A sobering perspective

In my calls around the country for business in the last week, I have found that the goings on at LANL do not even make a blip.

Not only does no one care, no one even knows about it.

A new blog name

We can have a competition for a new blog name.
I will buy lunch at Ruby K's for whomever has the best name.

Here are some starters

"Not working at LANL"
"Uses for old decrepit buildings"
"Why would any young person choose to come to LANL?"
"Tortilla making for nuclear physicists"

Make some suggestions

Complex transformation

As you can see from today's newspaper stories, a lot is going on, most of it bad.

We can have discussions and initial protective planning here if anyone wants to do it.

Exile

I just finished reading "Exile" by Richard North Patterson.

The book is very interesting. I brings real stories and real characters (OK, fictional characters that act like real people) to the ongoing Palestinian - Israeli struggle.

If I try to apply the lessons of this book to the ongoing events at LANL, I get the following insight.

There is no global conspiracy. There is no corporate hobglobin nor any DOE doppelganger.

Each person is acting in what they perceive to be their own self interest under the local rules of the system as they think that these rules exist.

What we see, and do not like, is the emergent behavior of this system when everyone is following their own perceived self interest.

What destroys the system (the multiperson prisoner's dilemma) is the fact that the self interest of a number of people is antithetical to the health of the overall system and that this self interest is sufficient to take the system apart. Essentially, we have the 'tragedy of the commons.'

Here is one of the apparent tragedies:

At a national level, it is in the interest of the Republican party to retain the presidency. To do this they need to raise campaign funds sufficient to beat the Democrats. One traditional way to do this is to award contracts to 'Republican' companies, not universities, that can contribute to campaigns. The cost of awarding the contract to 'Republican' companies is paid in tax payer dollars not in 'Republican dollars.' The campaign contributions come back in 'Republican dollars.'

From the point of view of national campaigns, Republicans keep the presidency at the cost of a few politically insignificant government jobs that used to defend against threats that no longer exist. At another level, the Republican presidential victory is being put on a credit card with the hopes that the bill will not need to be paid (there will never be a nuclear threat of any size).

The net effect is similar to:

"I made money selling land. My neighbor is mad at me. The land was in his yard."

Just a thought about forces far outside of Los Alamos that could be driving events within Los Alamos.

Meditations

A little humor might help.

Deep thoughts come from Yogis.

Here are some from Yogi Berra.

If you don't know where you're going, chances are you will end up somewhere else.

I really didn't say everything I said.

If you ask me a question I don't know, I'm not going to answer.

It ain't the heat; it's the humility.

It's deja-vu all over again.

You should always go to other people's funerals. Otherwise they won't come to yours.

You can't think and hit at the same time.

The other teams could make trouble for us if they win.

I knew I was going to take the wrong train, so I left early.

90% of the game is half mental.

It's not too far, it just seems like it is.

If you don't set goals, you can't regret not reaching them.

Slump? I ain't in no slump. I just ain't hitting.

The future ain't what it used to be.

If you come to a fork in the road, take it.

We made too many wrong mistakes.

We're lost, but we're making great time!

If people don't want to come to the ball park, how are you going to stop them?

I knew exactly where it was, I just couldn't find it.

I usually take a two hour nap, from one to four.

Steve McQueen looks good in this movie. He must have made it before he died.

You can observe a lot just by watching.

Once, Yogi's wife Carmen asked, "Yogi, you are from St. Louis, we live in New Jersey, and you played ball in New York. If you go before I do, where would you like me to have you buried?" To this, Yogi replied, "Surprise me."

Wallace talk - the essence

On a little more thought, the essence of the Terry Wallace talk seems to be

"Please fall on your sword for LANS (voluntarily leave) so that LANS does not officially have to fire you. If you try to fall on your sword but LANS thinks that you should stay, LANS will not let you leave."

Is this the essence of the statement?

If it is, why is it in an employee's interest to fall on their sword to make life easier for LANS?

Thanks

Jobs science et al.

The partial listings are at

scienceatlanl.blogspot.com

RIF

I guess that "No RIF, no plan for a RIF" statement is no longer in play.

Terry Wallace talk

The news is out and it is grim.

Lots of people to be let go in the next couple of weeks.

No furloughs.

Possible shutdown of the lab because there will no longer be the people employed there to do the work that is needed.

From the point of view of national security, I do not see what sense the current plan makes.

I will help people with their planning as I can and as they want.

As a person who left the lab when a project came apart in similar impulsive ways, I empathize with each impacted person and hope that those who are left are safe, at least for a few years.

New topics 3

If you have a topic that you would like to see here or one that you would like revisited, leave a comment, anonymous or not.

I will create an appropriate post.

Continuing resolution

OK. I was wrong about the results of the continuing resolution.

I do not understand the politics of why I was wrong, but I was still wrong.

We seem to have an extra six weeks, until right before Christmas.

*The last time that there was not a continuing resolution was 1977.

I do not know how a person is supposed to plan their life when their salary and even their job is held hostage for months. The rational response would seem to be to get another job.

A modified version of this post was originally made on 25 September 2007

The more things change the more they stay the same.

I have been looking at some of the older posts and moving them to the top of the list as appropriate.

It is odd that many of them still apply today.

Later,

Workers from LLNL

This blog welcomes comment and newsclippings from LLNL.

If the work load gets too onerous for me, I will ask for help.

I will not close down.

Cheers,

This post was moved from 15 Oct. 2007

The train wreck, part two

There have been a number of newspaper articles in the last few days about LANL, LLNL, and nuclear workers.

The interesting and sad part of these articles is that all of them are predictable.

The wreck is still going on. The articles are snap shots of the wreck in progress.

Quelle dommage

The January 2009 two step or Hot Potato for Adults

I was thinking about how DOE might handle the Quintana fine.

The first step was to hold hearings in Congress saying that LANS was bad.
The second step was to propose a fine of $3,000,000 to UC to say that UC was bad (and to gain free publicity implying that DOE was cracking down on LANL).
The third step was for NNSA to give a press release saying that underfunding to LANL and the 11th amendment of the Constitution are not sufficient reasons for UC to be held harmless in the Quintana affair.

Here are today's predictions of the next steps.

4. DOE spends not more than $4,000,000 between now and January 2009 with the stated goal of getting money from UC and LANS. DOE pays UC and LANS, per contract, for their side of this battle. No decision about the fine is made until we have a new president. Every one gets to deny responsibility for the result ("Didn't happen on my watch" "That previous administration was gutless" Blah, blah, blah). Political costs are small to all parties.

A related thought - If UC and LANS are worth fining $3,300,000 for one incident at LANL what is in store for their efforts at LLNL? Does this calculus change with a Democratic president?

Please comment.

This one was originally posted on 17 July 2007

Not on the train wreck

Whomever the heckler of me is on LANL:The Rest of the Story, he has started to cheer me up.

Today's heckle was that I should feel bad because I don't work at LANL and therefore am not on the crashing train.

As a put down this logic lacks something. LOL

Back to your regular programming.

The elephant in the living room

By my calculations, LANS is running in the red this year and will be farther in the red next year.

The consensus estimate for next year is $360,000,000. This is $30,000,000 a month or 100 staff members or 300 support staff a month for whom there will not be money to pay them.

In spite of section 3161, there will not be money to pay people.

What do you think will happen?
Will LANS get the money from one of their owners just to be nice to the government or will something else take place?

Follow the money.

Jobs

I am getting called continuously about job openings.

I am putting some of these listings on Science at LANL

Bully and Victim

There is an interesting thread surfacing at LANL and LLNL. This thread was elucidated quite a while ago by Hugh Gusterson.

The thread is that employees at both places continue to trust their future to managers and organizations that have betrayed them in the past. They trust these managers and organizations with at least half a million dollars per employee even though the employee knows that they will be betrayed.

It turns out that this seemingly contradictory behavior is well known in psychology. In the distant past, it may have been evolutionarily selected. Currently, it is very bad for the employees but is common.

Who knew?

This is brought to the top. It was originally posted on 25 July 2007.

My plan

Long ago I hedged my bets on the future of Los Alamos. In part, I tried to make accurate predictions of what this future might be.

At the moment, I am making businesses grow. These businesses may stay here. These businesses may move.

If you are interested in knowing what my hedges are or what the businesses are, let me know.

The future of Los Alamos 2

For readers who are interested, I still have years worth of experience that can help people through the current difficulties. This experience seems to fall into a few categories.

1. Helping people to find good jobs. I get requests from companies and headhunters all the time.
2. Quantitative predictions of the future of the lab and the county.
3. Financial skills that many scientists do not currently have.
4. Simple, caring support.

All that a person has to do to find out more is to contact me. I have stopped pushing the skills above. I have found out that what is required for an individual's success is their own motivation. I cannot provide this to others.

This post got overrun by others. It is from 4 October and generated some comments. I moved it up the list by changing the nominal posting date.

Disclaimer

Much of this information is listed somewhere below. Here is an executive summary.

1. There are a lot of people who will be hurt badly very soon, at LANL and LLNL.
2. I can provide help in scientific, financial, and job hunting areas to each of these people. I have done it already for hundreds at LANL and a few at LLNL.
3. I get calls from head hunters each week looking for talent.
4. I am only one person. Besides the information in item 2, I am working on getting a few companies farther off the ground. If you want to know whether I can help you, please contact me soon. I will be useful to as many people as I can.

Lets hope that we all get through this mess with the minimum damage to ourselves and our friends.

Later,

No web site

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19

Don't go look at this web site, sent to me by a friend.

Positivity

Any positive comments that will help workers or managers at DOE labs are welcome.

Negativity 2

I don't get it.

There are a number of commenters on LANL:The Rest of the Story who attack other commenters. At least one commenter has chosen to attack me. Apparently, I do not have enough hits on my blogs to satisfy this anonymous person.

None of these negative commenters seem to have:

1. Brought in any new money to the Lab
2. Helped their colleagues
3. Tried to meet a project deadline
4. Cared about anyone other than themselves.

The only rational explanation for that negativity that I have come up with is that the negative people do not work for LANL nor have any friends or relatives who work for LANL.

Is there another explanation?

Collapse

The last 30 pages of Diamond's book "Collapse" describes what needs to be happening here but is not happening. He is not talking about Los Alamos in particular, but, even so, the insights are sobering.

LANL: The Rest of the Story 2

Most of the meat of my posts will occur here.

LANL:The Rest of the Story does not seem to be a place at which content gets discussed in detail.

I will put a few comments there but not many.

RIFs

Many readers want to know the latest details about RIFs at LANL and other labs.

I know quite a few people who have left for one reason or another recently. Even though the number of employees at LANL seems to be decreasing, none of the 'leaving but not being replaced' action is being called a RIF.

Supply side economics

LANS appears to be running in the red to the tune of a few hundred million a year. How can they do this?

Reading between the lines

As you may have guessed, there is a lot going on here. Much of it strikes me as useful information for other DOE sites.

Since this is mostly a demand driven blog, I am willing to write down some of what is going on if someone asks for it. Otherwise, I seem to post when it makes sense to me.

Later,

Norse Greenland

I have been reading about historical societies and their success or failure. I have been reading most recently in the book "Collapse."

The historical society, so far, that most resembles Los Alamos is the Eastern Settlement of Greenland as established by the Norse in about 1000 CE and abandoned in 1406 CE.

This settlement refused to learn from the natives how to survive and depended on fluctuating local environment and on an unreliable lifeline from Norway.

Toward the end of its life, the Eastern Settlement turned to building giant churches and ignoring the needs of the populace. This strategy did not work out. Everyone died as they consumed their fields (to make new buildings) and consumed their livestock, which they needed in order to survive, so that they could eat.

Verboten

Topics that seem to be verboten on LANL: The Rest of the Story, such as practical details of how to protect yourself and your family from the coming RIFs, are welcome here.

Commenters can be anonymous or not anonymous as appropriate.

Comments can be elevated to posts.

The only thing that I am unlikely to do is to become a newsclip service. Pinky and the Brain do that well. If I find an article that seems critically important, I will post a URL here. Often I send that URL to Pinky and the Brain as well.

The cause

The apparently rapid decline of LANL does not seem to be caused by LANS or NNSA. These two organizations are just the bottom feeders that arrived after the cause occurred.

The cause, routinely seen in companies, seems to be that LANL stubbornly remained a one product organization even though demand for the product was disappearing.

The death of an organization when its single product becomes less in demand is common:

1. Hula hoops
2. Western movies
3. Computer punch cards
4. Bustles
5. Buggy whips
6. Abaci
7. Girdles
8. Black powder
9. The red stones that cap monuments on Easter Island
10. Corn whiskey made in individual stills
11. Logging in Montana
12. and many others

The cause for Los Alamos appears to be the decreasing felt need for new nuclear weapons. This cause apparently was coupled with the standard pointless infighting that occurred in each of the examples listed above. The infighting usually serves to cement the collapse.

Resumes

There have been statements on LANL: The Rest of the Story that people should "start polishing their resumes."

I have found that the average LANL employee has never written a resume and does not have the skills to write a successful competitive resume.

To write a job winning resume in the current job environment takes, on average, a month with the help of an experienced mentor.

Without someone to explain the current methods of writing a successful resume, it takes much, much longer.

Just a thought from experience.

Predictability

The future of Los Alamos is getting more and more predictable, not good, but predictable.


The latest piece to fall in place comes from Jared Diamond's "Collapse." It turns out that the events that are currently taking place in Los Alamos have also taken place at Easter Island, on Greenland, and even in the Southwest with the Anasazi.

The cost of anonymity

On LANL: The Rest of the Story, there are recent posts about the coming RIFs at LANL. Some of the comments are insightful. Some are the standard impulsive feelings.

Pinky and the Brain, the operators of that blog, are continuing their long standing policy of encouraging anonymous posts only.

From my point of view, anonymous posts is an effective tactic for LANS but not for employees. Through anonymous posting LANS gets a view of what the employees are feeling at the moment. It also ensures that nothing detrimental to LANS starts to happen.

Anonymous groups of employees have not ever won any labor disputes, either in the U.S. or in the world. The reason is simple. Employers can ignore anonymous complaints. Ignoring the complaints has no cost to the employer because the complainers view their anonymity more highly than they view being successful.

Just a thought.

Unstable housing prices

Many people in Los Alamos county have a significant amount of their net worth tied up in the value of their houses. It is past time to diversify.

Courage

As was said after the Cerro Grande fire in 2000, the town will soon be different. It may be better. It may be worse. It will be different.

I am curious to find out who the leaders will be for the change.

FYI

The worries about the stability of TCP1 and medical benefits are hedged in the advise that we have been giving clients for years.

I had hoped that the worries expressed on LANL: The Rest of the Story in the last few days might not happen. Apparently, I was too optimistic.

Seniority

Small states get power in Congress by having long serving ambitious Senators who accumulate power. In the House, small states get run over by large states.

New Mexico soon will not have a powerful Senator. It routinely takes many years to create a powerful Senator. New Senators tend to get the least powerful and least important assignments.

Later

Reader from beyond Los Alamos County

For readers throughout the DOE complex and for others.

Many of the topics that are presented in this blog with a Los Alamos flavor actually have clear extensions far beyond Los Alamos. I tend to write about these extensions sporadically.

If readers want to know more about the details of these extensions, please ask.

Thanks,

Decreased budgets

It appears that the driving forces on future LANL budgets occur in D.C. and are about decreasing the weapons complex nationally.

With Domenici's retirement announcement, it no longer appears that we have a dog in this fight even though we need one.

So, decisions about LANL do not seem to have any effective local or statewide input. Input seems to come from D.C. and San Francisco.

Domenici

I am sad about the brain degeneration of Senator Domenici. I have know him lightly for many years.

From the point of view of LANL and Los Alamos County, it seems that we have finally lost one of our most effective defenders.

I do not see that there will be an effective champion for LANL or Los Alamos County for many years.

This is bad.

Fat Man

(c) Eric Fairfield - 2007
Here is an image of FatMan as it is modeled at the Bradbury Science Museum.
Enjoy.

Changing things

A lot is going on at the Lab right now.

1. Decreased budgets
2. Increased employment uncertainty
3. Unstable housing prices
4. Retirement of Senator Domenici
5. Slow job growth in other parts of the country
6. Lack of support for the nuclear weapons complex
7. Lack of organized resistance to the downsizing
8. Increased private drinking
9. More talk of suicide
10. Lack of available, useful information from the Lab.

I would appreciate details that readers have on these topics. Over the next few weeks, I will add a few comments that seem to be important and not well known.