Anonymous said:
Scooby,
Thanks for the work you do. I appreciate it. However, I do not truly believe that opinions expressed in this blog are representative of people who are still working at the Lab. I'm still very proud to be a lab employee. I feel valued and fortunate to be working at LLNL. Everything I read here is so negative. There are a bunch of "chicken littles" here. Yeah, things are tough all over the country, not just at LLNL. I honestly cannot see our country going forward and staying strong without a healthy science program at our national labs. Anyone in congress or in the senate or in the executive branch of our government would be totally ignorant to think otherwise.
Reading this blog has no value for me. It just provides the chicken littles with a podium for expressing their negativity. Yes, the lab has changed. Yes, we are no longer UC employees. That is very unfortunate. Get over it!
Let's discuss how we can promote research and science. Let's talk about how new technologies can save ten times as much energy through conservation than oil drilling could ever contribute toward US oil independence. Aren't we a department of ENERGY national lab? On the day, year, decade when we can thumb our noses at the Saudis and say your oil is worthless is when we will, through our technology truly be the superpower of the world.
Just my rant and two cents here.
10 comments:
I am glad you consider the lab a proud place to work, but speaking for the people with 20+ years that were thrown out the gate how will you feel when they come for you? And they will, it is only a matter of time.The lab is no longer, nor will it ever be what it was.
Currently the lab is composed of the following.
1. Corporate types intent on making a buck for just themselves.
2. A large number of demoralized workers who are grimly hanging on and hoping they make it to retirement.
3. A small number of people who have lost touch with reality and believe that the "Good Old Days" will be back.
The sky is not falling. But LLNL is dead and no amount of surreal optimism is going to change that.
As far as blog value. News about health care changes, hints of criminal investigations, contamination lawsuits. All very useful information. I say keep it going Scooby.
You have no one that is going to fund this idea. Didn't you notice as soon as the people got tired of paying over $4.00 a gallon and began to organize in getting off oil, the prices started coming down fast. Why? It's simple. The oil companies and those who are making trillions of dollar profit off of oil knew that sales were going to go to (zero) if we every find a way to get off oil. Until you have someone and it won't be Obama or McCain that will take it upon themselves to write executive orders that require the USA to be off oil in five years we as a nation are going nowhere and science is dead. The ONLY science LLNL should be working on is alternative energy and I'm not talking about $5B projects like NIF or LIFE. They need to find a way to use our natural resources to give us all the electricity we need for every application. This technology exist but is will never get put into place because the cost are two high, the mandates are not there and the average person can not afford to put them on their homes. Nothing at this time is more important than getting off oil. Nothing. The freeloading has to stop and jobs need to be created. What better way to do that than to retrofit all of our gas stations to natural gas, for now, and start immediate construction of electric producing devices that use the sun, wind, sea and geo thermal. I'd even put nuclear power aside at this time just to assure we used the other four resources first. IMHO the first mandate should be this. The big four have five years to provide us with an all electric fleet or they will be out of business, the CEO will have their pension and assets ceased and concurrently join the ranks of those in the bread-line if this does not occur. Now that motivation.
I see one of the sheepeople spoke up stated this blog has no value, he must be one of the boot lickers that got a 2% raise!! I will tell some thing that the rest of the lab population dose not know, one of my co workers recieved in the mail the doe/nnsa complex transformation report it clearly shows how llnl is going to be down sized to help pay for the nice new shinny weapons complex that nnsa wants built!!! and guess who is in line to get the construction contract??? the boys from rechtel.
10-beam
I am also proud of my accomplishment and those I work with. This has all happened in spite of poor management and declining morale across the entire facility. The sky is not falling, and the blogs has been important for sharing information. Just about everyone, but a lucky few are scrambling to cover their salaries.I'm curious how you could not notice the change in moral around the lab and the falling quality of science at LLNL?
It nice to see that their are still some weaselly little yes-men left on the LLNL staff.
Now repeat after me, Mr. Weaselly Little Yes-Man:
Yes, sir! (Whack!)
Can I please have another? (Whack! Whack!).
Now, kiss the ring and crawl away in shame, my precious little worm.
I'm the person who posted the original message in this thread. To answer a couple of you... No. I did not get the 2 percent. I got 1% - the minimum for my job class. I'm not very happy about that. Yes, I hear people complain about how things have changed, but a general lack of morale and "the failing quality of science" - I fail to see. Please tell me specifics about the latter. I guess the people I work with are professionals who have a level of passion for their work that allows them to overlook things. Or, maybe, I am just a person who looks for the silver lining.
Is there "brown nosing" taking place to get ahead at LLNL. YES! Have there been poor management decisions by the Director and AD's? In my opinion, they have not made the best decisions or shown the best fore-sight (planning). Can this laboratory change the destiny of this country? YES. But, not with a group of workers who have given up and claim that it's spent.
"Can this laboratory change the destiny of this country? YES. But, not with a group of workers who have given up and claim that it's spent".
This statement alone says you know of moral problems within the system.
Go over to what used to be Bio, Chemistry, CAMS, several divisions in physics and talk to people. Bad management, poor leadership choices, lack of leadership and misuse of power, decimation by the layoffs, a continuing brain drain, lack of sustainable funding, scientist looking for non-scientific positions within LLNS, LDRD projects doled out based on friendships and not merit. Sorry, but I don't have examples in engineering or NIF.
The lack of sustainable funding speaks directly to the decline in novel science and the level of scientist capable of building fundable programs. Its not just the high overheads that are keeping new programs from developing. it has more to do with the decline in well mentored scientist and the lack of internal support for developing scientist!
I will admit that there are also glimmers of hope out there, but even the most successful scientist I know are worried and not very optimistic about how the next year will under LLNS.
Anyone working at LLNL who claims that morale problems are not at epidemic levels needs to be drug tested, ASAP!
One of the things that really gets me is I know I had so much left to contribute. There is so much more that the Lab could contribute to our country. Sure I had challenges during my 28 years at the Lab and I enjoyed contributing my piece to the puzzle.
I am a valuable worker but I took my SKA/Clearance and retired early under UC rather than play the Lab's new Chair Dance; the game where a chair is removed, the music is stopped, and the players fight to find a remaining seat. What a shame. Like my household though, there is only so much money. What I see is similar to AIG and the bailout. The Lab is taking what money they have and either burning it on committees or taxing each other to death (AIG's variation is spending the taxpayer bail-out money on expensive retreats in order to figure out what they will do with the bail-out money. What's wrong with this picture?)
Again, my thanks for this BLOG. I would like to see more positive contributions as well. The BLOG does help keep me informed as the Lab's Newsline isn't what it used to be.
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