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efaardvark's Achievements
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Seems the other shoe has dropped at work. Employees have been instructed that the Lab will be physically closed and everyone should plan to attend a virtual meeting with management where they'll discuss the (lack of a) federal budget and what that means for NASA centers like JPL. Afterwards around 600 employees will be let go. (That's ~10% of the Lab's total workforce.) This all according to an email from Lab management earlier today.
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I hope you're not affected by this sad news. It always amazes me the lengths employers will go to to avoid using the "R" word, they use terms like "let go" which makes one wonder if they've been holding on to people. Then there's the wonderful phrase one of my former employers used "we're offering you the opportunity to take early retirement".
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@Animedragon Thanks. We got an informal pep-talk from our "group soop" (group supervisor) after the official email from upper management came out. The soop said he said that he doesn't think that the DSN (deep space network) that I'm affiliated with will be hit too hard. We've taken cuts in previous years and we're already at our limits. Any more and we'd be cutting bone. We also have a lot of customers and commitments, including with high-profile ones like JAXA and ESA.
The counter argument to that is that a Mars sample return has been at or near the top of the planetary scientists' wish list in NASA's decadal survey for literally decades yet that has been one of the programs hit the hardest. This is all driven by DC politics too, so logic need not necessarily apply.
Well, I'll know later Wednesday afternoon. One way or another.
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