It certainly is starting to seem like it is, because from where I'm looking, older employees are being disproportionately affected during layoffs. Just think about it, doesn't it seem that the average age of employees has gone down significantly in the last several years (or more)?
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Age combined with experience made you a target, in 2012/2013. At Stanford, JD made suddenly stupid and accompanying abuse his hallmark. He drove 4 women in and around their 50's and who had more than15 years (each) in service to Follett and Stanford, out. He isolated, insulted, hassled, call into question their competence until he had grounds for firing or the person simply resigned.
this was a transitioning follett. It had been a good place to work, but it felt uncomfortable as a good place to work. It transitioned into a mean, profit driven, employee loathsome place. JD was a perfect stooge. He took all the blame *(until he wrote his book about bookstores being a noble place where profitability should not be a motivating factor).
Today you work on a pile of bones of the people who were abused before you. I'm sorry you're there.
I agree with both age and speaking up as key factors in their selection process. With experience comes age, higher wages through promotions and merit increases. While I was offered to stay on with a different title, it was also doing the same job at an insulting wage. JRC would not receive my experience and dedication for below entry level wages. They actually ended up hiring my replacement (with no experience) at a higher wage than I was offered.
I knew my job. I knew what needed to be done and I got it done. I had many discussions with my regional and they were in agreement as I presented the data to support the need. I "spoke up" instead of "Kissing up". When the restructure happened, the higher positions had already been assigned (behind closed doors) to selected "su-k ups" or long time buddies of the RM with less experience and less seniority. SO many things were wrong with how this was handled.
Do I think there could have been a lawsuit. Yes. And I wish someone had/would. I chose to take the severance and move on. JRC was not worth the additional stress.
I definitely think it has more to do with payscale and how vocal someone is. /Especially/ with how vocal they are. I had some of the best metrics in my region and my boss and his boss even had said multiple times they wanted to see me move up in the company...and now I'm laid off - but I have also been extremely vocal about how I think JRC and its little cronies it put in place as the executive team have been running the company into the ground and whoops, I'm suddenly "restructured" out of a job. I'm decently acquainted with some of the group that got laid off as well - we were all pretty vocal. I am absolutely convinced this entire "restructuring" was actually retaliation for not kissing and blowing smoke up their... posteriors.
Last year I tried to get one of those many openings to move up. After every interview I was given a reason that I was not right for the job. All BS answers for questions that weren't even asked but that I have plenty of experience in. For example: I didn't have experience in Follett Access, when I launched a ran the access program at our school and did everything. Never asked about FA because I ran an FA school, but yet I didn't have FA experience.... WTF? That's just one example. Eventually I issued a complaint to HR stating I thought it was age discrimination. Of course that was denied for a variety of BS reasons.
I found a better job, better pay, no stress, better management. Thanks Follett for forcing me to be so miserable that I quit. I didn't know how much better my life would be.
I believe its a combination of pay scale and those who speak up/question. Easier to get away with stuff when surrounded by yessir people.
@jyd+1qVDxn1K What’s a merit increase? I thought they only gave bring to minimum increases here.
We should start a law suit for age discrimination
Not true I'm pretty young and got laid off.
It is troubling when a slug from a temp agency makes more that. A long term employee. The slugs tend to play on their phones and pick their. Noses whilst the seasoned employee ends up doing both jobs. Just sayin’…
Plus it's ILLEGAL
I think it has more to do with where folks fall on the pay scale. The longer one is in a job, the more money they earn. After years of merit increases, a person is in danger of being replaced by someone with no experience at the bottom of the pay scale. Of course, this is short-sighted because experienced employees generally have higher production.