In the last 3-4 years it all went badly at R&D, primarily due to almost cartoonishly bad onsite management. Hard to know what happened, or who is to blame, but basically during SG&A reductions, many good people were targeted for layoff programs, but their managers always survived and got 'reassigned'. The place became a circus tent of way too many average-at-best managers, with nothing to do but annoy, pester and make life difficult and do so on a daily basis. Someone had decided that they needed to become more hands-on I suppose. By late 2008 an inane fascination with process and safety had overidden any focus on production. One had to work hard to just keep busy. So called improvements on safety and the RIR after 2008 has been a disorganized 3 ring circus, truly absurd to see it happen. I finally learned what the old saying 'inmates running the asylum' means. Painfull.
