Actual post from Dec. 15 from one of the streams. This is a real topic. As far as promoting women and minorities even if their qualifications are not as good as the white male scientists, I am all for it. We need diversity at the lab and if that is what it takes, so be it. Quit your whining. Look around the lab, what do you see? White male geezers. How many African Americans do you see at the lab? Virtually none. LLNL is one of the MOST undiverse places you will see. Face it folks, LLNL is an institution of white male privilege and they don't want to give up their privileged positions. California, a state of majority Hispanics has the "crown jewel" LLNL nestled in the middle of it with very FEW Hispanics at all!
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How's the LANS retirement working out for you? I would be extremely concerned, if I was about to retire, Becthel, will figure out a way to really screw the participants in this small stand-alone retirement system.... To
LANS knows it is gone, however the bloated hoard of PADS, ADs, and higher level managers are now starting to panic as they know the that there numbers are going to thinned and the enormous salaries justified by saying we are a corporation are going to be slashed. One of the big problems with the contract change was it lead to a much large but utterly insular management culture. They only talk to themselves, avoid the workforce and are largely unaware the actual work done at the lab. In many cases they spend as little time as possible at the lab and there are so many of them now they have little to do anyway. Even if one of them tries to change something for the better they know that they are just talking risk since there is no reward for doing something good at the lab there is only punishment for messing up and with this approach the whole lab is in a state of complete and utter decay. Even Vic Reis pointed out that the privatization of LLNL and LANL has been a mistake.
Thinning doesn't necessarily mean a lay off for these managers. A new "purpose statement" and other restructuring tools help justify throwing the programmatic chess pieces in the air so these unanchored and unsupported managers can land on their feet and be reabsorbed. These managers will not face a "business need" RIF without first playing workforce musical chairs (with volume control privileges), at the expense of non-manager "worker bees". No, they wouldn't do such a thing right?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking
There is no product so who cares how big management is. You could have 100% managers running around. The key thing is to collect salaries and bonuses.
Also, look at who you have at the lab now. WCI is run by incompetent managers. It's not important. There are no new warheads and nuclear tests. Science is at a minimum.
The labs will continue because there will always be nuclear weapons in the stockpile and someone needs to "certify" them. In exchange for this service, the lab collects it's rent.
- Charlie "Awesome" McMillan
Excuse me there are TWO glossy photographs of McMillan.
None of this rubbish was seen when Sig was Director. Yes, some of us would like to go back in time. Back to having a Director that each and every employee respected.
Why, he must be some sort of saint! We are blessed by his presence.
August 24, 2015 at 3:32 PM
Actually, we are blessed by McMillan's ignorance.