I wanted to write a good review. I honestly have loved working here for the last 15 years. But, I feel it's necessary to give some feedback to management and this might be the safest way because the lab is no longer a safe environment for feedback because management doesn't want to listen.
SLAC has become a bureaucratic lab. Just the other day I had issues with trying to place an order via purchasing and finally had to settle for a sub-standard vendor because the purchasing employee was completely inflexible and was only worried about passing an audit rather than working to get the best quality product for the lab. This example is EXACTLY what has become wrong with the lab; by trying to do the right thing we are actually wasting government resources by "playing to the audit". In addition, the "support" organizations have grown to the point where my guess is that there is more "support" staff than engineering and science staff (HR, Purchasing, payroll etc). I loved working here, but find myself more and more frustrated every day. All we seem to be worried about is tracking every penny and where it is going.
Our director and his management staff seems to be completely isolated and literally live in an ivory tower (4th floor of Bldg 53 , really?) . NO one above my manager does ANY management by walking around. They should, as they have become completely disassociated with the reality of what is going on underneath them. A rating of 71% for the director is terrible. And, only 57% of people would recommend SLAC as a place to work? That’s embarrassing, why isn’t HR doing something about that? How is SLAC supposed to hire and retain good employees with a rating like that on glassdoor?
