Today was a very sad for everyone!
In public and in BLOGs, there has been plenty of lip service in support of those being RIFed. I read calls for solidarity, calls for a gathering outside the west gate today at noon, calls for wearing mourning colors.
Do we really mean what we say and write?
Proof once again that LLNL employees are too paralyzed by fear to do anything.
Today was business as usual. I was wearing all black. I went to the outside of the gate. Where is that massive gathering? The people entering and exiting would not even make eye contact.
As I was walking away from the gate, I realized how incredibly mentally subdued people at LLNL are. Sad! Sad! Sad!
On the bright side, the rest of America is not like that! I am so glad the LLNL population is not a statistically representative sample of the population at large or else we will be a country of sheep!
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10 comments:
I wonder why the media wasn't there to photograph the entire event and interview people as they went out the gate. I guess Besty Mason couldn't pull that off. Maybe tomorrow, but the problem with waiting is it will only be engineers and scientist and they won't say much. The media had their chance for a good story and blew it for the nation.
"When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out."
- Martin Niemöller
I believe the Santa Cruz fire took top billing in the bay area news. LLNL was not a headline today. The exit center was run professionally. Employees were allowed to exit with dignity. You could see the sadness in the eyes of those going through the process. Escorts and those who worked the stations were all affected by this event. I hope and pray the lab can recover from this event. We all need to process what has happened. Now is the time to find the hope deep within each of us and restore the laboratory to the jewel it once was. We can do it. It doesn't matter if we are managed by UC or LLNS. Its about science and our creativity. I won't give up, I won't let depair win. I cannot give up.
May 22, 2008 8:56 PM
Wake up. It's about the money, even though you didn't make it that way. When are you going to get it?
May 22, 2008 8:56 PM
Good luck with you endeavor. I commend your efforts but with FY-09 coming and budgets cuts equal to FY-08 or worse I suspect to se more of the same next year. With that my bet is the population of LLNL should be at 4000 FTE's or less by the end of FY-09.
I am sickened by the comparisons that continue to be made between the current situation at the Lab and the Nazis and Jews. Come on! This is not only non-comparable, it denegrates that piece of history. Stop with the persecution complex and wake up to corporate America at the Lab! The longer you sit around saying "poor me" the more of your time an life you waste. That's why I left before it got too bad.....a bunch of pitiful whiners that don't want or know how to take responsibility for their own careers.
May 22, 2008 8:56 PM,
I don't really care what you think it's about. For a lot of us it isn't about the money, never has been, never will be. ULM may or may not believe it's all about the money. Again, I don't really care what they think.
I participated in the escort process and lost good people during the layoff. The pain of having to be a part of putting people through that will stay with me for the rest of my life.
I couldn't and wouldn't be able to continue at LLNL unless I believed in the lab, my coworkers, its mission and this country.
The lab can survive and thrive and in doing so provide an immensely valuable contribution to this country. It will only do so if everyone left works hard to find positive solutions to the current problems.
I'm not sure I have any faith in ULM. I certainly have faith in vast majority of the labs remaining population that doesn't fit that category. We can and I strongly believe will make it through this.
Time will tell of course, but when my backs against the wall I've always found the will to keep looking for solutions to my problems. I don't think I'm in any way unusual in that.
I'm going to take the next three days to try to clear my head as much as possible so I can come back on Tuesday and help in some small way to find a positive path forward.
We've been badly bloodied by the ISP, of that there can be no doubt. We are in no way beaten however. I am very hopeful that someday we'll be able to welcome back at least some of the hard working honest people the lab let go the past two days. They are very much in my thoughts right now and will always be.
May 23, 2008 4:23 PM
Fine. You are exactly what ULM is counting on...a noble, motivated individual, stuck in a 20th century mind-set, willing to work long hours for meager pay under stressful and uncertain conditions, all to make ULM and their corporate masters a lot of money while they take all the credit for any good work that you do. As long as you know what you are in for, I say "go for it". But be aware, in my humble opinion, they will sell you down the river as soon as it's convenient, and monetarily advantageous, for them to do so, without batting an eye, without a bit of remorse or guilt. Just don't be a crybaby when it happens (and I predict that it will). Me? I used to think like you, but I wised up, got the message beaten into me. You may not care what I think (that's your right), but know that I'm not sure whether to admire you or pity you.
hey may 23 4:23pm this RIF is not about the mission, employees, or country, no it is about paying for the new shinny weapons complex that NNSA would like to build at nts or lanl and guess who is going to get the contract for it?? bechtel bechtel rechtel!!
And Scooby if you bothered to give up or lunch as did the boys from UPTE local 11 LLNL SKILL CRAFTS you would have seen us thanking the laid of employees for thier service as they went out the gate.
May 23, 2008 5:23 PM,
You very much miss my point. This isn't about ULM. It's about me, my coworkers and my country. It would be foolish not to take other factors into account and make plans to deal with them but those are not my motivators.
If you are still at the lab I very much hope you are looking for gainful employment elsewhere and I wish you the best of luck. Either you believe in the mission and the people who work with you or you don't. I can't change your mind for you and I wouldn't if I could. I would however encourage you to at least contemplate the possibility that there is some positive path forward from here. I won't say that's an easy task. I struggle with it each and every day myself.
May 23, 2008 5:27 PM,
You may be right. However I hadn't gotten the impression that LLNS management had any illusions about weapons work being our long term future. In fact I get the impression they very much believe our continued existence is dependent on finding other avenues of funding. Which is why these next few years are so important. We literally have to transform ourselves if we want to survive. Is that even possible? I don't know, but for now I'm certainly going to do my best to assist in the process. As much as I love the job and the mission at some point I might have to look elsewhere for work. I certainly hope that day doesn't come but I acknowledge the reality that it might. And now I'm going to close this page, find a good book and try to forget about the lab, this site and the ISP for the next few days.
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