"I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him"

Today's hypothesis can be stated as a quote from Shakespeare's play "Julius Caesar."

The persona on LANL: The Rest of the Story, Gussie FinkKnottle, stated a strongly negative view of nuclear weapons with the idea the they and the associated jobs should all be eliminated now.

The hypothesis is:

LANL: The .... Story has not been a way to support the health of LANL but a way to give vent to the most intemperate commenters on LANL. An open blog, in the guise of a news clipping service, with comments by many including the blog owner, anonymously of course, and with predominantly negative comments has become one nail in closing the Lab. The blog has never had positive suggestions about what to do only negative articles.

So, the hypothesis is that these blogs have an unstated agenda, which is "Close the Lab and the country's nuclear weapons capability."

Can anyone prove that this hypothesis is wrong?

Steal a march

This is beyond my pay grade; but if I were high in Lockheed Martin or Northrup Grumman or even the University of Texas, I would be watching the events at LANL and Livermore closely and plotting strategy.

It appears that there may be an interesting business opportunity developing.

Originally posted on 18 June

A paradigm shift

I have been in Los Alamos since 1989. There is always a lot of job stress on people who work at the Lab.

Here is a possible way to reduce that stress and to start to diversify the Lab.

In weapons testing, there was a strong view that everything had to be done by deadline and had to be 'perfect.' Perfection was never really achieved but there was a lasting unstated rule that everything had to be 'perfect' and that lack of perfection, even by a little bit, could not be said out loud.

A different approach, one that is common in ground breaking research, is to assume that nothing is perfect, that everything is really just a draft that will be improved later.

With the "Everything is a draft" (admittedly a really high quality draft that is better than anyone else's draft) approach, people are empowered to go off in new directions and to admit to mistakes along the way. Also the pressure to try to be perfect all the time disappears.

Once more LANL folks can admit to mistakes, it seems that the flavor of the place would change.

Thoughts?

From swords to plowshares

There is a growing amount of talk about how the nation's nuclear weapons labs must diversify into non-weapons work.
Here are links to two articles from today's Albuquerque Tribune.

The first one is by Greg Mello and states the need for change but makes few actual recommendations about how to do it.

http://www.abqtrib.com/news/2007/jun/28/editorial-weapons-labs-need-embrace-change/

The second one is an editorial by the Tribune itself and makes the point, known by many for years, that if nuclear weapons were an economic driver New Mexico would not be such a poor state.

http://www.abqtrib.com/news/2007/jun/28/commentary-nuclear-weapons-labs-hurt-new-mexicos-e/


An unanswered question, especially for Los Alamos, is "How do you make the change over?"

The Galvin report, in 1992, made two conclusions about LANL:

1. If Motorola were run the way that LANL was, Motorola would be out of business in a month.
2. LANL should not do anything other than weapons because they were not competitive at anything else.

Here I put forth some tentative proposals on how to change. Each proposal has some validity with respect to Los Alamos. Each has some difficulties.

1. The Yogi Berra proposal (with apologies to Steve Chu at LBL) - Declare that LANL will compete effectively in alternative energy research, allocate internal funds to people who can do the experiments necessary to compete effectively, get money to fund this from various sources while using part of the current income to fund the new direction.
2. The Lockheed approach - start a skunkworks that will bring in money and projects for a new Lab direction. Only allow bright, hard working people into the skunkworks and not very many of them. Protect the skunkworks from organizational politics and turf battles. Keep the skunkworks if it works. Lockheed designed a brand new plane in secret by using his method.
3. The dishwasher approach (from Westinghouse) - Assume that many of the current employees are in the wrong places in today's organization to be most effective in the organization that has an altered mission. Fire all of them. Then let them apply for the jobs that are needed in the organization with a new mission. Westinghouse did this when it realized that the engineers who were great at building mechanical dishwashers were not the right people for producing electronically controlled dishwashers. There was chaos for a while at Westinghouse, but eventually people realized that their new job was less stressful and a better fit than their old job.
   

Finding passion at work

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/business/smallbusiness/18webshifting.html?ei=5087%0A&em=&en=efac1080e958e8de&ex=1183176000&pagewanted=print

The article above is about finding passion at work. It came out in today's New York Times.

Anger, Anonymity, and Anomie

The blogs LANL: The ... Story have run for years.

This morning I wondered what their effect on the community has been.

Except for being a good news clipping service and a place for people to be anonymously angry, they do not seem to have accomplished anything.

This lack of effect was surprisingly to me and probably telling.

For instance, there has been no effective campaign in the real world to slow down the decline of the Lab. There has been no outrage in the real world. The anonymous commenters do not, apparently, even know each other or whether other commenters work at the Lab, work at a competing lab or are still in middle school.

This lack of effect got me thinking about kids who are good at video games but who, in real life, do not interact with anyone else and who do not effect change because they will not interact with others in the real world and will not form effective organizations.

Do the above comments make sense to anyone else?

Continuing resolutions

With the announcements of House and Senate bills about funding LANL and with the open fight between the House and Senate committees who would appropriate the money for the Lab, I wondered what would happen if the impass went to a continuing resolution.

John Fleck, of the Albuquerque Tribune, had the most detailed answer, based on years of following budget negotiations and also on calling Congressional staff.

The short answer is "It depends."

The longer answer is that the funding levels have to be negotiated between the appropriate Congressmen and Senators and the President and then signed into law, probably sometime in September before the place shuts down.

The funding could be the same as last year. It could be the House's reduced funding or it could be some other number.

One company towns

There are studies on the fates of one company towns. Most of the studies are for coal towns in the U.S.

One study, done in 1995, talks about government one company towns in Kazakhstan whose dynamics seem to fit Los Alamos in aggregate. The study was done in Kazakhstan in order to get enough data to draw any conclusions. Similar towns are very rare elsewhere.

The results are not encouraging. The expectation is massive unemployment.

This was the conclusion on Friday. The best guess for today is that the government company will collapse but that the town will survive on 50% of its current income and may do well on a time scales of fifteen years. The town would be dramatically different but healthier.

The next five to ten years, however, look bleak.

The same analysis seems to apply to Livermore, CA with corrections for the proximity of a big city and lack of the gorgeous scenery of Los Alamos.

We will see what happens.

Originally posted on 16 June.

Sporadic postings

Most of my time at the moment is being consumed by:

1. Writing a business plan for a nascent company focused around 'decision engines.'
2. Figuring out how to build a prototype for a highly efficient combustion engine.
3. Getting financial planning and job hunting completed for existing clients.

I will try to keep up on national lab funding and morale issues as I have time or if someone asks for specific information, such as a couple of short posts here and on LANL;The Rest of the Story recently.

Influenced by "Harvest moon"

(c) Eric Fairfield 2007
This is a view of the moon and clouds as seen from Ashley Pond on Saturday night

Originally posted on 22 June

Jobs -national

Over the last two weeks, I have gotten requests to fill good jobs. The jobs are in areas that span the lab. Most of the jobs are computer related. There is a wide range of requested skills levels.

At the moment, the number of job descriptions that I have received in the last two weeks is 1200.

All that I need is some well done resumes to send to the requesters.

Originally posted on 21 June

Jobs - local

I have an immediate need for:

1. A mechanical engineer who can model and build small high stress devices.
2. A person who understands the fabrication of specific kinds of carbon fiber cloth.
3. A person who can build small machines that will have internal supersonic flows.
4. I person who understands the details of PageRank and its competitors.
   

Thanks

Teases

One commenter on LANL: The Rest of the Story called a number of my comments there 'teases.'

I had not thought about them being teases. Actually, many of them are in that they are much shorter than the detailed answer.

The reasons include:

1. The complete comment is usually five pages long, too long for a blog.
2. I have found, repeatedly, that people who are not willing to follow the tease are not willing to read or consider the long answer. They just want someone to yell at.
   

So, while I put fewer 'teases' here and put up longer answers, the best answers are still longer than what is put here (on average 10 times longer.). If someone wants longer answers here, let me know.

Anonymity 2

Any one have insights into why 40% of the comments on LANL:The Rest of the Story are so negative and on why those commenting attack anyone who has a real name, for instance Anastasio and Domenici.

My current guess comes from Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's stages of grief.

These stages are:

• Denial (this isn't happening to me!)
  
• Anger (why is this happening to me?)
  
• Bargaining (I promise I'll be a better person if...)
  
• Depression (I don't care anymore)
  
• Acceptance (I'm ready for whatever comes)

It seems that the angry commenters are stuck in stage two. Many lab employees are still in stage one. The apparent reason for staying in these stages is that the person is facing the loss of their life's work without any internal reason to think that they are employable anywhere else. This is bigger than a divorce.

The number of people in stage one or stage two is sad because you can't deal with the problem until you get to stage five. I hope that LLNL people get through these stages faster.

Updating

Updating is going more slowly than I want it to.
Not surprisingly, the projected cuts in the national lab budgets have created a lot of work to complete in financial counseling and in job hunting.

If you are anxious for particular information, call me or email me.

Thanks,

Pensions redux

There are a number of problems with pensions at national labs (see the article from the Tri Valley Herald). From the point of view of voters across the country, these pensions are too high. From the point of view of DOE and NNSA, cutting pension benefits to a few people at some indefinite time in the future is an easy winner politically. It is similar to not building buildings or not providing for experimental equipment.

It is not a good idea but it is palatable if you don't think too hard.

From the point of view of the pensioners at Livermore and LANL, the question is how to resist the nearly inexorable pressure to cut pensions. My only solution so far is for employees to play politics professionally in their own defense.

Candy's siren song

Taken in Los Alamos, June 2007 (c) Eric Fairfield, 2007

Facts or emotion

On LANL: The Rest of the Story, there seems to be a lot of emotion and few stable facts about pensions.

At least to me, with an average of $500,000 of net worth on the line per employee, solid facts and analysis seem to be more important than emotional catharsis.

Just a thought.

New folk

If you are new here, leave a comment. It could be as simple as "I am new here."

I am rearranging new and old posts to fit the LANL projected shortfall and the LLNL benefits packages. Much of the critical information is in old posts. As quickly as I can, I am bringing them to the front.

If your interest stems from the many slide release of pension information from LLNS, let me know. I have been through the LANS version hundreds of times and have reanalyzed it with respect to hundreds of individual cases.

At the moment, I am seeing how different the details are and will report back when I am done.

One thought to get people started, if LLNS starts to run Livermore and LANS gets fired from Los Alamos for their directors' emailing of secret information to each other across open email channels, what happens to the money in TCP1 and TCP2. Not what do you want to happen but what would actually happen?

An "I am new here." comment would encourage me to complete the reorganization faster.

Thanks,

Anonymity

It feels that anonymity is the crack cocaine of Los Alamos. People are safe in their anonymity, but they are also powerless.

Any thoughts on this one?

Is anonymity the only way to talk in a public forum if you are an introvert? Are anonymous posters being as brave as they can be in posting at all?

$200,000,000 rumors

There are rumors about layoffs. The rumors say that layoffs will come soon, on Oct. 1, or never.

I have a couple of questions.

1. What happened to the $200,000,000 shortfall?
2. If all the talented people leave so that the Lab makes its budget, will the remaining employees be able to meet the deliverables?
3. There are persistent rumors about Anastasio leaving. Are these rumors true?

These questions were the wrong ones, given current facts.

The apparent shortfall is now close to $900,000,000, about 45% of the Lab's yearly budget or about 5,000 jobs.

The ability to meet deliverables appears to be non existent except in certain groups.

Who cares whether top managers leave, the shortfall remains.
Originally posted on 3 June.

Tele town hall with Udall

Synopsis

1. The newspaper articles on http://lanl-the-rest-of-the-story.blogspot.com/ capture the essence of the meeting well.
2. Congressman Udall was listening. His staff was recording things well.
3. One person, Mark Dunham, asked whether the lab should be divided into functionally separate areas, each with its own overhead rate, so that the rest of the Lab is no longer paying for the security needed for plutonium processing.
4. He said that the cost per person at LANL is double the cost elsewhere so that the lab is non-competitive in many areas.
5. The lab was very diverse in the 70's and 80's in terms of broad scientific research. It became much less diverse in the 90's when it was no longer able to compete effectively for these projects.
6. One caller, Marlo Martinez, said that the Lab's behavior toward contractors, whether local or non local, was killing businesses in Northern New Mexico.
7. There is apparently $600,000,000 available for non weapons research. It is not clear whether the Lab will be competitive in getting this money. It is not clear whether local businesses near the lab will be allowed to compete for this money.
   

Retirees

The pension of retirees would seem to be a stabilizing influence on the future of the town during a period of decreased Lab budgets.

Diversification

Weapons labs, especially LANL and LLNL, seem to need a clear plan that leads to diversification. Congress has said (including New Mexico congressmen) that this diversification has to occur.

The trick is to diversify without competing directly with private industry while being competitive with other labs.

Entrepreneurial leave is one mechanism that will promote diversification.

Incentivizing people who can accomplish diversification instead of punishing them would change things.

Requiring an investigator to be nationally competitive not just 'stovepipe competitive' is required.

Techniques of avoiding Stevenson-Wydler conflicts are well known.

myopia, naivete, or there ain't enough chairs

Many people at LANL and probably at other national labs seem to have the following view of the world.

'Well, if my job at LANL disappears, I will go to Livermore or a major university or an important company because I am of great value."

or

"If my job at LANL disapppears, I will hide in my house and spend very little because I am of no value to any other organization."

Both of these views appear to be naive. The first one is naive because there are not enough jobs available to meet the number of people looking (not enough chairs).

The second one is naive because each person who is laid off is of high value if they present themselves well.

Where I have written LANL, it also seems appropriate to write Livermore or some other places,

Beyond LANL or Livermore

This post may be redundant. I will fix it later.

One reason that Congress has given for withholding funding for LANL, Livermore, and Sandia next year is that there is no credible plan for why the nation should be spending money especially for spending billions of dollars to counter a threat that does not exist (e.g. Iran cannot make a nuclear weapon for at least 6 years and whatever they make is unlikely to be very sophisticated.)

The commission to create a plan for nuclear weapons is scheduled to start investigations at the end of 2008.

What is the likely short term future of weapons at the weapons lab if congress cuts their funding and will not decide on a realistic level of funding for about 2 years?

The simple answer is apparently that budgets will fall and expertise will leave all labs. Especially bad is the loss of people who can only be competent at their jobs 10 to 15 years after they get their Ph.D.s.

Stupak

There is a story about how Congress is currently viewing the funding at LANL and by implication other national labs.

This story refers to comments by Congressman Stupak about the need for the existence of Los Alamos National Lab at all. He asks what work that is being done at Los Alamos cannot be done elsewhere. Part of the answer includes some supercomputer simulations, some plutonium work, DAHRT and other big ticket instruments.

Even this work could be done elsewhere but only at very large cost in building new equipment.

For Livermore, NIF comes to mind. The sales pitch to Stupak would have to be:

1. This work can't be done elsewhere because ......
2. This work is critical to the nation now because ......

It is in the second bullet point that Livermore seems to be faltering in the face of Congressional inquiry.

A number commenters on this article on the blog LANL: the Rest of the Story seem to have forgotten that Stupak and others control the purse strings so that annoying them is a bad idea. They also seem to have forgotten that Stupak could move a number of LANL programs to Livermore or beyond.

Information for Livermore and beyond

Since LANL:The Rest of the Story is LANL specific, I plan to post information that is more generally applicable and that is relevant specifically to Livermore here.

There will be links to stories on LANL:The Rest of the Story as appropriate most often for articles that Pinky has posted. If someone wants those articles posted again here, let me know.

My fault

I have noticed that among the commenters on blogs, no one ever says,"That problem is my fault. I am going to do what I can to fix it."

Think of how different things would be at LANL if each person felt personal responsibility for causing the current problems and personal responsibility for fixing them.

What the f****? (fleeting expletive)

Over the past few days, Congress has been voting on cutting the Lab's budget by $500,000,000 and members of LANS' board of directors have been caught sending the most sensitive nuclear secrets to each other over open emails. (Story in TIME magazine very soon.) They sent these emails in January 2007 but the story was kept, even from Congress, until now.

These events change what I thought would be the future of Los Alamos. They appear to change this future dramatically. These events are likely to change the future of Livermore as well since LLNS is run by the same people as run LANS.

I do not know what the long term effects will be yet. I hope to have this sorted out by the middle of next week.

The main thing that I do know is that, if you own land or a business in Los Alamos county, you need a well thought out contingency plan, preferably by last week.

For Livermore and other folk

My calculators that personalize and understand pensions and benefits were developed for LANL people are being updated for Livermore and its new pension and benefits. I expect the updating to be complete by Friday of this week.

Some of the structure of the spreadsheets was not as generalized as I hoped it would be, so I have some work to do.

For Livermore folk

The details of comparisons between defined benefit plans and defined contribution plans are much more subtle and important than they appear to be.

Careful analysis of risks and rewards is critical.

Also, the apparent rules for 401K, 403B, and their cousins are not the actual rules.

Beyond LANL

The blog LANL:The Rest of the Story has decided to focus nearly entirely on LANL news and not deal with broader news relevant to other DOE labs, such as Livermore, Sandia, Oak Ridge, etc.

The information that I have on pensions and other issues that applies to LANL, Livermore, Sandia, etc. will be published here, as appropriate, and not on LANL: The Rest of the Story.

Today, I am updating our skills and calculators that were used for LANL folks to be correct for LLNL and its employees. I have had long conversations with LLNL folk about how to do this correctly.

If readers have facts about the Livermore plan that they think I should know, please either post them, email them to me, or call me. All such information will be treated as confidential and anonymous as it always has been.



Good luck,



This post is a modification of one on June 4th.

Jobs 2

Some of the jobs are permanent. Some are consulting. Some would require a move. Some would not. In many, an active Q clearance is a plus.

Having projects that are mostly classified so that they can not be listed in a resume is not a minus. We can work around this difficulty.

Age is not much of a minus either.

Jobs in other places

If you have come to this web site trying to find out more about the engineering and other job openings for which I have been contacted, email me or phone me. I can fill in the details.

At the moment, I have companies requesting talent. I need resumes to put in front of the companies and specifically the person who is doing the actual hiring.

Thanks.

Unfortunate

Unfortunately, many of my previous posts, which were viewed as too pessimistic, seem to have been too optimistic.

Quelle dommage.

Thousands of jobs cut at LANL and Sandia

Congress is planning on cutting thousands of jobs at LANL and Sandia, on top of the existing $200,000,000 short fall in LANL's budget.

New Mexico's congressional delegation does not seem to be able to stop this process.

For readers who do not want their careers and lives to go down the tubes with these events, I would suggest calling or emailing me soon. My time helping others is already filling my calendar but I will make room for anyone who references this post and who has the courage to talk to me. For the first five respondents, I will give a discount.

I have already helped 200 folks at LANL and am currently helping Sandia and LLNL personnel.

I am not posting much because my time is being used up in helping people and organizations.

180 days and out - wage discrimination

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/04/opinion/04reed.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

This article, from today's New York Times, shows that it is difficult to prove wave discrimination if your previously published salaries list is no longer available.

From weapons to sludge

It seems that LANL and LLNL are going from weapons and science facilities to environmental waste clean up facilities (think Savannah River, Hanford, Rocky Flats, and Love Canal).

Am I wrong?

Pensions for financial companies

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1180515923196

I am finding lots of articles. Here is one about companies charging very high fees on 401K accounts. One of the companies appears to be Bechtel (I still have to read the rest of the article ;-) ).

Security across the DOE complex

http://www.thedailytimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070530/NEWS/70530009

Here is an article about security at Oak Ridge and how protestors apparently walked into secure areas and stayed there for 35 minutes.

A story on blogs

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2007/tc20070604_254236.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_top+stories

Blogs, for the most part, are not used as a place to have deep conversations about critical topics.

The bigger story

As far as I can tell, the events at Los Alamos and Livermore with the change of contract are part of a much bigger story, partly the Complex 2030 story.

I will try to lay out parts of what this bigger story seems to be. I will lay them out as I get the time.

A thought

Remember that your comment is seen by people from around the world. Be respectful.

Offline conversations

There are many reasons to have conversations offline. If you want to have such a conversation, contact me.

Blog rules

1. I will always encourage thoughtful discussion. I will comment on this discussion as little as I can.
2. I will not post comments that are rude or knee jerk reactions without facts.
3. I will only ocassionally act as a clip service and post entire articles from elsewhere. A reader can go to LANL:The Rest of the Story or other places to find articles. I will publish URLs as needed to important articles. Discussions of such articles are welcome. Especially welcome are detailed, thoughtful discussions.
4. The object of this blog is not to get lots of traffic but to have a place to work things out for those who are unwilling to have these discussions in person. All sides will get a voice.
5. Attacks on other posters will not show up in the comments.
6. Even though I have picked most of the topics so far, I will move to the top anyone else's topics.
7. Older posts may have their dates changed so that they are not lost at the bottom of the list of posts.
   

Other national labs

We are starting to help folks at other national labs, for instance Sandia and Livermore.

Since the issues are the same and the pensions et al. are similar, we should be of use.

Want some restricted equipment?

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_24/b4038041.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_top+story

This story in Business Week lays out one journalist's successful attempt to buy parts for F-14s (the outmoded jets that Iraq owns) and other restricted U.S. armaments. It turns out that buying such things is not hard. Just go to the DoD auctions, fake a name, and ship the stuff home.

This makes that Quintana incident look mild.