Finally after 11 years and 10 good performance appraisals I suddenly got a "does not meet expectations" on my review. I had received no mid year eval or any write-ups that year, just a poor eval with totally off the wall comments. I put 2 and 2 together and it dawned on me that my GM had realized my age (I look younger) and that I was over the $55k pay threshold. It had absolutely nothing to do with performance. I was put on a PIP and I actually tried to work through it , although I knew it was a lost cause. Staples tried to contest my unemployment claim, but the problem was they had fired to many people that way. The administrator of my claim actually said Staples is playing games and approved my claim, as they had for several others Staples had contested by order of VS.
You are not the the only one in this, @OmWZfCH-2haf. Somebody actually sued them for age discrimination and won recently. Not that that changed their operations, though, this is being done every day still.