Dec 5, 2009

Comment of the Week, Saturday Edition


For those of you in the LANS PASO (Public Affairs Spin Office -- Hi, Kevin!) who like to claim that this blog only reports bad news about LANS, I am happy to set the record straight with this upbeat note sent in by a reader on the Comment of the Week, Wednesday Edition post.



Good News! Your LANS team is working harder than ever to make LANL a great place to work. The future looks bright with the steady hands of our LANS executive team at the helm.

This week, Dr. Anastasio released a heart-to-heart memo to his fellow employees at "the lab". In it, he urged our world class "best and brightest" to press on and take LANL to even greater levels of achievement.

Here are just a few, small pieces of the good news that Dr. Anastasio had to say to employees:


"The bills (FY2011 funding) are good for the NNSA enterprise and good for the Laboratory."

"All of this is good news - especially when you add to it to the considerable investment being made at LANL through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), or “stimulus bill. We have received $212 million for our cleanup activities, and we have competed for and won (to date) close to $40 million in ARRA-funded work in science and technology."

"As with every year, we can’t sit back and rest on what we have. I – along with my fellow Lab directors – have been working with the Administration as they formulate the FY11 budget."


Dr. Anastasio is working very hard for LANL, but even with his hectic schedule, he has announced that he will be taking time out to have a All-Hands meeting with his employees in early January. It's clear that this is one Director who intends to get down in the trenches and stay engage with his hard working staff. You won't want to miss this upcoming meeting!

Yes, LANL is turning around and headed for greatness. Our Director and his new business-savy team from Bechtel and
BWXT are all actively working overtime to make LANL a huge success. Recent survey results demonstrate that over 91 percent of the workforce is dedicated to helping LANS achieve success with its efforts. Join this incredible LANS team in their hard work that is making it all happen. Great things await us as we push forward. Onward, ever onward, people!



This is clear, indisputable evidence that LANS is on a trajectory for greatness that the history books will not forget. Posterity will remember LANS fondly for the great greatness that it brought to LANL.


--Doug

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes! We are great! To eternity and beyooooooond!!!!

--Buzz Lightyear, Star Commander and Dedicated Lab Employee

Anonymous said...

Now you all know why my boss is always humming the tune..."I'm too sexy for my love, too sexy for my love, Love's going to leave me... I'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt...So sexy it hurts..."

What a guy!
--RM

Anonymous said...

Posterity remembering LANS fondly:

Snicker.

Anonymous said...

Greater greatness making excellent Centers of Excellence!

See what wearing those "shoes that GRIP" (Copyright 2008 by LANS LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bechtel) has done. It's amazing!

With the Holidays just around the corner, don't forget: Yak-Trax's make a terrific gift for everyone in the whole family and have been scientifically proven by the many D-grade students hired by LANS to raise scholastic levels to extreme levels of GREATEST!!! Who would have thunk it?

Anonymous said...

Non-weapons science almost to 100% died with Climategate. RIP.

Weapons science (nuclear, and non-nuclear) is alive, and it is normally in conjunction with the scientific method, testing, hydrodynamics, computer simulation, quantum mechanics, special - and general relativity, the uncertainty principle, and in the future, if needed, with quantum fluctuations, as well.

Say No To Climategate And Junk Scientists!!!

Anonymous said...

I think my group was the reason that the "Shoes That GRIP" motto came about. In Feb 2008, we had a tech slip and fall on ice, breaking his ankle and elbow severely (he ended up in a wheelchair for something like 4.5 months), a team lead fall on ice dislocating his retina and another tech that slid in his wheelchair while on ice, falling and breaking his arm. If that wasn't the cause of this motto, I don't know what else it could have been!

I believe in LANS spin on things about as much as I believe in the Tooth-fairy, the Easter bunny and non-partisan politics. Haven't we all learned to read the LANL announcements yet? The way to do it is to see what is written and then realize the opposite is true.

With that last comment in mind, I truly LOVE working for LANS and my morale is EXTREMELY high. I wouldn't think of ever going elsewhere, so therefore I am not looking anywhere else for a job.

Anonymous said...

Famous last words--don't worry, be happy. One fine head-in-your-own-rear kind of day Enron's boss-man Ken Lay received a medal of honor from Federal Reserve God of Deregulation Alan Greenspan. A week later Enron sheeple were carrying home their belongings, tears streaming down their jaded cheeks as the world learned the truth about Kenny-boy and pals. So don't worry, we got Congress bamboozled once more. So go back to chewing your cud. A few more million more coming in and all's well at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Anonymous said...

91%?? Wow! That's impressive!
I didn't think that that many employees even bothered with completing survey...

Anonymous said...

What a bunch of idiots. I'm talking about the majority of those that post on what used to be a somewhat informative blog but has deteriorated into a bunch of nonsensical blather. For those posting this inane fodder that presently work at LANL, three words: come on RIF (guess that would be five words if you spell out the acronym).

12/5/09 10:03 PM

Come On Rich Income Fast (RIF) .... LANS Mission Statement

Are these the five words you were thinking of...duh!

Anonymous said...

12/5/09 10:03 PM forgot to yawn.

Anonymous said...

Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America by Barbara Ehrenreich (Hardcover - Oct 13, 2009)

Anonymous said...

I’m shocked and dismayed that 12/5/09 10:03PM would insinuate the Lab would conduct a RIF just to get rid of those complaining about nepotism, sexual harassment, discrimination, waste, incompetence and any number of illegalities committed now and then by managers. Shocked I tell you, shocked!!

PS Why not just target those who made negative comments on recent surveys? Yea...that's the ticket!

Anonymous said...

10:03 pm is that well-known category of LANL employee: Complainer & Whiner.

Anonymous said...

Let's get on with it... someone needs to write a LANS corporate anthem so we can all sing it with smiling faces each day at the start of work.

Anonymous said...

"What a bunch of idiots. I'm talking about the majority of those that post on what used to be a somewhat informative blog but has deteriorated into a bunch of nonsensical blather. For those posting this inane fodder that presently work at LANL, three words: come on RIF (guess that would be five words if you spell out the acronym).
12/5/09 10:03 PM"

Amen.

Anonymous said...

Nice satire, but we all know that LANS is lame. It's all about money, and NNSA's desire to replace the Rocky Flats Plant, and their having selected a corporate group willing to help them do just that. Government corruption allowed one person inside a government agency to pick the recipient of our infinitely renewable $80 million per year contract. As long as that type of corporate payola is allowed to continue, we'll be stuck with LANS.

PBI's baby. Make the LLC money. Nothing else matters.

BTW, nice way to keep Roark in the spotlight, Doug. I hear he gets really twitchy at the sound of your name.

Signed,

Small, Yet Highly Vocal Group of Malcontents Member Number 8,432.

Anonymous said...

Better yet 12/6/09 9:00 AM:

Aim Low: Quit Often, Expect the Worst, and Other Good Avice, by Dave Dunseath, 2005.

Anonymous said...

12:20 I sincerely hope you are the first one out the door.

Anonymous said...

10:03 and 12:20 are jerks. You see them in the halls, you know who they are. You've probably got one or two of them working in your group. Sadly, LANL has never had a shortage of jerks, something about the place breeds them.

Anonymous said...

10:03 is easy to find. He's the socially inept teen-age son of the LANS manager with the "No Whining" bumper sticker on his SUV. Or he's the manager. Hard to tell the difference.

He's also easy to spot on the blog as his posts are supremely arrogant but are the least informative and most inane of all. In a way it's humorous, he constantly picks on others for "whining", but he's by far the biggest whiner of all - he WHINES about WHINING!! What a TROLL.

Anonymous said...

LANL has never had a shortage of jerks, something about the place breeds them.

12/6/09 5:55 PM

It's not the place. I estimate from some 35 years being around them constantly, that about 20-25% of scientists are sociopathic losers and complete jerks when it comes to interacting with and dealing with normal people. Ask the guys in X Division with the putrid body smell, the lice-infested beards, and the shiny polyester pants (worn with filthy old running shoes) if you don't believe me.

Anonymous said...

So who's whining? While many throughout the country are without jobs or are "under-employed," those at LANL (well, most of those posting here)are making very good salaries (at the expense of the taxpayers), are pissed off, unhappy, discontented, irritated, etc., etc. because Obama, Congress, DOE, NNSA, LANS (a.k.a., the Bechtel conspiracy), Mikey, and the evil trolls are making it more difficult to play in their sandboxes while collecting salaries and benefits that many can only dream about and don't care about them anymore like in the good old days. Oh, I forgot--"A" students have the right (and privilege) to have it handed to them on a silver platter. Great work if you can get it. I did (25 years and counting), and I try to keep some perspective that I'm doing a hell of a lot better than a lot of people and try my best to not be so damn selfish (yes, I know--Bechtel and Mikey are selfish; that does not mean the rest of us have to be). Merry Christmas. Sigh...

Anonymous said...

LANS has the plan for making LANL grand!

Anonymous said...

10:50 AM: "LANS has the plan for making LANL grand!"

No, it's more like...

LANS has the plan for making LANL damned!

Anonymous said...

It's not the place. I estimate from some 35 years being around them constantly, that about 20-25% of scientists are sociopathic losers and complete jerks when it comes to interacting with and dealing with normal people. Ask the guys in X Division with the putrid body smell, the lice-infested beards, and the shiny polyester pants (worn with filthy old running shoes) if you don't believe me.

May I add the tight polyester shorts that we girls call a male who wear them "potato" (forget the older term cone head) ahem for the potato in the crotch - try sitting across from the potato uh male employee, all the while trying to avoid an inadvertent (really) glance at the potato, nope not a chance of any type of turn-on, particularly with the ripe underarm aroma of male essence. So glad that you are keeping up the fitness thing going - how about a shower and a change of clothing?

Anonymous said...

"Ask the guys in X Division with the putrid body smell, the lice-infested beards, and the shiny polyester pants (worn with filthy old running shoes) if you don't believe me."

No I do not believe you.

You have brought this up before. I am getting the picture you are the "pyscho girl" who cannot get over someone who dumped your crazy ass.
Come on now it is kind of obvious.

Hey girlfriend, just because he has a good job, a car, teeth, and money, doesn't mean he was too good for you. It is his loss. You are so right about Fred the Meth-head, he is so much cooler, great tats, nice scares, and he may even get his drivers license back in three years. Hella cool! You are so worth it.