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 The exclusions were based on outdated job categories and related skills.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.
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In short there is no way that will work at NNSA labs. The number of managers and there compensation has just grown.
Yes, most notably in 2008, when LLNS laid off over a 100 FTEs so LLNS could bring in more outside Bechtel managers.
Look I have no issue if you can work offsite and do a good job. I know a few people that do this and if they can do this even better offsite great. However this is less than 10 percent of the people that work offsite. Most do a subpar job and I bet 25 percent do absolutely nothing. We have some people that show up 2 days a month and I think that is the only days they work. No one says anything.
Over the years the lab has just gotten much slower, weirder and less efficient. It comes in waves, the first jump up was WHL in 2000. The next was with Nanos 2005. After that was Bechtel which had two periods one right when they got in and another around 2014. It was steady for some time and in 2000 we had Covid. Again 2023 with mass hire, and now in 2025 with Trump and push for AI. I am not alone in this all sorts of staff are now saying they simply cannot get much done anymore due to the crazy paper work, team members not being onsite, managers and staff not responding, issues with maintenance, and charge codes not going far enough any more so huge amounts of time are spent on chasing small bits of money. I get why so many staff are so mentally checked out and will be happy just to stay home.
FYI: Prior to the UC/LLNL to LLNS change, the powers at be, considered keeping the Science and Engineering departments under UC management, and subcontracting all other areas, including HR, security, etc.
8/11/2025 5:03 AM"
This may explain a lot of other things. We had some external contracts which in the past was reasonably smooth with the LANL paper work. This past 4 months it has turned into a horrific nightmare where they inset on on these crazy checks, redo the checks, repeat, bring in lab legal, and add another oversight group and so on and it never gets done. We have never experienced anything like it before. One of the team members said it may be them trying to say how important the are and creating more work to say how busy. I thought this was bit far fetched but I keep hearing this from other people in other parts of the lab. I think you may be on to something, and could explain the sudden slow down and barrage or weird procedures that appeared out nowhere.
It all kind of makes sense now.