I love how GL (in his latest love letter to the company) blamed our losses on system failers and therefore delivery of poor product to customers. Really, dumbass? When you slash key employees who can actually manage the "systems" and don't bother replace them, systems will fail. That's right, Mr. 33.7 million. Shocking, I know.

Did Elmer Fudd (aka NW) survive the purge? What a slimeball!

Lucifer will run this already crappy company into the ground and walk away with bulging pockets, destroying employee's lives - just to turn around and run another company into the ground. I don't know how he sleeps at night. But then again, it takes all kinds.

"Any forecast to how LIFE will do in Q3, revenue from IT? Look to me the whole market/economy is weak, would be nice to know the make up of LIFE revenues from its major business units."

It's not too late to sell your LT stocks yet. When the Q3 results come out, you will be lucky to get out at price now.

IT cannot save this sinking ship.

Poor, even in a strong market. IT is a NOT a game changer and will never be.

Any forecast to how LIFE will do in Q3, revenue from IT? Look to me the whole market/economy is weak, would be nice to know the make up of LIFE revenues from its major business units.

In response the the BK question, I am not quite certain to whom you are referring, however, I do have a good guess. I can tell you this: If they are old school Ambion, they are likely not "all talk". I mean, yes, we had our share of schmucks, but the ratio of shcmuck to hard-working human was very low. And our numbers reflected that. RIP Ambion. What a great company that was.

"If you are too stupid to realize that post was tongue-in-cheek then you should be the first to be cut."

Don't bury your head in sand. Those folks really exist, although some of them were let go in the latest round. There are still many more. I hope you don't work here. If you do, I suggest you look at people around you closely. Pay attention to what they do, their qualifications, their contributions, and how they got there. You will realize that this is not a joke. If you think people just made this up, You are just too f**king naive. You all agree that the Lifetech HR is horrible. Well, it's same HR that allows these people to exist in the first place.

Wait for the new website. It's a miracle in progress, if that is the kind of merging functionality LT offers, you might as well sink the boat now. Total bullshit. In the meantime real companies are building things like bees instead of being parasites wasp.

The lack of the ability of readers to detect sarcasm is disturbing.

What is the status of the lawsuits going on?
Anyone know what % of the laid off people were women? I think there is some bias going on.

"Man, I hope you folks are not average LT worker, I rest my case, with employees like these GL needs no competitor or enemy, GL has more cleaning to do, Cut, Cut, Cut 30-40% more."

If you are too stupid to realize that post was tongue-in-cheek then you should be the first to be cut.

"I nearly finish HS, and I get 6 figures and do not work, and are friends with people at top, and I am a free loader staying home, and I clean labs and hide all day, and I love my blanket, and I love LT and I love GL......"
Man, I hope you folks are not average LT worker, I rest my case, with employees like these GL needs no competitor or enemy, GL has more cleaning to do, Cut, Cut, Cut 30-40% more. Give TL real nice hair cut.
GM and Fort had to Cut 50% to finally start making real money. Watch out Chinese and Indians are coming BABY from UCs, they have more than stupid HS degrees, and they will take your job, take your home, and marry your daughters and wives, and they do not F... around all day at work, and be proud of it! Such a bunch of losers!! Man forget about LT and its share holders, you are wasting your own life, living a Medicare life, eating leftovers and hoping for GLs charity. Such losers!!!

Good Job GL, we need more Cuts please!!!!!

I love to work at Life too. My heart at Life has been dead long time ago. I do almost nothing daily except keeping the labs sparkling clean and organized. There is not much going on anyway. The business is dying. My pay is very high based on my work output. I am close to retirement age. I am just waiting for a package on my way out. Damn! I miss the package again. Well, either way, I am making some free money. Got nothing to complain about. Just sorry to see my buddies suffering, especially the ones with families and kids.

I love to work at Life. I barely finished H.S.. I know nothing about the science, the engineering, and the business at Life. Yet, I am managing a major operation. I got a shit load of stocks and a huge ICP payouts because my boss likes me. I am still here enjoying myself. I manage all these nerdy technical people. If they don't respect me, I bad-mouth them behind their backs to get these losers out of here. It's whom you know not what you know, baby.

Awesome post. As someone who actually knows who and what you're talking about, I commend you on the total perfection of your sarcastic wit. That's beautiful :)

Seriously people, get a grip! The quicker you realize you are dispensable regardless of the company you work for, the happier you will be. Nobody owes you anything other than the paycheck you receive. Do yourselves a favor - have a life outside of work, keep your resume up to date, make sure your skills are valuable, stay networked and put yourself first - regardless of what you do or where you work.

Poor Greg! Someone's always after his Lucky Charms!

"For my money, GL is easily worth at at least 500 man years of work, so he is definitely a bargain."

It is NOT the man years of work that counts...but the amount of MAN
put into the work years!

Get smart or get out!

Nice comment vixen! My friend was laid off pregnant! Lucky you who not even come to work! Very nice comment colleague!

Every night as I lay down to sleep in my LifeTEch pullover, I thank my lucky stars for having the opportunity to work at Life Tech...improving the human condition. As far as I'm concerned, this whining is a symptom of what's wrong with LifeTech these days. Come on people, buy-in to the plan or get out of the way! Stop whining! For heavan's sake, compensation is secondary to knowing you've improved the lives of so many people via our LifeTech Products. For my money, GL is easily worth at at least 500 man years of work, so he is definitely a bargain.

This is a science company. Those of you who doubt that every R&D decision, from products to personnel, is based on scientific merit are sorely mistaken. The last CSO was a political hack solely out there for the bling... For proof, just look where is now...greedy, duplicitous bastard.

Just because you have a graduate degree, it doesn't give you the right to question everything...The company would be in such a better place if everyone would stop doubting and get on board. If only there was a more compliant workforce out there that would fearlessly follow our great leader into the next great phase of this awesome company!

"I love working at Life tech. They pay me 6 figures and I don't even have to come to work. I'm on maternity leave til Oct. too... So everyone please shut up about the company and GL. It is strong and I really appreciate the job. Thanks GL mwahhhh!"

Materinity leave is a law - wise up vixen! BTW - your job has just been outsourced - wait and see. Your return will not be for long. There are protocals in place to eliminate over 40 and those recently with child.

When times are tough, company in trouble, a true leader leads by example. Why don't GL take a 20MM cut as he saying to wall street instead of "lean" out operations and further destabilizing the company. Hypocrisy at its best!.

I love working at Life tech. They pay me 6 figures and I don't even have to come to work. I'm on maternity leave til Oct. too... So everyone please shut up about the company and GL. It is strong and I really appreciate the job. Thanks GL mwahhhh!

Come on folks stop crying, they only cut 1.5% of the work force. It does not mean anything. It helps nothing at all. It is probably less than travel budget. Average turnover is above 10%, maybe close to 20%. If LT issue a hiring freeze for six months the work force will drop naturally by 5-10%.
This is only for the Stock Market to shut up for a while. I suggest for folks to focus more on their profession and less on what LT will or will not do. Be sure they are competent/up to date and well known as leaders in their field, rather than expect Mommy or Daddy or the MAN to take care of them, and spoon feed them. Let no one lead you, but yourself. Always be in demand. What happen to rugged American independence and can do attitude that built our nation. Remember 95% of Americans work for, or own small businesses. These large companies are exceptions to the rule in the real word.
I have seen many layoffs and I am certain I will see more. As ½ of the world population lives on less than 1 dollar a day. We all know at one point in future that will change and they want to make their own stuff, grow their own food, and create jobs in their own neck of the woods and stop buying our shit. If we are not ready as a person and/or a nation, we get F… really hard. Back in the day when I graduated from college, most High School grads would go and work for factories for 15 to 20 $ hours (GM, Ford), they thought I was crazy doing more school to make less money. Back then 25-30% of High School grads went to college, now it is 70%. We are inherently not special or chosen by God, in contrast to what we have been told by Hollywood and the F.. piper. Our real value is based on how we change the world/business/life/…., not just going for a F… ride while others doing the real work of leading and thinking and changing and innovating.

Litigation expenses are mounting faster than Lucifer's layoffs, and royalties are declining. LIFE may soon have to give up paid royalties within both the thermocycler and pcr consumables estates on current and pending litigation.

Clearly this is not a good company to place money with. Think of LIFE as your cousin vinnie and the mob, doing business on the streets.

Again - the view from the top is - stock may hit or go below 30 by year end....so if you got stock sell now or hold on until the company gets sold mid year next year. Nothing new will happen anytime soon, and Lucifer will only try to max profits by cutting human capital and consolidating facilites/operations. IT - really? This is what you base the future of a 6B mc company on? there is already better tech out there AND even better coming out of the Universities.

LIFE is showing classic company in trouble manuvers and hype. Get out while you can and rememeber that you should only be as loyal to any company as the company in loyal to you. In LIFE's case - there is no loyalty except to Lucifer himself.

"I must tell you that this is an incredibly painful thing to do, and I feel in my heart the stress and trauma this downsizing causes those folks affected." - GL EMAIL

This guy is a jamoke, I still work here at GI. I have zero faith in this Co.

$33,751,406/year = 129,813/per working day!
GL = Greeeeeedy Lucifer!

"Man’s worth is measured by depth his character not the F… job at F.. Life, Pfizer, etc…." You got this wrong, buddy. A man's worth is measured by the depth of his pocket book and the depth of his insertion in bed...LOL...

Seriously, you nailed it with the few paragraphs before that sentence. LT has been a manufacturing company trying to buy (steal) promising technology. It has very shallow R&D. They don't know what to do with all the high priced "talents" they acquired through mergers. Manufacturing is boring, low profit margin business. They can't afford to keep all these scientists, engineers, mgrs, and dir., etc. Every site you look at: Cbad, FC, PL, Austin, GI, Framingham, and WI. are all run by manufacturing folks. R&D is just not in the culture. If LT has R&D and new products in the pipeline, the employees won't have time to do bull shits like Six Sigma and 5S, which are somewhat mandatory. Well, the labs look clean, so are the product pipeline. If you think your skills and experience deserve more, seek life elsewhere. But you have to be smart enough to recognize LT/Invitrogen's business model and accept the fact that there is little you can do to change that.

Hey Austin, Do you know BK!. Was he any good or talk?

I think the ones that got fired, needed to go any way. Sorry! I left Life when it was INVG, because I got sick and tired of working with folks that only played with their D.. and P.. all day and never got any work done. They played politics and through each other under the F.. bus. They are too many people there, doing very little. Life can do fine with 30% less people. Many people been there for F.. 20 years. Who in the right F… mind stay in any company for that long unless they find a way to milk the company, like some DNV loser. It is good to move from company to company every few years, make new friends and learn new things. It is expected these days.
I suggest cut, cut, cut. Sell off low performing product lines, fire anyone above 5 years employment (great employees or bad ones) and bring some new dedicated fresh blood, that really want a job and willing to work extra hard, and stop screwing around. Upgrade your work force. Bring in some new blood, who do not know anyone to play F.. Politics and focus on bringing value to customers and investors. And do not destroy value at minimum.
While I was there, I saw how they wasted company money and time. The company does not owe anyone anything, employees get paid each two weeks for the work they do.
If these employees are smart, they can go and start their own damn business and compete with Life, or go to competitors and make them successful. SBA is insuring loans to start a business and Connect and SVG is looking for smart folks to invest in them.
Losing a job, being laid off, or fired, is not indication of anyone’s worth. Man’s worth is measured by depth his character not the F… job at F.. Life, Pfizer, etc….
I know losing a job sucks, most people go through it, even most power people in the world like US presidents. But it is not Life’s fault and it is not the employee’s fault, it was just time for change.

I wrote the letter on here to Mr. Lucier. I am in Austin, not Carlsbad, so no happy potion down here exceptin' my jose cuervo.

I still think he could turn things round'. Course I am on my 6th shot, so maybe a bit optimistic. After this week, 6 is just starting.

To the guy that wrote the letter to GL- Great letter. But I can tell you must work in Carlsbad, as still seems you drank too much of the LT happy potion. Having LT get rid of some of his Human Resources, Info Tech and Sales people is not the only thing needing to be fixed. They need to get back some of the people they lost. A company is only as good as the human capital you have. As much as this company has scared all of us, from top to bottom of the food chain, do you think anyone worth their salt is going to stay at this point? Great letter, but wishful.

The big guy told us himself, if you don't like change, then you should leave the company, may not be the place for you. I like change all right, but don't like having no security at all.

Count me out, I am folding. Wanted to hold out for things to get better, but after this week, I am dusting off the resume. I am on my 3rd manager, one good one was let go. One medium good one, found another job. Smart man.

I feel like a dummy staying here. What have I been thinking.

Take you severance package and run. Forget about suing LT for age discrimination; it's very hard to prove. LT got bunch of corporate lawyers and they are not dummies. These are calculated moves. You won't likely to gain anything from from suing.

Bitching about how bad GL is treating the employees won't help either. That's something you can't control. What you can control is where you want to work. You should have recognized this sinking ship two years ago and jumped ship. Most of the smart ones have left. Be aware of what's going next time and run before the train hits you. As the stock traders say: bulls make money. Bears make money. Pigs get slaughtered.

Dear Mr. Lucier,
Please bring back our confidence in your leadership. None of us like hearing in the office, nor reading on here when everyone calls you Lucifer as normal course. We want to believe in you.

Start with the benefits. The way healthcare was rolled out, then other benefits. Start, like any coach of a good football team by axing your offensive coordinator. PL needs to go! Do you know how seething mad most all of us are, seeing this guy up there having a good time pretending to be Letterman's sidekick. Ax him. He let you down. You may think he is the best thing since sliced bread, but we your employees do not. Human Resources is really messed up. Hard to see, as they probably do a great job of kissing arse. Get rid of PL, RG and others that have let you down. Get rid of your benefits guy, MP. Could he have botched things any worse over the last few months? They have got to go.

Information Technology. Your CIO. He has a great story. People like him. His personal story was tragic, we all feel for him. He is an amazing man. But, IT is really messed up. Every employee in the company who needs their help, feels it. The individual IT people are good. But somehow they are marching in so many directions. Also, how long as a company have we had 2 systems SAP and E1? Still it is not solved. This is incredible. We all respect this CIO, as a man. But as a CIO, something needs to change at the top. There were so many order mistakes and others this last quarter, as we still don't have our infrastructure right. Buck has to stop somewhere. Usually the top.

Sales. Enough said.

We paid a high price this week, losing coworkers, peers, friends. We took a huge hit. Show us you are serious about turning this company around, and do some reforming at the top. Cutting middle management and lower people, outsourcing things, great. But we are hard working and we march to our executives orders.

We would all help you turn this company around if you showed us some good will and commitment to us. But, show us some love here, as human beings or employees if you will, it is not fun working with these Human Resource clowns you have running the show, or should say our lives. It is not fun with our system limitations whether we be in finance, accounting, operations, sales or other.

Please, bring in some better executive leadership. Make the hard call. Sort the deck. PL, RG from HR, CIO, other folks need to be shown the door, and given new starts at smaller companies in environments they can handle.

You can turn this ship around, but you need us to do it. You also need an exec staff that is not going to let you down. If you don't have the experience to run a company this big and turn it around, then surround your folks with people who can. Not some stumblebumb that puts on sunglasses, pretends to be playing air piano and laughs at your jokes in the quarterly meetings. It is so symbolic when he does this act during our quarterly meetings. Let him and the other execs try out for stand up comedy jobs, or get more management experience at a smaller startup.

The executives are just not ready for primetime. Please show us something, as we have sacrificed much for you over the last few years, and this week. After this week, after this month, year, last few years, this place is not at all a pleasant place to be. Now none of us, great worker or slacker feel any security in this company. There is a difference between embracing change for good, and enduring chaos.

We could use some good change.

Sincerely,
An employee looking for good change from a once great company

The workers are also the shareholders. We're being screwed either way. I remember way back in may when a share of LIFE was over $57. Today it's about 60% of that. We're screwed as emplyee and as shareholders. Think it's bad now? Wait till the next round in Nov-Dec.

Dear GL,

When is that election for Rancho Santa Fe dogcatcher again?

XOXOXO,

Your loving public.

Dear Shareholders,

Don't worry, there are plenty of workers desperate enough to mortgage their health, happiness and relationships to get a paycheck from Life. We'll create some YouTube videos that will appeal to the best and brightest community college new grads and get those vacancies filled.

In the meantime, please contribute to my political fund so that I may get elected and bless this state with more of my brilliance.

Yours truly,

GL

The shareholders are not going to be looked after when the entire company is gutted of hard workers and the only people left are those who delegated their work to others.

Is it world wide or just America? Is it 100, 300, or does no one realy know. It does seem odd, Lifetech is not doing that bad, just not as good as it hoped. Its no ones fault its just the global economy but as per usual its the poor old workers who have to suffer, as long as share holders are looked after!

The number was 300 glbally, not 100. Maybe it was 100 in CBD or FC.

100 jobs = $20,000,000 , wow, LIFE pays well.!!!

The number let go yesterday was around 100, not 30.

30+ yesterday

>http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/jun/11/who-are-san-diegos-top-paid-executives/

In case you were wondering, $33,751,406 translates into ~421 employees with $80k salaries....
How many people were let go in the latest round?

The very worst of comments at the beginning of this thread are happening. Every step by step lucifer guidebook is followed. Now the great one is entering the last stage: now he starts destroying is very close coll. to get the final paycheck. The board must stop this useless CEO. Everyone is frozen at life, nothing is moving anymore. Bye bye bettering the human life condition. The Lucier model is for coca cola, he has no clue what he says.

Agree, GL need to go. This guy is highest paid CEO in San Diego. More than 3 times Qualcomm CEO, for a 10 fold smaller company. Go figure?. Now making changes so can walk away with another fat check. Hope board does something and save this company before it is too late.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/jun/11/who-are-san-diegos-top-pa...

I left (voluntarily) from Carlsbad a while ago, and I have to tell you that there were very, very few poor performers left in the rank-and-file by then; most were moved out within the first six months post-ABI acquisition. From what I know of the folks let go this week, they are really cutting deep into the mid-management ranks, including some who have been critical performers for many years. That might make sense in some organizations, but at LIFE folks at that level are really carrying the company in many areas. Makes me wonder how they'll recover from some of those losses, once they recognize that they ARE losses.

i was canned yesterday well i will be the one who hammers them with the age discrimination suit!