Ok, guys, here's our COW. From the Coverups Are Bad, Transparency is Good post:
It's only taken a little over a month and employees are already beginning to forget about the morale survey fiasco. This LANS mess will die a quick death. By April, it will all be forgotten as word of the FY2011 budget start to come around and employees prepare for a further dose of LANL downsizing (excuse me, I mean... "right-sizing". I'm still new at this LANS-speak thing).
To me, as a relative outsider these days (even though I still collaborate with a few of my LANL colleagues) it is fascinating to observe how well LANS is managing to maintain a public happy face regarding conditions at LANL. Keep those tweets coming, D'Ag!
The survey results are locked up tighter than Mikey's asshole. We'll never see them. We will see a Roark-spun version that presents a (wait for it...)
ReplyDeleteLANS Happy Face!
A third of the Lab sheeple never responds to any survey because they're afraid (clouds moving overhead makes these sheeple nervous). Another third will always respond in glowing endorsements of Lab management (these sheeple believe managers know who says what in these types of surveys, so may as well score a few points). The remaining sheeple just don't want to be awaken from their cud-chewing daze. There are still a few non sheeples running around the place, but we'll weed'em out soon enough.
ReplyDelete--Sir Richard of the Royal Order of Sexual Harassers (the brains behind the brawn)
Let me at them! I'll show those cowardly LANS-haters who's the real boss around here. They'll all be quivering in fear after I'm done! Fuck 'em!
ReplyDelete- Knappy the Attack Dog
What's wrong with executive bonuses - from the Wall Street Journal.
ReplyDeletehttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703294004574511223494536570.html
"More important, should any company even try to attribute success to one person? A robust enterprise is not a collection of "human resources"; it's a community of human beings. All kinds of people are responsible for its performance. Focusing on a few—indeed, only one, who may have parachuted into the most senior post from the outside—just discourages everyone else in the company...
Put differently, executive compensation these days reinforces a class structure within the enterprise that is antithetical to its effective functioning. Because of its symbolic nature, executive compensation as currently practiced sends out the worst possible signal to everyone in the enterprise."
Is this going to affect my bonus?
ReplyDelete-MIKEY
Knappy spent too much time tied to a tree without a bone.
ReplyDeleteYawn! Six posts in, and all the usual suspects are already here.
ReplyDeleteIt actually took seven posts before all the usual suspects had reported in, 8:10. Allow me to add the one theme still missing here (LANS PR must be taking the evening off): Time to shut this blog down!
ReplyDeleteThere, now we've got all the bases covered.
Doug, my sentiments exactly. You forgot one - the LANS suckup guy.
ReplyDelete"oh, LANS is great and making LANL even better! I love LANS and it's leadership is fantastic!"
Sorry Doug, but I am mightily tired of "MIKEY" and "sheeple". These two yahoos give great weight to Roark's claim that there are only a few vocal malcontents here. Care to estimate what percentage of posts use these appelations?
ReplyDeleteInteresting, the ones who seem to be hung up on the (whatever) results from the Lab survey appear to be those that don't work at the lab - on this blog. Inside, at LANL, few are paying attention to such survey results, except maybe managers who are disseminating it among themselves. It looks like the BLOG has been short of newsworthy material in recent weeks. This has become (yawn) boring.
ReplyDeleteMikey and friends are here to stay for as long as NNSA exists. After all, the head of NNSA, D'Agostino, is the person responsible for turning LANL over to LANS. By grading LANS, he's in fact grading himself. There's no way he's going to admit he made a mistake that continues to cost the taxpayer $200 million every year.
ReplyDeleteNow, NNSA and D'Agostino personally are also here to stay, as far as DOE and this peace-loving administration are concerned. Steven Chu, for one, apparently loves D'Agostino.
The only hope is then the guys in Congress. They sure like an opportunity to grandstand and pound on the table with indignation. How can we direct that indignation against NNSA? What if we identified five key members of Congress and targeted them? We could start by sending 100 letters to each of them pointing out the fraud, waste and abuse that is NNSA/LANS. One or two letters alone would be tossed in the trash, but 100 could stand out above the noise.
Friday night is the deadline for selecting LANL medical coverage for this next year. There is no "safety" default, so those people who fail to register a choice by Friday night lose *ALL* medical coverage.
ReplyDeleteThis being the case, you would think that LANS would see to it that there was a huge, frigg'in neon flashing link on LANL's front web page to get the attention of the stragglers. Sounds logical, right?
If this is what you thought, you would be wrong! As of Wednesday, the lab's front web page had NO posts about the looming deadline and no easy links to the Oracle login page for making your choice. Way to go LANS! These actions tell me that they are probably eager to see lots of employees kicked off of medical coverage for this next year.
And LANS wonders why the morale at the lab is so abysmally low and the reasons why so many employees seem to hate their clueless upper management?
Sorry, 9:30pm, I feel your pain.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I must confess that "MIKEY" sometimes tickles me...
However, given that Frank's blog gets an average of 681 unique visits and 970 page loads per day, I'd say that Roark is still off-base with that old "few highly vocal malcontents" claim.
From the few survey questions released so far, we already know that the vast majority of respondents do not believe that the pricks running LANS will act on the survey results. This belief has already been upheld as LANS' first act should have been to release the survey. Instead, they're obviously trying to bury it.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to the promise of transparency in the Obama administration? Senator Udall, Representative Lujan, why can't you get this mess fixed?
1:03 AM
ReplyDeleteMaybe if you spent a little more time reading the homepage and LANL Today emails you would see the daily reminders that open enrollment ends this Friday and everyone must enroll or waive coverage. There is a direct link to the Open Enrollment website on the LANL homepage and has been for over a month. LANS benefit personnel are logging and monitoring enrollments daily and are communicating directly with anyone who has not yet enrolled to ensure that no one loses coverage because they missed the window. Every one of the allegations in your post are without merit and appear to be just another basis shot at LANS. Per the earlier posts in this queue, this one is basically just malicious chatter and denigrates the purpose of this blog.
As one of the thousands of retired LANL employees, 8:35am, I'd like to point out that we do not have access to the LANL resources you mentioned. From our perspective, LANS is doing a sketch job of alerting us to the open enrollment deadline.
ReplyDelete8:40 AM
ReplyDeleteThe LANL Benefits and Open Enrollment sites are available to anyone with web access. Although they are not specific to retirees, the explanations for the basis for the provider change apply to both and the plan description, other than the new Medicare Supplement plan are the same for both groups. Retirees did have access to the YBR website and they received active communications from both Hewitt and LANS regarding open enrollment issues. LANS also held numerous open enrollment presentations specifically for retirees.
The other good thing for retirees is that, if you are happy with your plan choice, you will automatically be enrolled in the new plan that most closely matches the plan you are in today. No one will lose coverage for failing to take action. Members of the eliminated Anthem Core plan will be rolled into the new Medicare Supplement plan which I believe is an improvement over its predecessor. While change is always tough to deal with, I think our Benefits group and managed this one very well all things considered.
"There is a direct link to the Open Enrollment website on the LANL homepage and has been for over a month." (8:35 AM)
ReplyDeleteThe new design of the LANL home page is so crowded and complex, it's hard to find anything on it! You would think that the link to the Oracle login (which requires a cyrptocard for entry) would be at the top of the web page in bold type. I don't see it anywhere on the LANL home web page. Yeah, you can get to it by going thru the chain of links to "Time & Effort" --> "Self Entry" --> "Benefits" --> ...etc, etc, but that does not count as easy linkage!
You're an HR apologist for LANS, 8:35 am. Keep sucking hard on that LANS ass and maybe you'll make it to the big time some day.
As one of the thousands of retired LANL employees, 8:35am, I'd like to point out that we do not have access to the LANL resources you mentioned. From our perspective, LANS is doing a sketch job of alerting us to the open enrollment deadline.
ReplyDelete12/3/09 8:40 AM
The UC retiree newsletter has had notices of the upcoming deadline, and so has the letter LANS sent to all retirees. Further, for retirees, there is no default loss of coverage. Retirees who don't enroll will be automatically signed up for the new plan most similar to their old one. This isn't being done for employees since it is against the law for LANS to do that for people who pay their premiums pre-tax.
Yawn! Six posts in, and all the usual suspects are already here. 12/2/09 8:10 PM
ReplyDelete--So said the imperial sheeple hearder/Lab manager.
10:31,
ReplyDeleteI know I will never neutralize your venom, but I can hopefully keep it from impacting others. In addition to your directions, You can also go to MY LANL Click on Personal And Work Information, Worker Self Service and then Benefits. Took me about 9.5333 seconds give or take - of course I a had an active Oracle session so I didn't have to enter a cryptocard code - but didn't seem so burdonsome to me, and unlike you, I would probably not be considered an A Student as you surely must be.
I had to enroll too for the first time in several years and The process was clear and reasonably simple for me. If you do have any problems a quick phone call to Benefits OE will get you taken care of.
I am not an apologist for anyone, just a straight talker who only chooses to communicate what I really know about. Never has there been a stronger effort to communicate about open enrollment than there has been this year. We have used multiple media including LANL Today emails and the lANL homepage, a comprehension Open Enrollment website for both Actives and Retirees,direct mailings to employees, numerous presentations,thousands of phone calls etc. If you didn't get the information you need to make an informed decision and actually enroll, it certainly wasn't our fault.
People that love to yawn at other's opinions aren't worth paying any attention to. Let them go back to sleep. That's when they're at their best.
ReplyDelete@ 12/3/09 10:31 AM
ReplyDeleteC'mon, now. There was more than ample communication about when and how to enroll for actives and retirees. If you really wanted to test Benefits, you should have waited to the last minute to enroll and wait to see if and how they contacted you to get your enrollment. Since you do clearly know all about the enrollment, when it ends, and the consequences, you are more an argument for how well they did in communicating these facts, right?
All is not wine and roses with Benefits, believe me, but if you are really complaining that multiple emails, LINKS, a dozen live presentations that were then replayed ad nauseum on LabNet and an enrollment package mailed to your home address is not enough notification, then you need to start holding YOURSELF more accountable for YOUR benefits.
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.
ReplyDeleteThis week, Dr. Anastasio released a heart-to-heart memo to his fellow employees at "the lab". In it, he urge 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!
12/3/09 11:19 AM - Ha, ha, this is funny.
ReplyDeleteBtw., in his wholeheartedly and optimistic letter to his dear employees Dr. Anastasio hasn't mentioned any results on the survey, has he?
Yawn! Six posts in, and all the usual suspects are already here. 12/2/09 8:10 PM
ReplyDeleteSo what is it you have to offer? If you have nothing better that to count how many have provided input by a certain time, then crawl back into your hole. Get a life!
Oh Greg so good to hear from you again. As usual though they just want their hands held and have sweet whispers in their ears through the whole process. God forbid they be responsible to actually DO something for themselves.
ReplyDeleteOh Yeah, and Happy Birthday!
ReplyDeleteSo what is it you have to offer? If you have nothing better that to count how many have provided input by a certain time, then crawl back into your hole. Get a life!
ReplyDelete12/3/09 5:02 PM
I have a life - thaat's the whole point. Mr. "Sheeple" and "MIKEY" apparently don't. Same stupid comments on every post. *yawn*
Poor widdle uninformed retirees, 12/3/09 8:40 AM. Open Enrollment has been held during the month of November for how many years now? I thought LANL used to hire the A students.
ReplyDelete"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."
ReplyDeleteBut the other places are using it as an investment in their future. They are building new facilities, funding world class science. Here we are just using the monies to tear down TA-21 because EM underfunded the lab.
Knappy spent too much time tied to a tree without a bone.
ReplyDelete12/2/09 7:19 PM
Brett Knapp's rise to the top rivals the biggest flukes of all time. He was hired at Livermore after graduating from a 2nd tier California State school Cal Poly. He couldn't even get into the University of California schools because his grades were too low. He was also hired at LLNL because he couldn't get hired at Sandia, unlike his slightly more intelligent (still low IQ) brother, Corey. As an engineer at Livermore, quite frankly he was a joke. We called him a "parts chaser" because all he could do was follow parts being made in the machine shops. By today's standards we wouldn't even interview him, let alone hire him. To think that following an absolute fluke and failure as an "engineer" at LLNL to become the Associate Director of the Los Alamos X and W-Divisions is in one word, "incredible". But, we have Mikey to thank for that!
Knappy spent too much time tied to a tree without a bone.
ReplyDelete12/2/09 7:19 PM
Brett Knapp's rise to the top rivals the biggest flukes of all time. He was hired at Livermore after graduating from a 2nd tier California State school Cal Poly. He couldn't even get into the University of California schools because his grades were too low. He was also hired at LLNL because he couldn't get hired at Sandia, unlike his slightly more intelligent (still low IQ) brother, Corey. As an engineer at Livermore, quite frankly he was a joke. We called him a "parts chaser" because all he could do was follow parts being made in the machine shops. By today's standards we wouldn't even interview him, let alone hire him. To think that following an absolute fluke and failure as an "engineer" at LLNL to become the Associate Director of the Los Alamos X and W-Divisions is in one word, "incredible". But, we have Mikey to thank for that!
About open enrollment. I know two people in our building who continued to be contacted by HR well after mailing in their forms. I guess you could say this shows the record-keeping system at HR is far from stellar, but I think the important point is that the people who work there try to do their job the best way they can despite all the systemic problems. They do want to get everybody enrolled.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, this doesn't change the fact that the health plan switcheroo was a dumb and frivolous scheme to begin with. The story is replayed over and over at LANL: some moron wakes up one morning and says, "why don't we put all computers inside gloveboxes?" and then scores of poor IT guys have to work extra hard, trying to implement "gloveboxing" by the 30-day deadline. Same here, with the benefits.
Knapp is a joke here at LANL too.
ReplyDelete@12/4/09 10:09 AM
ReplyDeleteI think your first assessment is accurate. Volume of manual changes often exceeds systematic capability to enter them.
As for your second guess, I don't understand how you came to the conclusion that the change from UHC to BCBSNM was "frivolous." Can you expand on that? I honestly want to know, since I was part of the mgt team at the time, and I know that the hours/days/weeks we spent analyzing data, comparing performance, service, networks, cost, etc. did not seem frivolous at the time. No one woke up with this decision made - if anything, the presumption going in was that the incumbent (UHC) would keep the business.
So, I certainly respect your right to disagree with the outcome, to prefer one insurance company over the other, but I do not understand why you think the decision was frivolous, since you probably have very little data on hand to make that honest determination.
People like Brett Knapp are the ugly future for LANS' top management. Better get use to it. Knee pads will not be optional.
ReplyDeleteIs Donald Cook (formerly chief of the UK's AWE) being "prepared" to become the replacement for Tom D'Agostino?...
ReplyDelete-
"Cook to move to NNSA"
By Physics Today' Dec 4, 2009
Donald L. Cook, has been nominated by the Obama administration to be the deputy administrator for defense programs at the US Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.
Cook was the Managing Director of the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) in the UK from 2006 to 2009. AWE manages all aspects of the UK nuclear weapons program, including decommissioning, dismantlement, and disposal.
Before that Cook worked at Sandia National Laboratories for 28 years in Pulsed Power Sciences, Microtechnologies, Infrastructure, and Security. From 1999-2006, he was Director of the MESA Program Center, accountable for design and construction of the Microsystems and Engineering Sciences Applications (MESA) complex.
In 2003, he assumed Program Director responsibilities for Sandia’s Infrastructure Program and for Sandia’s Safeguards and Security Technologies Program, which responded to a new Design Basis Threat.
From 1977-1999, Cook led efforts in pulsed power accelerator design and experimentation, fusion research, hydrodynamics, radiography, diagnostic development, and computational code development.
He managed the Sandia Inertial Confinement Fusion program from 1984-1993 and was Director of Pulsed Power Sciences from 1993-1999.
Cook is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the UK-based Institute of Physics.
-
2:47 pm: "From 1977-1999, Cook led efforts in pulsed power accelerator design and experimentation, fusion research, hydrodynamics, radiography, diagnostic development, and computational code development."
ReplyDeleteWow, if he was "leading efforts" as far back as 1977, he must have been a real wonderkind. If he got his Ph.D. in 1977, he'd be about 60 now. Seems a little old for being groomed to replace D'Agostino..
Apropos of nothing in particular:
ReplyDeleteIt's my impression that more and more LANL scientists are adding "Ph.D." to their email sig files. Time was, it used to be considered a bit tacky to draw attention to our advanced degrees, since you couldn't swing a cat without hitting another six "Doctors."
Is this just another sign of the times? Are we soon going to be insisting that our non-Ph.D. colleagues address us as "Doctor"?
Is this just another sign of the times? Are we soon going to be insisting that our non-Ph.D. colleagues address us as "Doctor"?
ReplyDelete12/4/09 8:10 PM
In the earlier times you are referring to, LANL management was predominately science Ph.D.'s. Now it's Bechtel bachelors engineers or even less, telling all the Ph.D.'s how to do their science. As a result, I think it is entirely appropriate for the Ph. D.'s to insist on being addressed by their proper academic title. I think requiring the Bechtel folks to get used to using "Dr." befoe they address a real scientist might scare them a little, like they are about to recieve a prostate exam.
This is very interesting, 2:47 PM. Of course, it's too early to draw any definitive conclusions about Cook, but doesn't it strike you as refreshing that this guy is neither a professional lawyer nor a vice-admiral?
ReplyDelete9:46,
ReplyDeleteThe NNSA is a collection of losers. The fact that their latest addition is not a retired Navy Admiral, nor a lawyer does not inspire any confidence with me.
True enough, 9:49 PM. Mike Anastasio has a Ph.D., proving once and for all that not being a lawyer or an admiral is a necessary, but certainly not a sufficient condition for the job. It'll be interesting to follow the developments in the case of Donald Cook.
ReplyDeleteLet's assume for a moment that Donald Cook is around 65 years old. If he's in good shape, it would still be possible for him to take the helm at NNSA in a year or so and still have plenty of good years left as the chief.
ReplyDeleteSome scientists age very well and never want to stop working (just look at how long Nick Metroplis stayed around!). Others are ready to hang it up by age 60. Of course, given the situation at LANL under LANS and NNSA, most of the older scientists who are left are leaning toward getting out by age 60 and never looking back.
I've notice the same trend of people putting all sorts of titles after their names in their emails. In the old days, this would immediately mark you as some kind of weirdo.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who feels the need to put the title "Ph.D" after their name is usually broadcasting to the world that they feel insecure about their credentials. It's a definite "tell".
The bio of Mr. Thomas Paul D'Agostino provides a stunning comparison.
ReplyDeleteSome excerpts:
Education:
Naval War College, MS National Security Studies, 1997
Johns Hopkins University, MS Business Finance, 1992
United States Naval Academy, BS Physical Science, 1980
...spent over eight years on active duty in the Navy as a submarine officer to include assignments onboard the USS SKIPJACK ...
...achieved the rank of Captain in the U.S. Naval Reserves ...
... worked in numerous assignments within the federal government in the startup of the department's tritium production reactors and at the Naval Sea Systems Command as a program manager for the SEAWOLF submarine propulsion system...
How any of this possibly qualifies a person to lead the NNSA complex that supervises LANL, LLNL, and Sandia?? Looks like it's just beyond his capacity to full understand what these labs do! (No offense to other submarine officers out there.) No wonder he gave the contract to manage us to a (mediocre) construction company.
I'm just hoping that I can make it to age 60 before I can no longer stomach LANS' waste, fraud, and abuse and have to bail out.
ReplyDeleteWatching the clock tick is very hard.
Yeah, it's amazing to think that D'Agostino never made it above the rank of Capt. in the Navy.
ReplyDeleteYou would think that those in power would at least put some former Admiral in charge of NNSA if they wanted a navy boy at the helm. I take it as yet another sign of just how little importance NNSA has these days in Washington. Sad.
Good news! DARHT is back up (yet, again)... time for another big round of manager awards and bonuses! Rinse and repeat as often as desired...
ReplyDelete"Los Alamos lab machine tests mockup of weapon"
Associated Press - December 4, 2009 2:45 PM ET
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) - An X-ray machine at Los Alamos National Laboratory that's designed to check the reliability of the nation's nuclear stockpile completed its first-ever test of a mockup of a nuclear weapon component.
Scientists and engineers conducted the test at the Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test, or DARHT, facility.
A top National Nuclear Security Administration official, Brig. Gen. Garrett Harencak, says the successful test is an important development in the agency's stockpile stewardship mission.
DARHT produces X-rays images of events that take place in millionths of a second. The images allow scientists to study the details of early stages of a weapon's explosion.
The test was postponed last year after components in the machine were damaged.
I LIKE THIS IDEA FROM ANONYMOUS
ReplyDeleteAT 12/4/09 9:40 PM
In the earlier times you are referring to, LANL management was predominately science Ph.D.'s. Now it's Bechtel bachelors engineers or even less, telling all the Ph.D.'s how to do their science. As a result, I think it is entirely appropriate for the Ph. D.'s to insist on being addressed by their proper academic title. I think requiring the Bechtel folks to get used to using "Dr." befoe they address a real scientist might scare them a little, like they are about to recieve a prostate exam.
OK, Bechtel managers will address you as "doctor", but you now have to address them as "benevolent master most worthy of running this wonderful lab". And don't forget to add in a very low bow with that praise, the lower the better.
ReplyDeleteI'll gladly use the title "Dr." when addressing a PhD; after all, they earned the degree.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as long as we're being formal, why not insist that others are addressed as Mr., Mrs., Ms., etc?
What I won't stand for is someone who insists on being addressed in a formal manner, yet feels they can use my first name just because they got one extra degree in school.
I remember seeing an email once from a lady in MST whose signature line contained PhD AND the school she went to, Harvard I think it was. Talking about arrogant yet insecure.
ReplyDelete