
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