LLNS may have excluded the wrong people in last VSSOP? The exclusions were based on outdated job categories and related skills. ULM are now thinking that in the future, job categories and functional areas will have to be re-defined. The next VSSOP/ISP will be based on the new categories and functional areas. The questions I have are: 1) Why didnt they think of that before the transition. It seems like their style is “change things as you go”. Planning is out the window! 2) Who will give input on the new changes? The next RIF apparently is going to be more lucrative than the VSSOP. Depending on the length of employment, a RIFed person, not only gets their 1 week pay per year of service but also from 30 to 120 days notice, essentially 30 to 120 days pay. Please feel free to comment on the rumors or add new ones you actually heard.
Comments
They are in it to get their fee. Their objective is to meet the contract requirements. UC's objective coincided with DOE's objective.
Just awaiting retirement in a couple of years...
.. and my PAD is S&T.
If your not management your post doesnt belong here. If you are, then state your PAD.
That has all changed. Take a look at where we are hiring. Instead of the top Ivy League and science/ engineering schools, we now recruit at Cal Poly, Harvey Mudd, etc.
Why do you think S&T is so interested in foreign nationals and the open campus? We can't get the best and brightest of US citizens anymore.
The Lab has been good to me. As a manager in S&T, I am financially well off. After a more few years of putting in my time, I will retire comfortably. I feel sorry for the current generation who will remember today as the good old days.
Can't speak to Harvey Mudd but Cal Poly is a highly respected engineering school.
March 9, 2010 7:45 PM
I got a good laugh at this comment. It turns out that Bret Knapp who is the Associate Director for Weapons at LANS is a Cal Poly graduate. Question is, how in the world did this guy get into the Labs, let alone alone one of the highest ranking individuals in the U.S. nuclear weapon? Someone please answer this question.
I think you just proved the point regarding the comment above yours. Cal Poly is clearly not in the top 10 science/engineering schools, and as I recall, doesn't even have a PhD program. If we settle for "respected" in stead of the best, we will not get the best.
Regarding the following comment on BK now at LANL, I do not claim that a few jewels cannot come from schools like Cal Poly. It just means that overall the best scientists/engineers come from the best schools.
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/spec-engineering
Yours truly,
A PhD engineer, who is not an alum of either school
Then there is the list of best undergraduate engineering programs at schools that do offer PhD programs and that list is here:
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/spec-doct-engineering
The list you referenced is for undergraduate schools.
Yours truly,
A PhD who went to one of those schools as an undergraduate, but learned what it was really like at at the best graduate school.
March 14, 2010 7:49 AM
What, you think highly qualified doctoral level scientists would want to come and work at these dismal and dysfunctional NNSA "for-profit" run labs?
Good science is just a side-line business at the new and improved NNSA research labs. The real job involves making money, and lots of it, for the corporate LLC partners.
PBIs, baby! That should be pretty clear to all lab employees by now.
Please do some research before you working your jaw next time.
"According to U.S. News & World Report's 2010 America's Best Colleges report, Cal Poly is ranked #1 in the Western United States for public schools whose highest degree is a Master's for the 17th straight year.The College of Engineering was tied for the #6 ranking for undergraduate engineering schools in the US whose highest degree is a Master's."
* Electrical Engineering: #1
(#4 overall)[22]
* Computer Engineering: #1 (Tied #3 overall)[23]
* Mechanical Engineering: #1 (tied #3 overall)[24]
* Industrial Engineering: #2 (#2 overall)[25]
* Aerospace Engineering: #3 (#5 overall)[26]
* Civil Engineering: #2 (Tied #5 overall)[27]
March 15, 2010 6:27 PM
So true. And, the lab "prostitutes" who continue to try to sell themselves to DHS and the like as uniquely capable to do something, despite the fact that there are universities all over the country who are better, are embarrassing. If you can't sell nuclear weapon design expertise to work uniquely on nuclear terrorism forensics (and you can't), then just forget it. Universities are better equiped than you will ever be.
March 16, 2010 10:42 AM
No kidding. If you doubt the "sweetheart deal," consider that DOE has a "Work for Others" order with a lot of detailed and burdensome requirements for work at DOE/NNSA labs for other US government agencies. Then, there is a separate DOE order solely applicable to work for DHS, where the requirements are much easier. The fact that many universities are much more capable and cheaper than DOE labs for the purposes of DHS programmatic requirements seems to have largely escaped DHS's notice.
March 17, 2010 7:23 PM
Shhh, be quiet! Most of the program managers out at DHS are way too clueless to figure that one out.
Don't spoil the windfall that these WFO projects produce! My high upper management salary is dependent on the high overhead taxes I can steal from these lucrative WFO accounts.