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I work for a national lab and in my experience it will take a lot for someone to give up a place like the Eastbay for East Tennessee. If the national lab were n

I work for a national lab and in my experience it will take a lot for someone to give up a place like the Eastbay for East Tennessee. If the national lab were near Nashville that might be different. Los Alamos has to give software developers a sizeable bonus each year just to keep them from flying to greener pasteurs in a less remote location. I know I left partly because my wife had such a hard time finding work and the remoteness made the area too expensive for what we were getting out of it socially and careerwise.

pnpnp 3y ago
I've thought about this a lot, so thanks for getting the neurons firing again. In my case, I worked for some agencies and had an absolute blast. In this phase of my life, I'm living somewhere else & would fight tooth and nail to stay here. I wonder if it would be worth it from a talent perspective to create more, larger, and strategically placed SCIFs (Sensitive compartmented information facility) around the country so that there was less of a physical requirement for information workers to commute every day. Some of the jobs I worked were a blast with really great and interesting people. I do miss it, but would never move back to the physical locations required.
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robwwilliams 3y ago
ORNL region is gorgeous and there are plenty of jobs and relatively inexpensive housing.
- petsfed 3y ago
  Its gorgeous for some. My own experiences in the Ozarks made it a non-starter for me. Its hard to calculate the exact impact it had on me, but I do wonder if I would've worked harder in grad school if I wasn't actively dreading actually getting the most prestigious research positions in my field (I was studying material science of optical and electronic materials at the time). Granted, a lot of academia is repeating "just keep going, the end is in sight" until you die, but it is frustrating that it has to be that way.

pnpnp 3y ago

I've thought about this a lot, so thanks for getting the neurons firing again. In my case, I worked for some agencies and had an absolute blast. In this phase of my life, I'm living somewhere else & would fight tooth and nail to stay here. I wonder if it would be worth it from a talent perspective to create more, larger, and strategically placed SCIFs (Sensitive compartmented information facility) around the country so that there was less of a physical requirement for information workers to commute every day. Some of the jobs I worked were a blast with really great and interesting people. I do miss it, but would never move back to the physical locations required.

deleted 3y ago

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robwwilliams 3y ago

ORNL region is gorgeous and there are plenty of jobs and relatively inexpensive housing.

petsfed 3y ago
Its gorgeous for some. My own experiences in the Ozarks made it a non-starter for me. Its hard to calculate the exact impact it had on me, but I do wonder if I would've worked harder in grad school if I wasn't actively dreading actually getting the most prestigious research positions in my field (I was studying material science of optical and electronic materials at the time). Granted, a lot of academia is repeating "just keep going, the end is in sight" until you die, but it is frustrating that it has to be that way.