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Thursday, May 24, 2018

Something is wrong!

https://www.propublica.org/article/two-leading-bidders-for-lucrative-los-alamos-lab-contract-have-checkered-safety-records

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Any new management team, if they have got half a brain, is going to have to address the issue of culture,” he said in an interview. “It is arguably harder for someone who established the culture to change it, but somebody’s got to do it.”"

Ah, culture, fine please define what you mean. So far "culture" has been used as an excuse to deflect management failures. Why did Nanos fail? culture, why did WIPP fail, culture, why did LANS fail, culture, why did Clinton lose, culture. But what exactly do they mean by culture, is it a culture of bad management, a culture of NNSA incompetence, is it a New Mexico culture, is it a culture of men, a culture of women, a culture of people from Colorado, just what is this so called culture thing they keep talking about?

Culture seems to lead back to one thing, it is the fault of the scientists who must have a culture of arrogance, end of story. They are to blame for all the problems, so round them up, shame them, punish them and do away with them. That always seems to be what they really mean by culture as scientists are the easiest targets and they will not fight back. Make sure you pick the right scapegoat.

I think any entity that comes in to "change the culture" will fail because they have no idea what they mean by culture, who has the culture, and if culture is even the problem. It is like coming in to fix the problems at LANL which are SNARFS, I don't know what a snarf is, what it does, why it does it, but someone needs to be blamed and it cannot be the NNSA,DOE, Bechtel, UC, managers so it must be SNARFS.

Anonymous said...

Or possibly it's the peligros. I see danger signs warning me about those peligros everywhere.

Anonymous said...

A very thoughtful and accurate comment, 2:20 PM. There is indeed a deeply rotten management culture at LANL, which values loyalty and detests excellence, which promotes sycophants and keeps creative thinkers down. The culture which has put dangerous egomaniacs with totalitarian tendencies in positions of absolutely power and showered them with bonuses for keeping the worker bees under control. This culture took decades to form and is not easily dislodged.

Somehow, I don't think this is what the NNSA folks have in mind when they complain about "culture". Instead, they use the word to designate something vaguely bad about those scientists, something that needs to be "beaten into submission". This is from an actual testimony to Congress: "I believe there is something about the Los Alamos culture that we have not yet beaten into submission." (https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200410/backpage.cfm)

Since 14 years later they still are talking "culture", the NNSA viewpoint hasn't really changed, despite the manifest failure of LANS, LLC, which they imposed on LANL precisely to "beat the culture into submission". Lessons not learned.

Anonymous said...

There is a forth bid team. It consists of Jacobs Engineering, BWXT, and some university consortium. BWXT are the folks who brought us the WIPP drum as a member of LANS. BWXT are the folks who brought us the culture of management incompetence that presently runs the plutonium facility and nuclear and high hazards organization under LANS.

Anonymous said...

8:57 PM is on the mark with the culture that NNSA wants to change- IN THE FIRST PARAGRAPH. 2004 "beat/flog the scientists" was used in the privatization efforts to discredit UC. I doubt that resonants now. The current culture which supports the friends and family plans fail in obtaining the best ideas and innovations. It decreases competition... i.e., none. Competition can cause the best ideas to float to the top. If this is recognized, then it has to be UT or Bechtel as the possible contenders. Both should understand that changing the culture is really not relevant to the worker bees, but management. And the boxologies (management structure) will be changing.

To fit an other RFP requirement- non profit, then UT et al., has it. Soon, right Tami?

Anonymous said...

"There is a forth bid team. It consists of Jacobs Engineering, BWXT, and some university consortium."

Hmm, this could be the one with U of New Mexico, New Mexico State, ect. My guess is Terry Wallace is the person heading this team. The pitch is free jobs for people in New Mexico no qualifications needed, you may glow but you will be employed.

Anonymous said...

There is a forth bid team. It consists of Jacobs Engineering, BWXT, and some university consortium.

May 25, 2018 at 5:25 AM

Sorry, not going to believe anyone who cannot spell "fourth."

Anonymous said...

"Sorry, not going to believe anyone who cannot spell "fourth.""

Good point, the other day someone said the sky is bluu, and I am not going to believe him either.

Anonymous said...

Since "bluu" is not a word, let alone a color, why should you believe it? What if he said the sky is "blew"? Would you think he meant it is windy? Language, spelling, and grammar matter. Tolerance of conversational ignorance in a forum designed to exchange ideas and information is nonsensical.

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