A Lessons Learned Organization?
Thom Mason presented an-all hands meeting on Tuesday. No coronavirus known in New Mexico, he announced. By Wed, rumors were circulating through the local schools that some kids were being pulled from school because a parent or parents, who are Lab employees, had tested positive for coronavirus. By Thursday, multiple sources of information, including teenagers and adults, confirmed the assertion that ten presumptive COVID-19 cases at LANL were known. Thursday evening the Governor announced that all public schools would be closed for three weeks. By Friday, Thom Mason issued a message that no known confirmed cases of coronavirus at Los Alamos had been identified. Business as usual. Meanwhile, more independent corroboration poured in through the town grapevine about the ten presumptive LANL cases. People were actually observed fighting over bottled water and toilet paper at the local grocery store! Information from people close to the New Mexico Health Dept. revealed that presumptive COVID-19 cases should go to CDC for confirmation through them. No contact to date with LANL!
Apparently the lowest first year variable fee award percentage in NNSA contractor history and being called out as not being a “lessons learned” organization has not deterred TRIAD’s behavior. Why should it, when you can call a 66% variable fee award “Good” and pay all the managers a bonus? How can it be that common knowledge of multiple presumptive COVID-19 cases was known two days after an all-hands meeting where nothing was revealed? It stretches credulity to believe that TRIAD is acting in good faith.
Caring about employee well-being is just an empty platitude without actions to back it up. Transparency, even when it means revealing inconvenient facts, and promptly disclosing to State Health officials is something we all have a right to demand from Triad. From their mishandling of Harborview, many gaffes regarding proper contract management and improperly vetting proposed actions with NNSA to now this latest obfuscation, Triad is amply demonstrating they are not up to the task for the management and operation of Los Alamos National Laboratory!
35 comments:
Wow. So isn’t it a crime if an Employer like LANL intentionally puts its employees and the local community in danger? Does Lisa Gordon-Hagerty know about this? This sounds like a class action lawsuit just waiting to happen.
>People were actually observed fighting over bottled water and toilet paper at the local grocery store!
I can confirm the bottled water fight, pretty wild. The market was crazy on Thur/Friday.
As of this morning, there are no known cases at LANL that LANL is aware of, period. It is a rapidly evolving, hour-by-hour situation. The EOC is manned and is monitoring and communicating the situation real time. Rumors are rumors and tend to run rampant; that doesn't make them true. If you are aware of someone having the virus, please report it to the EOC. Mason honestly shared what he knew at the time, and continues to do so. While I am sure that whatever causes your lack of trust will not be swayed, I know him and have never known a person with more integrity, honesty, selflessness, and purity of purpose for doing the right thing than Thom Mason, and I don't know anyone who knows him who feels differently. You obviously don't know him.
3/15/2020 7:35 AM
Whoever posted this, thanks and yes rumors could be just that rumors. The problem is that from Nanos on up lab Directors have out and out lied, people remember these things and simply do not trust the lab management. I personally think Mason and TRIAD are different but you have to understand why people don't trust LANL management or think they care about employees. There are consequences to the way the labs have been run for the past 15 years and this is one of them.
Please everyone the Govenor of New Mexico, Michelle Grisham, has given the following notice:
Anyone who is showing signs of COVID-19, which includes fever, cough or trouble breathing should call the DOH at 1-855-600-3453.
She is NOT telling people to contact the LANL EOC first. She is saying contact the State DOH first. Los Alamos Hospitals and Urgent Cares have told people the same thing.
Question: LANL management only provides hand sanitizer stations in the NNSB (where the managers live). Why isn't there hand sanitizer stations placed thoughout the Lab in every building at every technical area just like they do with salt buckets in the winter to prevent trips, slips, and falls? I work with Thom Mason every day and it is all about the money.
Please take care of yourself! Call the NM DOH first, and then, if you want to, also let the LANL EOC know (667-2400).
As of this morning the state of New Mexico reports zero presumptive cases of COVID-19 in Los Alamos county. Social media chains, such as this one, are irresponsible. The original post is an attempt to create panic. It is important to remember that this type of post is NOT protected by the First Amendment ("shouting fire in a crowded theater"). The Blog author is ultimately responsible for any damages that seeding panic may cause.
7:35 sounds like what the brainwashed solders would say about the Manchurian Candidate:
“Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.”
Hey 3/15/2020 10:23 AM
Read blog rules.
I am a moderator. The opinions expressed are not necessarily my opinions!
7:35 also said that Mason has “Purity of purpose”. Is this like what General Jack D. Ripper said:
There's no other choice. God willing, we will prevail in peace and freedom from fear and in true health through the purity and essence of our natural fluids.
Anonymous 3/15/2020 7:35 AM and 3/15/2020 10:23 AM:
How do you explain that Los Alamos county announced that any people who have traveled outside the state need to self-isolate for 14 days and yet it is business as usual for LANL?
So why is LANL not putting non-essential folks on report pay and sending them home?
Folks at TA-55 and most technical areas are packed in like sardines (i.e. 3-4 people in one office and/or technicians stuck in bull pens), and yet Thom Mason is saying business as usual?
Instead of threatening the original poster, why are you not addessing how Thom Mason is not following any of the national and/or state and/or LA county guidance?
The original post is an attempt to create panic. It is important to remember that this type of post is NOT protected by the First Amendment ("shouting fire in a crowded theater"). The Blog author is ultimately responsible for any damages that seeding panic may cause.
3/15/2020 10:23 AM
What if there is actually a fire in the theater.
Also dude you need "learn to law y'all". Shouting fire in a crowded theater when you know there is not a fire is illegal. Repeating a rumor is not illegal, particularly when the rumor is actually reasonable, so yes it is absolutely protected by the first amendment. In fact I would not be surprised if there is some truth to the rumor. Also in case you have not been following the news panic is something we should have already been doing for some time now, so to speak. In this case all panic would mean is to stay home instead of going to work, which is probably a pretty dam good idea considering how much people from Los Alamos travel. In any case it is pretty obvious where things are going and in a few days or week everyone will be staying home anyways.
As for Mason, yes I think he is good guy and I don't buy that it is all about the money since TRIAD is non-profit.
Under LANS that would be a different story I am sure Bechtel would be trying figure out a way to make money off this anyway they could. It is what they do. I am sure they already planning on building mass grave sites that will not work, or makeshift hospitals which will be late and total death traps. If you say that is slander against Bechtel it is not and there are whole books dedicated to just how Bechtel has made money off the death and misfortune of others, remember Bolivia.
As for when the first case actually turns up in Los Alamos, I would say that would be very soon. I know a huge amount of LANL people are taking their kids skiing in Colorado now that schools have been canceled. Luckily there are no Coronavirus cases in Colorado particularly in any of the ski-resort areas like Apsen or Vail, right............... oh oops they should have looked that up before they went. You see where this going right.
Dang my ski trip just got ruined, Colorado just closed all the ski resorts, dam now what are we suppose to do, at least the bars in Santa Fe are still open. These next few months could a real drag. I guess we need to have some house parties now.
The LANL workforce just got sent a message that LANL continues to be business as normal.
No changes.
Domestic travel is OK!
Travel in/out of LANL is OK!
No work from home.
No stay at home.
No hand sanitizer.
Call the LANL EOC, not the NM DOH.
Unless you are a manager or a Lab Fellow, it is impossible to perform work with social distancing with the little people packed in like sardines.
Everyone is ordered to come into work Monday morning.
If you read the LA Facebook pages, the workforce and the town is asking why?
Yes, 7:35 AM, evidently the workforce and twon does not know Thom Mason well enough to understand his integrity, honesty, selflessness, and purity of purpose for doing the right thing ...
The most frustrating part is that LANL is 2 steps behind the state. Information from the county and LANL are
Conflicting. As LANL employees were still on domestic travel As early as last week, we are told business as usual but the
County is recommending 14 day isolation. So who do we believe? Meanwhile the state of NM is shutting down all around us. Mason and company are quickly losing any kind of credibility with the workforce. It’s all about safety but it will cost too much money to send everyone home.
10:23- most of the community already knows of this rumor. This is just somebody finally putting it in words.
The most frustrating part is that LANL is 2 steps behind the state. Information from the county and LANL are
Conflicting. As LANL employees were still on domestic travel As early as last week, we are told business as usual but the
County is recommending 14 day isolation. So who do we believe? Meanwhile the state of NM is shutting down all around us. Mason and company are quickly losing any kind of credibility with the workforce. It’s all about safety but it will cost too much money to send everyone home.
3/15/2020 8:05 PM
Until they start dropping liked flies as seen in Wuhan it is full steam ahead. Pedal to the metal...determined to fail. Into battle tomorrow my friends.
Waiting to unfold
Raging uncontrolled
Adapt a potency
Death machine, infest my corpse to be
Unyielding kings of agony
Test your body chemistry
Pulmonary overthrow
Possession of your inner throne
Invasions quickly override
Malicious domineering strike
Floods your veins, commit slow death
Deteriorate your makers met
Perpetual demise
On a fast decline
Killing tendency
Epidemic, permanent disease
Incapacitate
Fall into your fate
Pain results in screams
Bleed eternally
Years will pass before it can be cured
I don’t hold Mason 100% responsible. He is beholden to NNSA who must approve anything above and beyond.
. It’s all about safety but it will cost too much money to send everyone home.
3/15/2020 8:05 PM
What I don't get is that if everybody stayed home how would that change much of anything that LANL does? This is a series question. I can understand the pit production would be effected since they have actually make stuff, but everything else I just don't see it. The lab could be closed down for 5 years and so what? You read the movie "The Stand" the nukes still worked years and years after most of humanity was gone.
I could even understand that maybe 10 or 15 years ago when LANL had a strong epi SIMS, network science and complex systems which actually did some great work on epidemic modeling why you might want to keep the lab going because it would be part of the work to understand and fight epidemic but these groups are almost entirely gone now. It is ironic that Nanos was the reasons the EPISIMS group left LANL. This group actually was able to simulate the spread of a vector in a entire city. If you remember Doug Roberts the guy who made the very first LANL blog, he was part of that team, the group left after the Nanos stand down he started the blog out of disgust for what was happening and then retired shortly after. It is amazing looking back at LANL and seeing huge mistake after mistake by managers. They had been warned time and time again that we are losing talent which cannot be replaced and our capabilities are eroding. No one listened and just said you are all expendable and that no one matters. 15 years and this is what you have now which is lab that is just a shadow of its former self.
And yet LANL closes routinely when it snows an inch or two!
LANL Management is still NOT communicating with the employees and insisting on a "The LAB will NOT shut down under any circumstances".
They are forcing employees to use their sick leave if they do not feel well and encouraging them to stay home to protect the workforce. If you are a scientist or engineer and want to work home, then you have to use your codes. Others who are support get to use Report Pay.
The managers are protecting themselves and are cancelling meetings with employees, but not with the higher ups. You see, they need to keep their distance from the dirty workforce benath them who don't have access to hand sanitizers or bleach wipes. However, the employees have to work at TA-55 and elsewhere where they live like sardines and cannot keep a distance of 3-6 ft.
The janitors, if you are lucky to have them, are not using bleach to clean up the restrooms.
Employees in high risk categories are being denied the opportunity to work from home.
Finally, and most important, lab employees have been ordered to NOT commuicate with the outside community.
Thank goodness there is this blog!
Disgruntled much?
Wow 9:11. You clearly have no clue what LANL does wrt manufacturing and other defense programs. If you don’t know, don’t comment because it just makes you like silly.
If you aren't there for the mission, then why are you there?
3/16/2020 3:38 PM
Bitter much, jeez. Just take some sick leave or do what you have gotta do to if you don't feel safe. Come on don't get on other peoples cases. We all need to get along right now. No one is forcing you to come into work, no on is forcing to even take this job.
3/16/2020 3:38 PM
Ok I going to throw you a bone. If cannot come in than go read a technical book or lean a new computer skill that you may be able
to use when you come back in. Read up on physics, fluid mechanics, applied math etc. Learn a new plotting program etc
If you aren't there for the mission, then why are you there?
3/16/2020 9:13 PM
No one can even define what the mission is. Is it nukes an only nukes, science that supports nukes, or a broader scientific capabilities for national security?
Wow 9:11. You clearly have no clue what LANL does wrt manufacturing and other defense programs. If you don’t know, don’t comment because it just makes you like silly.
3/16/2020 8:29 PM
You are right manufacturing and related things like pit work would of course suffer if the lab is shut down. I disagree with the other defense programs as many think this work should not even be at LANL since it is WFO and not directly mission relevant. Many would also say that the lab should not be doing any work on bio threats or epidemic modeling again this is not mission relevant. Many have been saying for the past 20 years that much of what the lab does is simply not core mission and needs to go. There is no such thing as "science supporting the mission". There might be mission science but that is all.
The guy down the hall is just coughing like crazy, why the hell is he still at work.
If you aren't there for the mission, then why are you there?
3/16/2020 9:13 PM
=====
Probably the grossly over-inflated salaries.
Do we still need 20% increases in weapons spending every year? Maybe we could buy respirators instead? When will the public start to demand changes?
3/17/2020 2:21 PM
When the public figures out what LANL and LLNL are. They have never known, and will never know, and will never care, Greg Mello notwithstanding.
When the public figures out what LANL and LLNL are. They have never known, and will never know, and will never care, Greg Mello notwithstanding.
3/17/2020 5:28 PM
You may have a point, however some people have pointed out that manufacturing is still needed. LANL and LLNL still have some other science that is valuable although one could argue that the money for the extra science and defense work would go further elsewhere. I still think that if the labs where just closed down that not much would change. We no longer test, we no longer design we no longer innovate, we no longer push the boundaries, and worse off is we no longer care. LLNL and LANL where once the pride of DOE and the nations science, this has not been true for some time despite the fact that plenty of money continues to invested into these places. Greg Mello may not be honest but he may be right about what the labs have become.
You're right, LANL does nothing besides manufacture pits. Everything else is not critical. I guess the lab won't certify the stockpile this year for President Trump. Bummer.
You're right, LANL does nothing besides manufacture pits. Everything else is not critical. I guess the lab won't certify the stockpile this year for President Trump. Bummer.
3/18/2020 12:43 PM
It always gets certified. Like that means anything without testing anyway.
12:43 true but the information going into the certification is not dry labbed.
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