-Gus
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In 2008, we'll see more like today's notice, that waits until late Friday afternoon to announce an important Monday meeting.
Why such late notice? Can't they plan further ahead?
To/MS: All Employees
From/MS: Michael R. Anastasio, A100
Phone/Fax: 7-5101/5-2679
Symbol: DIR-08-001
Date: January 4, 2008
SUBJECT: All Employees Meeting - January 7, 2008
The Director will hold an All Employee meeting on Monday, January 7, 2008, in the NSSB auditorium beginning at 1:15 p.m. to provide an update on several items including the status of workforce restructuring and the recently signed FY08 Budget.
29 comments:
I'm betting we'll be told that 350 staff need to hit the bricks.
Any word as to what he might say?
He no doubt will say, "Oops, we made a big mistake. We need you. We want you. You 420 people who took the VRIP, will you please come back? We miss you. We value your contributions. We're sorry. We won't do it again. Your offices are waiting for you. Lunch is on me today."
Or, maybe he won't say that.
He no doubt will say, "Oops, we made a big mistake. We need you. We want you. You 420 people who took the VRIP, will you please come back? We miss you. We value your contributions. We're sorry. We won't do it again. Your offices are waiting for you. Lunch is on me today."
Ha ha ha! I wish. But more likely they will say, we're so glad we can now hire our cronies and get our obscenely big bonuses.
Can't you guys find something more substantive to complain about than you did not get the meeting notice about Monday afternoon until Friday afternoon? Would a week have been better? A month? Are you too busy to re-arrange your schedules to hear more about the future of the laboratory?
I will speculate he will say the volunteers were sufficient, combined with the budget for FY08, we are fine for now. To better prepare for the rest of this years costs and what might come in FY09, we will trim the flex workforce by :some percentage: now and target to complete these actions by :some date:. We will aggressively manage attrition and through these actions believe we can position the lab workforce properly for the future, but we won't proceed with an involuntary action at this particular time.
Yet another bad example of Mushroom Management care of Mikey and LANS. Sneak in the announcement on a late Friday afternoon and hope that few people notice the Monday early afternoon meeting.
You can rest assured that LANS is holding this suddenly announced meeting only because it is required by the DOE 3161 Plan.
What do you expect from a grown man walking around with a vagina. Mikey is not, and never will be a man.
These activities are the best way to fail out of Mgt 101
So when will the Oracle tool be opened up for "hiring" again? These geniuses just enticed 430 people to leave and some of them had jobs that need filled ASAP. Guess what, can't be done. Perhaps we can just put messages on their voice mail:
"You have reached the phone of Joe-Bob at Los Alamos National Laboratory. I am at my investment banker trying to decide how to secure my new SSP lottery winnings. I will not be returning anytime soon. If you are a fed sponsor, please just keep sending your money to the LANs buccaneers and they will take good care of you. If you are an auditor, just hang up, everything here is certainly on the up and up. If you are colleague, I’m sorry you didn’t win the lottery too; good luck to you. For everyone else you can try 7-7000, the LANL communications office, and perhaps they can help you.”
Seriously though, maybe Mike is going to say, we recognize that we now have a bunch of important unfilled jobs and to allow us to do backfills we are going to open the jobs and Oracle tool to internal hiring again.
On the other hand, I doubt this bunch actually cares that the Laboratory has many critical holes now that should be filled. Further more, they have no idea what the strategic direction of the Laboratory should be. They can continue to obfuscate their incompetence by moving forward with the involuntary RIF. Whenever this chaotic disruption ends, the flood gates of change and lack of vision will damage our programs and work for a long time to come.
Please correct me if I am wrong but I heard from a colleague of mine that Seestrom sent out a Christmas message that was quite insulting to her directorate. Something to the effect that if you are not going to be the solution then you are the problem and she didn't want to hear anymore bad news about issues such travel, procurement and the like. Pretty much mirrors Mikey's response to questions at LANL. DOes anyone have Seestrom's on the blog?
Oops.
You were doing really well there, 9:20, until this little bit:
"Further more, they have no idea what the strategic direction of the Laboratory should be."
DOE, NNSA, and LANS have all agreed to define the strategic mission of LANL as pit production.
Period. End of sentence. End of story.
Does anyone have any info on the FY 08 Budget numbers? Will we still need to reach the 750 FTE's this FY?
"Seestrom sent out a Christmas message that was quite insulting to her directorate. Something to the effect that if you are not going to be the solution then you are the problem"
Seestrom is part of the problem.
I cannot think of a single person who respects her. Not a good for a leader. On the other hand people do have some respect for Mike.
I anticipate more layoffs. In fact, with the budget shortfall, it will probably go beyond 750. It is not over yet. With a new president, hold on for a real ride.
First we have complaining about not hearing anything, not enough communications, now complaining about not enough advance notice. Get a life! I suppose this is what BLOGs are for, whiners.
LANL isn't the only DOE lab getting the hammered by lack of funding. Fermilab is laying off 200, and every employee takes 2 days a month furlough, until further notice.
http://www.fnal.gov/
Argonne shut down the IPNS after 26 years of operation Tueday, leaving only SNS at Oak Ridge and LANSCE at LANL doing major accelerator-driven neutron scattering science in the states.
http://www.pns.anl.gov/
That's different, 12:38. We're special.
This is from the corporate world, but it applies fairly well at LANL as well...
http://www.wisebread.com/you-re-fired-20-signs-that-a-pink-slip-is-coming
My guess Mikey is going to drop something like this: " despite the overwheliming response to the SSP RIF by 430, and the recent funding actions of congressional bipartisenship further analysis indicates budget short falls well beyond the scope of our orginial projections.....blah,blah, blah.
Look for higher RIF goals, sorry.
"Trumpet good news, hide the bad"
Lab Administration for Idiots; the Art of Mushroom Management
Gus, can you make this a new topic?
FY09 and beyond.
Given we will have a new administration a year from now, I thought it would be interesting to look ahead based upon who might be President. Since Obama is all the rage now for the Democrats, I went to his web site and found the following info that would have an impact on the national labs.
Perhaps someone else could do the same for a few other contenders.
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http://www.barackobama.com/issues/
Invest in Climate-Friendly Energy Development and Deployment:
Barack Obama knows that we need to rely on technology to help solve the critical energy and environmental problems facing this country. As he announced in his energy policy, Barack Obama will invest $150 billion over the next ten years to enable American engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs to advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure, accelerate the commercialization of plug-in hybrids, promote development of commercial-scale renewable energy, and begin the transition to a new digital electricity grid. This investment will transform the economy and create millions of new jobs. Obama will:
1. Double federal science and research funding for clean energy projects, relying on the resources and ability of our national laboratories, universities and land grant colleges.
Toward a Nuclear Free World:
Obama will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons, and pursue it. Obama will always maintain a strong deterrent as long as nuclear weapons exist. But he will take several steps down the long road toward eliminating nuclear weapons. He will stop the development of new nuclear weapons; work with Russia to take U.S. and Russian ballistic missiles off hair trigger alert; seek dramatic reductions in U.S. and Russian stockpiles of nuclear weapons and material; and set a goal to expand the U.S.-Russian ban on intermediate- range missiles so that the agreement is global.
"Can't you guys find something more substantive to complain about than you did not get the meeting notice about Monday afternoon until Friday afternoon? Would a week have been better? A month? Are you too busy to re-arrange your schedules to hear more about the future of the laboratory?"
I see you have a LANS mascot too, we have a LLNS mascot too that keeps taking up for the cronines. probally a mole on the blog due to get a big bonus if he or she can just turn around people's lack of trust in the two LLC's.
Not a chance in hell, bubba. LANS and LLNS are one in the same. Bad F-in News from day one.
Some budget numbers:
The NNSA received about $500M below its essentially flat fy08 request. If spread over the labs evenly then LANL will be cut about $100M (about 750 fte's according to LANS). LANS said the SSP needed 500-750 fte IF the budget was flat.
So I guess LANL has to cut another 1000 fte.
"Some budget numbers:
The NNSA received about $500M below its essentially flat fy08 request. If spread over the labs evenly then LANL will be cut about $100M (about 750 fte's according to LANS). LANS said the SSP needed 500-750 fte IF the budget was flat.
So I guess LANL has to cut another 1000 fte.
1/5/08 2:51 PM"
So the initial 750 was due to having LANS. The next 100 mil is from NNSA. So Phase 2 and 3 will get rid of another 800-1000 people. This may be about right.
"Those of us with vaginas are VERY happy not to be men..."
Here, here. and you have an avid following...
What will 2008 bring: Much greater NNSA oversight.
http://tenaciousness1984.googlepages.com/CongressionalBudgetReport2008.pdf
One of the most interesting parts of the above 2008 Congressional Budget Request for the NNSA is contained in the "Site Funding Summary" starting on page 569. While the design laboratories and the rest of the NNSA complex show essentially level funding between 2006 and 2012, Washington DC Headquarters funding is anticipated to go from $348 M in 2006 to $1,267 M in 2012. The 2012 funding level for DC is about equal to the projected funding for SNL and greater than that anticipated for LLNL. Note the 44% funding increase from 2007 to 2008.
What will 2008 bring: Much greater NNSA oversight.
Congressional Budget Report 2008
One of the most interesting parts of the above 2008 Congressional Budget Request for the NNSA is contained in the "Site Funding Summary" starting on page 569. While the design laboratories and the rest of the NNSA complex show essentially level funding between 2006 and 2012, Washington DC Headquarters funding is anticipated to go from $348 M in 2006 to $1,267 M in 2012. The 2012 funding level for DC is about equal to the projected funding for SNL and greater than that anticipated for LLNL. Note the 44%funding increase from 2007 to 2008.
So, level funding for LANL between now and 2012, with the extra cash needed for pit production and plutonium science coming out of our existing budgets. Add in about 6% inflation to eat away at what we do receive from Congress and we are suddenly looking at a very dim future at LANL.
Pair this information along with likely changes in both Congress and the Presidency that could produce very NNSA-unfriendly budgets far below "level" funding and you have the beginnings of a big disaster heading our way. I hope I'm wrong, but this year appears to be just the beginning of a very nasty trend.
"While the design laboratories and the rest of the NNSA complex show essentially level funding between 2006 and 2012, Washington DC Headquarters funding is anticipated to go from $348 M in 2006 to $1,267 M in 2012." - 11:26 AM
Could someone please explain a rational motive as to why the figures for DOE HQ funding seem to be exploding upward while most of the DOE science labs all flounder with either level or declining budgets?
This amount of increase in funding for DOE HQ sounds surreal. What's the story here?
“While the design laboratories and the rest of the NNSA complex show essentially level funding between 2006 and 2012, Washington DC Headquarters funding is anticipated to go from $348 M in 2006 to $1,267 M in 2012. - 1/5/08 10:08 PM
“This amount of increase in funding for DOE HQ sounds surreal. What's the story here?” - 1/6/08 5:48 PM
Maybe Headquarters is getting ready to design RRW3 without us. This way they won’t have to call for a competition between LLNL and LANL?
With respect to 1/5/08 9:26 AM, does anyone have said e-mail from Seestrom to share with the blog?
"Could someone please explain a rational motive as to why the figures for DOE HQ funding seem to be exploding upward while most of the DOE science labs all flounder with either level or declining budgets?
This amount of increase in funding for DOE HQ sounds surreal. What's the story here"
You might as well ask why the Pope is Catholic and why Bears shxx it the woods.. as Rod Serling used to say "Welcome...to the Twilight Zone"
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