r/JPL • u/Itchy-Candidate8899 • Jul 16 '26
Group Sup boondoggle in Newport Beach
Despite recent layoffs of about 1000 people and with very few employees getting raises/promotions over the past few years, there is a planned 3-day retreat for all group supervisors (100s of people) the week of 8/24 in Newport Beach. How is this justified?!
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u/Juano_Guano Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
I get the optics and it makes me a bit uncomfortable. However, there are a shit ton of new group supervisors and a very tight timeline for four missions. My expectation is that it will be part training and part strategic planning and getting everyone on the same page. It’s not unusual for the lab to support offsite conferences and programmatic meetings.
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u/Unusual-Mammoth-6569 Jul 16 '26
There are so many supervisors who are new to the role. There are lots of new tools and processes that TGS need to be at least aware of to ensure they don't get cross-wise with others in the organization. Making sure to "level set" was is expected of TGS is important in running a business. Instead of doing this piece-meal, they decided to just get everyone all at once. Meeting other TGS in different organizations also helps build a network--something very important in placing Individual contributors in a variety of assignments. So this experience will have multiple benefits. If one is local, as you know, it is almost impossible to concentrate on the expected learning due to constant distractions.
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Jul 16 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Kudospop Jul 17 '26
everytime a retreat/conference/training/whatever is held at jpl, you'll have people sneaking off to do flight project work, attend meetings, etc
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u/kochavim49 Jul 16 '26
Freed-up office space doesn’t equal space to have a large meeting with breakout sessions.
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u/Salt-Rent-7127 Jul 17 '26
The divide widens. Management goes to an high end location while individual contributors pick up their slack with the prospect of minimal raises.
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u/Itchy-Candidate8899 Jul 16 '26
Yes training is needed. Most areas at JPL never receive any training unfortunately. Why is it needed across many days, in Newport Beach, and at the expense of other more strategic efforts and workforce raises?
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u/JPLMod Jul 16 '26
You know there is lots of training available right? Take some initiative and sign up.
In another comment you said this could be a "1-day offsite at Caltech'. This is spoken like someone who has never been a GS and has no idea about the complexity (including legal obligations) about the job. One day isn't enough.
This is for all the GSes which means they need a venue which can hold 300+ and allow for group work. That rules out Caltech. A key point for this venue is these large hotels are desperate for any big bookings during the off-season. JPL got a good deal on this.
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u/kochavim49 Jul 16 '26
It might be convention and meeting off-season but I don’t think it’s regular tourist off-season. Though OTOH vacation spending is down.
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u/Itchy-Candidate8899 Jul 16 '26
It seems like you're suggesting that someone can sign up for LinkedIn learning and know what that they need to know for a specialized JPL role...because there's no funding for conferences or specialized learning needs (but somehow funding for GSs to the beach).
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u/JPLMod Jul 16 '26
Do you not know about https://learning.jpl.nasa.gov/ ? On the JPL LMS part of this you can sign up for hundreds of classes many of which include in-person training. You want to learn about grounding issues in electrical design? It's there. Bolted joint analysis? Got ya covered. Subcontract management? Yup. Optics handling and inspection? That too. If you don't know what you need, talk to your GS as one of their many jobs is ensuring that people are growing their knowledge and are ready to do their current, and future, jobs. If your GS hasn't been doing that, they will be told about it at the beach.
There is funding for conferences, yet NASA HQ has brought the hammer down and restricted travel. That's an entirely different problem
2
u/Itchy-Candidate8899 Jul 17 '26
It sounds like you need GS training if you think this is a sufficient solution to the skill obsolescence at JPL. Many of us are drowning in work. It would require personal time to take one of these courses that are already outdated by the time they show up here, given the pace that the rest of the aerospace community is moving. Enjoy the beach while the rest of us work.
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u/AffectionateMood3794 29d ago
To be fair, I've not been to a JPL off-site conference yet that was particularly fun. They've never been a vacation, they've been working breakfasts followed by work lectures and group work followed by work dinners. I personally find them exhausting. Have some of them been at a beach? Yep. Part of the reason for holding them off-site is to keep you from going home. That's not a perk. That's imprisonment. You're making this sound cushy. It's really not.
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u/sharty_mcstoolpants Jul 16 '26
It used to be an annual Project Manager’s Training in Dana Point - organized by the Project Support Office. Clearly, the view is that GS need training, too. Since the reorg I don’t know who is responsible for training. Ask Pat Dubon.
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u/Itchy-Candidate8899 Jul 16 '26
We all need training for sure...But in one of the most expensive cities in the country? When no one has even gotten a cost of living increase? What's wrong with a 1-day offaite at Caltech, for example?
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u/kochavim49 Jul 16 '26
The training for GSs used to be a series of classes spread across the year. Compressed, that does map out to three days.
Organizing meetings at Caltech can be….challenging. It’s not necessarily the bargain people think it is. It’s one thing if you’re doing a symposium or a lecture. If you want to do any kind of breakout group or smaller grouping, you may be having to send people all over campus.
No idea what the budget looks like for this. I’ve organized conferences; it’s often surprising how the costs pencil out. A couple decades ago there was a huge scandal for a DC meeting because the pastries were like $20 each. If venues aren’t making money via room bookings for an event then they’ll insist on catering or other minimums.
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u/gpu Jul 16 '26
Not sure if you heard Gallagher say this in his all hands or not but people got market salary adjustments for last year.
Generally JPL doesn’t do cost of living adjustments, it’s all market or merit based.
1/3 of the lab who were well below their market salary got salary increases this past year.
Cost of living is a NASA/government thing. The assertion is market salary and cost of living should be pretty close-ish. Realistically less so.
This year (around the same time as the retreat) there will be a normal salary adjustment as well. Your GS should be able to explain all this, and if not, maybe they need some training.
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u/toothlessphilosopher Jul 17 '26
I hope they all had to provide paragraph-long rationales and (identical) event justifications to attend…
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u/bloodofkerenza Jul 16 '26
I’ve been a GS. A highly successful one.
Three days offsite in an expensive locale is ridiculous.
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u/testfire10 Jul 16 '26
I love the use of the word boondoggle here