Is the annual LLNS AAP worth a "hill of beans" in terms of actually addressing diversity employment disparities at LLNL?
Friday, June 19, 2020
25 comments:
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Anonymous said...
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Diversity simply for the sake of diversity will be disaster. Now I agree there are things that can make the labs more accessible to all people like child care, family housing, or flexible hours act, outreach and so on and the labs can certainly do more of this but this will probably not have the desired results because it would be open to all people, so you may get some increase is in certain areas but it will not the numbers that you want. The better equation is how to get equal opportunities not equal outcomes. The reality is this is not about equal opportunity or outcomes it is about grabbing power. -
6/20/2020 6:04 PM
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Anonymous said...
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In order force the NNSA to take take diversity seriously I think we should take advantage of the current climate and start considering some purges. We should make lists of NNSA people who don't like/ oops I mean who we can say are not in favor of diversity or can be claimed to not be in favor of diversity and start some online twitter list of these names and demand that they be removed or shamed in some form. We then send in a list of demands for diversity/social justice to the NNSA, and anyone who is not in support gets added to the twitter list. China, Cambodia and Argentina had very effective programs in this. In any case it seems like this is the direction the nation is gong to take so at least we can be ahead of the curve. Just last week a number of universities are starting to take action against various professors and deans so why should the DOE labs be left out. Are you onboard or not? Once you think about I think you will want to be one board. Maybe we can remove the statue of Oppenheimer from downtown Los Alamos, -
6/20/2020 6:18 PM
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Anonymous said...
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"Maybe we can remove the statue of Oppenheimer from downtown Los Alamos"
This may or may not be a joke but in the current climate I could easily make a case for this that could fly with large number of people right now.
"We should take down the stature of Oppenheimer because it sets a bad example for young people in Los Alamos and New Mexico. Robert oversaw a collection of what at the time where considered the best and brightest yet this was a collection of mostly white males. Having his stature in town means that we approve of what he did. We can appreciate that he was consistent with his time period but to honor him also means we are honoring that time period. Perhaps the stature should be moved to the Bradbury museum with a disclaimer about that time period and why there was so little diversity. Additionally it should be acknowledged that the creation of the bomb was itself based in racism as it was used on Japanese, while not used on Germans, Italians or Russians. This choice was due to the views of race and supremacy. We also have many fellowships and awards based on people from that time like Oppenheimer Fellows, this should also be changed. " American in many ways invented racism and it is ingrained in every aspect of our way of life, symbols, creeds, songs, and so on. It is now time to change this.
In any case if you would like to know, removing statues and erasing history is a standard approach in totalitarian systems. Mao for instance was a master of this. There is untold secrete about totalitarian systems it is this: there is a large segment of society that would be very happy to be in such a system. If you don't believe this then ask yourself how come there has been so many people willing to be cults or similar ways of life in which are all consuming?
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6/20/2020 8:20 PM
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Anonymous said...
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"In order force the NNSA to take take diversity seriously I think we should take advantage of the current climate and start considering some purges. We should make lists of NNSA people who don't like/ oops I mean who we can say are not in favor of diversity or can be claimed to not be in favor of diversity and start some online twitter list of these names and demand that they be removed"
This troll must be a newbie. Long before the Internet and Twitter, anonymous and essentially accountability free closed door ranking sessions have done the same damage to employees where the employees have no ability to defend themselves against false claims. No ranking comment recordings of video or audio to review after the fact either. Don't be a troll and a hypocrite. One is enough don't you think?
One must wonder how civil and just ranking sessions would be if they were recorded and available for review. Food for thought.
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6/20/2020 9:25 PM
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Anonymous said...
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"This troll must be a newbie. Long before the Internet and Twitter, anonymous and essentially accountability free closed door ranking sessions have done the same damage to employees where the employees have no ability to defend themselves against false claims. No ranking comment recordings of video or audio to review after the fact either. Don't be a troll and a hypocrite. One is enough don't you think?
One must wonder how civil and just ranking sessions would be if they were recorded and available for review."
The post was a troll. As for the closed door ranking, first off you have no proof for any of your assertions, second if the assertions are partially true on some occasions you have no evidence for any kind of racial motive for the decisions. The sessions are fairly civil and probably seem totally just. Most of the time they seem to work but sometimes the results do seem like random noise where good people are not promoted and bad people are promoted however even in these cases it usually just that noise, where the people just make some random decisions. Film all you want I doubt much would change.
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6/21/2020 4:39 PM
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Anonymous said...
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"As for the closed door ranking, first off you have no proof for any of your assertions"
Sorry, but you are supporting the commenters point. Closed door ranking is a near perfect management sanctuary for making unsupportable claims in support of or against employees. Lab annual appraisals, are merely edited, sanitized, and agreed to excerpts of those closed door ranking sessions. If your line manager does not challenge baseless accusations in those closed door ranking sessions you're hosed, and If they do challenge baseless accusations, they may fall out of the circle of trust.
"Film all you want I doubt much would change."
I disagree. Video/audio recordings can be a useful tool to flush out direct ownership of an inappropriate statement or action that can lead to accountability and change. In its absence, one is left with only a judgement of the larger group or agency where corrective measures are resisted, challenging, or simply closed off.
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6/22/2020 8:29 AM
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Anonymous said...
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Many managers and HR people make bad decisions for good reasons. Organizations of any type must deal with decent values, and rank incompetence in execution.
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6/22/2020 5:57 PM
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Anonymous said...
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I disagree. Video/audio recordings can be a useful tool to flush out direct ownership of an inappropriate statement or action that can lead to accountability and change. In its absence, one is left with only a judgement of the larger group or agency where corrective measures are resisted, challenging, or simply closed off.
6/22/2020 8:29 AM
Ok, I agree in principle but my view is tempered by recent events. There are endless videos of police abusing white, asian and hispanic people on the dark web, yet on the open internet and main stream news media you will never see these videos. There are also endless videos of interracial violence consisting of black on every other race, ever hear of the knockout game? Again you will never see these videos on the MSM or any popular platform. All you have to do is check the FBI statistics on violence and all will be very clear about who is killing who in America. In other words videos are nice but if they show things that are not in line with the proper world view they will never see the light of day. I am all for videos but they must be made public for all and not censored. In the current book burning world we live in video must be controlled by those who know best.
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6/22/2020 11:23 PM
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Anonymous said...
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If we get to where everyone's actions and statements are subject to real-time recording, I will move somewhere where freedom is still respected. I don't want to live in a police state, conservative or progressive. "If you haven't doe anything wrong, you have nothing to hide" is a slogan of tyrants and despots throughout history.
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6/23/2020 5:42 PM
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Anonymous said...
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"If we get to where everyone's actions and statements are subject to real-time recording, I will move somewhere where freedom is still respected. I don't want to live in a police state, conservative or progressive. "If you haven't doe anything wrong, you have nothing to hide" is a slogan of tyrants and despots throughout history."
If an employees ranking and future are discussed in secrecy where he or she has no ability to refute a claim, is that person's freedom being respected? If a Lab manger in a ranking session hasn't done or said anything wrong or has "nothing to hide", then he or she should not have to worry about transparency right? Worker bees have rights too. This is something you may have unintentionally glossed over or have assigned a lower priority to. The Labs have an abundance of positive talking points for public consumption which easily fizzle out without consequence behind closed doors. This is one reason why Lab culture is difficult to change. -
6/24/2020 8:52 AM
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Anonymous said...
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Lousy employees get lousy reviews. Good employees get good reviews. Managers make the sole and irrevocable decision, based on their sole and irrevocable discretion and definition. Don't like it? Go work for a nonprofit progressive outfit that makes no money and pays less. Or, work how your manager wants you to work. (Hint: It's the secret to success.)
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6/24/2020 5:43 PM
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Anonymous said...
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"Lousy employees get lousy reviews. Good employees get good reviews. Managers make the sole and irrevocable decision, based on their sole and irrevocable discretion and definition...Go work for a nonprofit"
Don't kid yourself. LLNS is not your everyday for-profit in the free market. It is a for-profit* LLC with near zero liability or risk of prompt dissolution, where unachieved milestones and deliverables are massaged away or minimized with the Field Office before PERs are finalized.
Not to equate the two, but arrogance and rationalizations like "Managers make the sole and irrevocable decision, based on their sole and irrevocable discretion and definition" were likely contributing factors in the inexcusable death of George Floyd. You see, sometimes chronically BAD employees get GOOD reviews or aren't held accountable for their actions by their managers until it's too late to correct. GOOD employees can get BAD reviews too, but by your declaration neither scenario is possible or open to review. -
6/25/2020 10:49 AM
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Anonymous said...
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"Managers make the sole and irrevocable decision, based on their sole and irrevocable discretion and definition."
LLNS employees have no access to closed door comments impacting their own ranking? Yet LLNS LLC will always demand the privilege of poking their "camel's nose" in the NNSA Field Office tent to influence their own annual PER or cry bloody murder if not permitted. Wow! Hypocrisy is alive and well. -
6/25/2020 2:44 PM
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Anonymous said...
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"Lousy employees get lousy reviews. Good employees get good reviews. Managers make the sole and irrevocable decision, based on their sole and irrevocable discretion and definition. Don't like it? Go work for a nonprofit progressive outfit that makes no money and pays less. Or, work how your manager wants you to work. (Hint: It's the secret to success.)
6/24/2020 5:43 PM"
I suspect this post is a bit sarcasm. There is plenty of weirdness in the NNSA labs, so much so that it can be argued that there is no lousy or good employees only perceptions and so on. I think this whole "postmodern" management approach picked up steam when the labs coupled with Bechtel but is gradually fading. You had plenty of times where the manager does not know how one should work, what one does, or why one does it and so on. I have seen some very odd worldviews at the labs peaking around 2012. -
6/25/2020 3:41 PM
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Anonymous said...
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Had to bring George Floyd into it, huh? No further information necessary about your agenda. #defundthemanagers.
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6/25/2020 5:29 PM
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Anonymous said...
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Had to bring George Floyd into it, huh? No further information necessary about your agenda. #defundthemanagers.
6/25/2020 5:29 PM
Defund does not mean disband. -
6/25/2020 9:15 PM
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Anonymous said...
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"Defund does not mean disband"
That reminds me of the one liner: "In Russia, they pretend to pay us, so we pretend to work"
Or from a cast member at Disneyland on the canoe ride when a lady asked what the paddles were for: "If you don't row, we don't go"
Enlighten me, what would de-funding do? -
6/26/2020 11:03 AM
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Anonymous said...
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Enlighten me, what would de-funding do?
6/26/2020 11:03 AM
Defunding would mean changing a culture, making it a community full of inclusion and diversity. It means ridding institutionalized, systemic structures of oppression and colonization. It would allow the community to freely flourish without fear. It would dismantle privilege and replace it with the true promise of equality and right past wrongs, and help a portion of society realize how they where part of systems that create systemic and asymmetrical margilizations via creating quantized gaps preventing whole groups from jumping to higher economic bands by collective motions, thus localizing them in bound states, where in fact they should be free to move continuously.
Ok I have no freaking idea what it means but if I ask this question to some of my more "woke" family, I get a bunch of babble about how even asking the question shows why it must be done due to systems of oppression and people will be good once the oppressors are gone. I just say ok, defund away lets do this experiment and see the love flow. They say great you have made the first step to a lifelong process of understanding your privilege. They might want look a previous "studies" on the results of such experiments but young people just don't do literature searches anymore. After they run the experiment they will be upset when they find out that they got scooped many times before in the last few hundred years. -
6/26/2020 9:23 PM
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Anonymous said...
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Just posing the problem that way displays astounding ignorance.
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6/27/2020 6:01 PM
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Anonymous said...
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de-platforming is not the same as defunding, defunding is not the same as disbanding yet de-platforming is the same as disbanding. Now you may say that makes no logical sense, but logic itself is a construct of a systemic institutionalized structure of oppression. -
6/27/2020 10:13 PM
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Anonymous said...
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The LLNS annual AAP is a DOL requirement and is rich in pledges and senior management signatures but rather thin on follow through, and when I say follow through, I'm not referring to guaranteeing a specific opportunity or outcome. I'm referring to the language and feedback loops within the LLNS AAP document that are supposedly designed to communicate goals and track efforts made across the Lab that are poorly executed or simply do not occur at all.
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6/28/2020 7:21 AM
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Anonymous said...
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logic itself is a construct of a systemic institutionalized structure of oppression.
6/27/2020 10:13 PM
That was great. Now do religion. -
6/28/2020 5:46 PM
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Anonymous said...
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That was great. Now do religion.
6/28/2020 5:46 PM
An interesting point is that many on the woke left act and think pretty much in a fanatical religious fashion. There is the underlying anti-reason and pro faith approach to their positions in which there can be no compromise. I have had conversations with both evangelicals and SJWs and the conversations are essentially the same. In one God explains everything and the bible is literally true, evolution is false, non Christians are evil and they get upset when you point out the contradictions. With SJWs racism explains everything, capitalism is false and non-woke people are evil, and most of all they get upset when you point out the contradictions in their positions.
There are other parallels as well, like some of the religious people see the Devil in everything, music, movies, schools, other regions, while the woke see oppression in everything. I remember the 80s when the religious types would say Led Zeppelin is evil because they are devils worshipers who are corrupting the youth, today Led Zeppelin is evil because they culturally appropriated black music (blues), promote toxic masculinity and capitalism. -
6/29/2020 4:31 PM
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Anonymous said...
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6/29/2020 4:31 PM
Well said. You'll be punished for this. -
6/30/2020 5:41 PM
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Anonymous said...
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6/29/2020 4:31 PM
Yes. -
6/30/2020 7:39 PM
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