This BLOG is for LLNL present and past employees, friends of LLNL and anyone impacted by the privatization of the Lab to express their opinions and expose the waste, wrongdoing and any kind of injustice against employees and taxpayers by LLNS/DOE/NNSA.
The opinions stated are personal opinions. Therefore,
The BLOG author may or may not agree with them before making the decision to post them.
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If a person were unemployed--sure! Why not? It's a job, which provides a salary. For anyone under 35 who is competent? I would tell them to look elsewhere first and take a job at LLNL as a last resort. I can't understand why some of our younger talent still hangs around. Anyone who strives to be the best they can be in their field, and who has a career ahead of them to build, has likely already left. And if they haven't, I wonder what is wrong with them.
A friend didn't recommend LLNL for a post doc. What would you recommend? The high moral under Bechtel? All the extra administrative work you get to do? The retirement plan? The constant threat of layoff hanging over your head? I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
"I can't understand why some of our younger talent still hangs around"
I can answer that. LC has a high percentage of thirty somethings that form a clan. Once you are in, you are it. Well, they are afaid that, individually, they cannot stand alone outside the Lab. Between you and me: none of the ones I know would last a week at Google, Yahoo, HP and the like!
Yes I would recommend LLNL, but only after someone has run out of unemployment benefits, and all means to get another job have been tried, including applications to Walmart.
Would I recommend LLNL as an employer? As a JOB, why not, as a career - NEVER.
If someone were just starting out in the job market and didn't know there might be better places to work, it would be OK. For those of us who were at the lab in its glory years we can tell them stories of how we used to get things done.
I had a career, now it's just a job. When I retire, I will not look over my shoulder wistfully.
LLNL is only good now for a short term employment period and not as a place to make a long term career.
However, it is important to note that this is exactly what NNSA and LLNS want to see at this lab. This saves them lots of money in terms of future benefit payouts and rising salary costs. Plan on seeing more layoffs in the future that will, as before, target the mid-career and old timers who are still hanging around.
I would recommend LLNL as an employer to a young person, but the key is who you are working with. There are still excellent scientists at LLNL. The pay scale is very good for younger scientists. By the time they are at LLNL for 5 years, most of the problems with mediocre management will probably be fixed and it will be a great place, all around, for a lifelong career.
Over the past year I have looked around, and I can say that there is incredible mediocrity everywhere- at LBNL, at ORNL, at PNNL, at universities, at companies-- startups with phony products and large companies with the same bureaucracy as LLNL and less respect for scientific methods. It really doesn't get much better elsewhere.
The key at LLNL will be for LLNS to fix the upper and mid level management and identify a unique niche for LLNL. We keep losing ground to SNL and LANL, who appear to be continually broadening their customer / program base.
"...5 years, most of the problems with mediocre management will probably be fixed..."
"The key at LLNL will be for LLNS to fix the upper and mid level management and identify a unique niche for LLNL."
How will this be accomplished? Who will do this? Since the contract transition we have seen flight of talent, including many of the top scientists and the most talented middle managers. And we have seen few talented scientists hiring on or staying for long. I disagree with your statement that mediocrity dominates at universities. Quite the contrary, I think. LLNS has been slow at best in addressing improvements to the business model. Your statements sound like a hope and a prayer. Please help me understand your thinking.
"By the time they are at LLNL for 5 years, most of the problems with mediocre management will probably be fixed and it will be a great place, all around, for a lifelong career." (10:14 PM)
I want some of the same drugs that 10:14 PM is taking. They must be really good stuff!
We've seen several years of decline at LLNL under NNSA. Their installation of lab management by the for-profit Bechtel cabal (LLNS) is only the latest part of the evolving mess. It's also been made clear by Congress that the weapons budget is going to decline in outlying years.
I see no reason to expect things will be "fixed up" within the next 5 years unless by "fixed up" you mean essentially shut-down.
UC/LLNS should have looked at other models for running a national lab with the intent of having a strong university culture for research and industrial model for operations. MIT at DOD's Lincoln Lab and Caltech at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. Even Univ of Chicago has a better model for its LLC running ANL.
It's not that difficult to turn around an institution like LLNL, however it needs to be done the way it is done in successful industry buyouts. Keep the workers, change the management. That is what they did NOT do with LLNS, so far. They kept the management and added on unneeded extra managers and got rid of the workers. The tried and true "turnaround" and "takeover" approach is to get rid of a few bad managers-- complete culture changes are possible. Many, many examples of this in the business literature.
The basic problem is he mentality of the business entity running the Lab. Look at the good examples 5/18 - 10:12 cited, does anything jump out at you? They are all universities, with a university mentality; not the for profit mentality of Bechtel. Look at the places Bechtel has run, and been dumped. I have a friend at Idaho, and all he told me about Bechtel is: "you're going to hate it when they take over." He was right.
20 comments:
Does not just no, but hell no mean anything?
If a person were unemployed--sure! Why not? It's a job, which provides a salary. For anyone under 35 who is competent? I would tell them to look elsewhere first and take a job at LLNL as a last resort. I can't understand why some of our younger talent still hangs around. Anyone who strives to be the best they can be in their field, and who has a career ahead of them to build, has likely already left. And if they haven't, I wonder what is wrong with them.
I'd recommend LBNL, but not LLNL.
A friend didn't recommend LLNL for a post doc. What would you recommend? The high moral under Bechtel? All the extra administrative work you get to do? The retirement plan? The constant threat of layoff hanging over your head? I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
I would only wish my worst enemies to work at LLNL.
But my worst enemies are all in ULM, so there really is no point.
NO!!! I tell any and all grad students to stay away from this black hole.
ABSOLUTELY. Where else can somebody get a Donald Trump's salary, with the morals of Berine Madoff.
More Management positions at LLNL should be opening up, as more insiders learn the future.
(Sure glad you didn't ask if this job was for a friend.)
"I can't understand why some of our younger talent still hangs around"
I can answer that. LC has a high percentage of thirty somethings that form a clan. Once you are in, you are it. Well, they are afaid that, individually, they cannot stand alone outside the Lab.
Between you and me: none of the ones I know would last a week at Google, Yahoo, HP and the like!
Yes I would recommend LLNL, but only after someone has run out of unemployment benefits, and all means to get another job have been tried, including applications to Walmart.
For a postdoc yes - the pay is very good (like double!) the average at that level. If it's computational - perfect.
For a career beyond that, no.
Would I recommend LLNL as an employer? As a JOB, why not, as a career - NEVER.
If someone were just starting out in the job market and didn't know there might be better places to work, it would be OK. For those of us who were at the lab in its glory years we can tell them stories of how we used to get things done.
I had a career, now it's just a job. When I retire, I will not look over my shoulder wistfully.
LLNL is only good now for a short term employment period and not as a place to make a long term career.
However, it is important to note that this is exactly what NNSA and LLNS want to see at this lab. This saves them lots of money in terms of future benefit payouts and rising salary costs. Plan on seeing more layoffs in the future that will, as before, target the mid-career and old timers who are still hanging around.
Yes. But only if it was a choice between working at the Lab or being a test subject for medical catheters.
I would recommend LLNL as an employer to a young person, but the key is who you are working with. There are still excellent scientists at LLNL. The pay scale is very good for younger scientists. By the time they are at LLNL for 5 years, most of the problems with mediocre management will probably be fixed and it will be a great place, all around, for a lifelong career.
Over the past year I have looked around, and I can say that there is incredible mediocrity everywhere- at LBNL, at ORNL, at PNNL, at universities, at companies-- startups with phony products and large companies with the same bureaucracy as LLNL and less respect for scientific methods. It really doesn't get much better elsewhere.
The key at LLNL will be for LLNS to fix the upper and mid level management and identify a unique niche for LLNL. We keep losing ground to SNL and LANL, who appear to be continually broadening their customer / program base.
10:14 PM:
"...5 years, most of the problems with mediocre management will probably be fixed..."
"The key at LLNL will be for LLNS to fix the upper and mid level management and identify a unique niche for LLNL."
How will this be accomplished? Who will do this? Since the contract transition we have seen flight of talent, including many of the top scientists and the most talented middle managers. And we have seen few talented scientists hiring on or staying for long. I disagree with your statement that mediocrity dominates at universities. Quite the contrary, I think. LLNS has been slow at best in addressing improvements to the business model. Your statements sound like a hope and a prayer. Please help me understand your thinking.
When I first hired on with the Lab 30 years ago, I thought I had the best job in the world and couldn't believe how lucky I was to be here.
In my current position, I could easily have my son work here--but I would wish such a fate only on my enemies.
"By the time they are at LLNL for 5 years, most of the problems with mediocre management will probably be fixed and it will be a great place, all around, for a lifelong career." (10:14 PM)
I want some of the same drugs that 10:14 PM is taking. They must be really good stuff!
We've seen several years of decline at LLNL under NNSA. Their installation of lab management by the for-profit Bechtel cabal (LLNS) is only the latest part of the evolving mess. It's also been made clear by Congress that the weapons budget is going to decline in outlying years.
I see no reason to expect things will be "fixed up" within the next 5 years unless by "fixed up" you mean essentially shut-down.
UC/LLNS should have looked at other models for running a national lab with the intent of having a strong university culture for research and industrial model for operations. MIT at DOD's Lincoln Lab and Caltech at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. Even Univ of Chicago has a better model for its LLC running ANL.
It's not that difficult to turn around an institution like LLNL, however it needs to be done the way it is done in successful industry buyouts. Keep the workers, change the management. That is what they did NOT do with LLNS, so far. They kept the management and added on unneeded extra managers and got rid of the workers. The tried and true "turnaround" and "takeover" approach is to get rid of a few bad managers-- complete culture changes are possible. Many, many examples of this in the business literature.
The basic problem is he mentality of the business entity running the Lab. Look at the good examples 5/18 - 10:12 cited, does anything jump out at you? They are all universities, with a university mentality; not the for profit mentality of Bechtel. Look at the places Bechtel has run, and been dumped. I have a friend at Idaho, and all he told me about Bechtel is: "you're going to hate it when they take over." He was right.
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