The person who contributed this post and those who commented on it are great
candidates for an interview with Betsy Mason. I encourage them to contact her.
George Miller said "We're so expensive, we wouldn't hire ourselves..." I had naive hopes this meant the ISP would mean getting rid of swaths of management lard that suck up enormous taxes.
Right now, a typical FTE costs $500K, fully loaded. Instead, the management has grown with the LLNS transferees, and as far as I know ZERO managers are being RIF'd. Instead, scientists and technicians with specialized, unique skills have been banished. Let's also note that many of the technical staff RIF'd were fully supported and critical team members of well-funded projects (of course not NIF, though).
Consider that one manager making a gross $24K salary per month makes the equivalent of 3 technicians, and you can see that if we could have lost even just 40 useless managers, we could have saved 120 valuable, irreplaceable scientific and technical specialists. Tell me how many of our managers have any real scientific leadership? It is a VERY small fraction.
Let's face it, the ideas come from the staff scientists, the work is done by them and the technical support. With this ISP LLNL has cut off its legs, its enormous belly is dragging on the ground and looks like we'll be WAY more expensive than before! Nice work LLNS, wow, I thought "rocket scientists" and "weapons designers" (like George M) were the fabled math whizzes- well, taxpayers, it looks like the ones at LLNL can't be trusted to design effective warheads if they can't even run a LabPricer spreadsheet and realize that to balance their budget for now and for the future, THEY NEED TO CUT MANAGERS!
19 comments:
We can start with the 45 LLNS new hires in ULM that are and have been sucking the tit of this cow since the day they took over. Then all of ULM's pay needs to be cut by 50%. After that we get rid of 50% of the UC ULM who we should have cut the day LLNS took over. LLNL was top heavy already. The last thing we needed was more management, who got big raises and bonus checks. The next best thing would be to get rid of NNSA entirely. Now there's what I call some cost saving.
Yes the 111 and 311 ULM people and those who reside in downtown Livermore need to go. All I ask is they be criminally charged, their pensions and medical coverage revoked, escorted to the gate like cattle and then given the boot on the way out. They must lose these benefits in order to make a point and to save money otherwise the tax payers will just continue to pay their lavish retirements where some will get between $200K - $425K a years for the rest of their and their spouses life. The question is , for what?
I have heard that the superintendent position will be closed out.They won't get rid of them though, just reassign them.I understand that it will go back to the way it was in the early days where supervisors are reportable directly to the division leader. The division leader will hold sway over salaries and promotions for the 500 and 300 series.It would be fine by me since some of the current crop of supes are of questionable ability. Know who I am talking about? I can think of two off the top of my head who have little or no technical acumen.At the same time a whole layer of pretty much useless management can get dumped.
Given a choice between a superintendent(who's only qualification is they were once a flunky like the rest of us) and an engineer (which most engineering division leaders are) I'll go with the engineer. They are far better qualified to evaluate performance based on technical merit than a twit superintendent.
The only downside is current supervisors are going to have to get dumped to make room for the newly displaced supes.
May 25, 2008 8:27 AM
Firing supes should mean just that, FIRED, out the door and get-r-done now, NOT displaced so they can take some young very well diversed supervisor out. Yes there are many supervisors that are dead weight, especially one in TRED CMS. I've been fired so I can now point fingers to the max and if you think I'm done. Think again. After my 30 days is up I'm going to drop a bomb shell on their buttock.
FYI, I know of at least one manager and a couple of team leads that were let go. Not being privy to the whole list I don't know if that is representative.
One thing I discovered in looking at the Q&A on the Retooling LLNL site was DOE approved in the 3161 the separation of up to about 730 (give or take a few, I can't remember the exact number) career indefinite employees and is good through FY 09 (that is end of September 2009).
So I say someone should show some backbone and start showing some of the dead weight managers out the door. These useless hangers on shouldn't think that ship has already sailed.
Start with the useless level of program leaders in the equally useless S Program management in the also useless Global Security management team (the actual program work in GS is outstanding, it is the management structure I'm talking about).
Then go on to JL and CM.
Now, that would finally save some real coin.
I know of only one manager that was let go (group leader). Rumor has it they asked to be let go and now management is working on making all sorts of exception to policy to allow them continued access to the lab. Its all about who know.
Don't you know that the solution to the Lab's budget problem is to manage our way out of it. (sarcasm intended)
The Lab management simply doesn't understand how WFO is started at the Lab. Many new projects that are now multi-million ones were first started at the grass-roots level by a group of technical people with a good idea and a good communicator.
Instead they are assigning high-level managers to get new funding who are mediocre and feel threaten by any groups below them who try to start new funding.
May 25, 2008 2:59 PM
You don't understand or have not not come to terms with the fact, "they don't want LLNL to be the size it is". Gee whizz. Don't you understand that LLNL should be down to 4000 people total by the end of 2009. Get this through your head. The lab isn't ever going to be as big as it was because there is no work that the nation needs being done here. They don't need anymore weapons crap of any type. No nukes, no bio, no spy crap, no nothing. These are all going to be done by other cheaper facilities. They have all of the stuff we use to make they need. Then, since LLNL has no one who can work or is willing to work on alternative fuel, cells, hydrogen who can compete with the outside world pricewise, LLNL is SOL again. Get this fact correct. If NIF fails, there is NO LLNL. The down-sizing was ordered by the president. All DOE complexes will be down-sized and that's exactly what its going to be. Period. Will you be missed? NO !!! It's fringing over people, get that through your thick skulls.It's as someone said before, your little 2000 people this year and 2000 next year are just a blip on the radar and will not even be noticed.
May 25, 2008 2:59 PM
I do believe you are correct, but at least an effort could be made to keep the "right" kind of people in that 2000 mix, instead of all overpaid managers who will be managing no one.
May 25, 2008 5:17 PM
I agree. All of LLNS ULM needs to go and 50% of the old UC mangers need to go before the end of this FY. What the heck is the hold up.
Well the hold up has been the managerial labor needed to implement the layoffs. Managers have been working very hard these past months figuring out the legalities and working out the procedures. Not to say this is prductive work, certainly it is not, but nevertheless someone has had to do it. Eventually management will have to turn the barrels toward themselves and pull the triggers. Only when this happens will we begin to see the end of the layoffs.
"Managers have been working very hard these past months figuring out the legalities and working out the procedures."
Oh, now the managers are playing lawyer.
Has anyone forgotten about the sins of the past from the Womens Lawsuit? All of the Superintendents hired into PE [pst settlement are women with no craft/ technical skill. Their Division Leader was removed, and moved on to a higher level of incompetence dealing with the Union. They didn't eliminate Supes in PE because all of the newest are women. Do you believe people with no technical work history are qualified to be the new Superintendents?
Outsource the Department. A professional maintenance organization would be better then the keystone cops we now have.
Several dedicated and talented Leads and First Line Supervisors in Plant Engineering were laid off last week. Some had 30 years of service to LLNL. This should be challenged. This lay off was supposed to be by seniority and in Plant Engineering it was not.
So far I have not heard of any Senior Supervisors or Superintendents getting the boot from Plant.
Same old story - they lay off the people that get the work done.
Some very talented people left PE because the management structure in place is a girls club now. The way they separated people into pidgeon holes to protect their Superintendents needs to have Lawyers ask direct questions.
With small exception, all of their supes have absolutely no experience, except they are FOD's (friends of D).
May 25, 2008 3:43 PM, you keep on peddling the same garbage story. Don't you have better things to do with your life? I certainly hope so.
You don't (thankfully) know the future. You don't (thankfully) tell a credible story). You don't (I sincerely hope) work for LLNL.
"managers" is a tricky label. I've heard an IT manager was let go. I also know of a number of retirees in the management area that have not been replaced. Are further cuts needed? Probably. Given the median age of the lab populous that is going to be a self correcting problem even if no proactive measures are taken.
May 29, 2008 7:50 PM
You're dreaming. Most people need as much as eight - ten more years before they can retire. Good luck with your wishful thinking there will be no lay-off in FY-07. Dream on my friend, dream on.
May 29, 2008 8:01 PM,
FY07 ended months ago. And yes, there will be layoffs. Over 100 flex terms, plus onesy twoesy stuff for the foreseeable future, mostly due to projects ending.
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