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269 People Joined An Age Discrimination Class Action Suit Against Google (bizjournals.com)
Slashdot reader #9,119 BrookHarty writes:
"269 people have joined a class-action lawsuit against Google claiming they were discriminated against in the workplace based on their age..." reports BizJournals. "The lawsuit originated in 2015 with plaintiff Robert Heath and was certified as a class-action in 2016." Google has stated it has implemented policies to stop age discrimination but still has an average employee age of 29.
In 2004 Larry Page fired Brian Reid nine days before IPO costing Reid 45 million in unvested stock options. Reid was fired for lack of "cultural fit". Reid has settled for an undisclosed amount.
In 2004 Larry Page fired Brian Reid nine days before IPO costing Reid 45 million in unvested stock options. Reid was fired for lack of "cultural fit". Reid has settled for an undisclosed amount.
I thought Google was all about the diversity. Are you telling me they don't believe older workers can accomplish the same as younger workers?
Certainly that can't be because of biological differences. It therefore must be about ageism and bean counting.
That would make Google....Evil.
Age discrimination, sexism, monopolies, censorship, spying... I wish we had the old google back.
As a 45 year old, white, straight male I am slightly more desirable than nuclear waste when it comes to being employed in tech nowadays. I hope they prevail and some sort of precedent is established. I guess the only purpose of having a VP O' Diversity is to ensure sufficient hues of dermis and the correct ratio of penises/vaginas, fuck all else.
"It's fun to obey the machine" - Ralph Wiggum
May I interject this is a silicon valley thing more than it is an everywhere thing. There's certainly some point at which younger bosses start to disregard older opinions, but especially if you've put in many of those years in the company, I found GenX and Millenials quite willing to listen to me and learn from me. (And I'm one of those jerks that will get his back up about an issue and sends around multi-page e-mail rants; people didn't read those, mostly, but they didn't stop listening when I had short, relevant comments to make.)
Granted, I worked at the opposite end of some kind of job-type spectrum: municipal utilities, where knowing what was different about how we put water pipes in the ground 20 years back is useful information. And most new ideas are suspicious. But, you know, a third of our economy is in things like government and basic services that are NOT dynamically changing with consumer fashions every year; there's a lot of good jobs with that "dull" part of the economy.
One funny thing is that I was teaching latest-thing high-tech to those people 20 and 30 years my junior, some of them were my bosses. I'm a civil engineer, but also had a CompSci degree, and kept up with many new things even if not the very latest. So they would be coming to me for help just doing Excel VBA macros or basic cgi-bin web solutions when the corporate apps were very clumsy. And I lost count of the people I taught basic SQL skills to, because "Report Applications" like Crystal Reports or Business Objects are a huge pain to learn when you just want a simple answer to a basic query.
I left at 57 to a lot of backpats and almost-tearful cries that they couldn't manage without me. They have, of course, though I've answered a lot of phone calls about How I Did That One Thing for them.
If Silicon Valley is indeed a dysfunctional family of overwork and discrimination and backstabbing competition, maybe you should stop picking your career based on Hollywood imagery of superhackers, not to mention dreams of millions before you're 30. Your odds are about the same as that high-school star quarterback who imagines a life starring in the NFL. Your odds suck, the place is a toxic-waste bin, so the game's not worth the candle.
Once enough people say, "screw silicon valley, I want to work with sane people", maybe silicon valley will have to start treating employees a little better.
Years ago when they still sent tech people to staff booths at job fairs I would hand over a resume, the tech person would look at it. We would talk for a bit about what the team did and in some cases I would have a novel solution to the current problem that would save the company money. Everything seemed to be a fit and they promise to call me in a week or similar. Everything goes wonderfully till the formal application goes to the HR department. Then everyone just stops returning my phone calls/emails.
Currently working a contract position. Everyone comes to me for help. Was told I would become direct soon. Told to go on the corporate website to apply and then they will process me. Once it got to HR, everyone stalled and started telling inconsistent stories. I have been stalled out for over 9 months now.
I look about 15 years younger than I am. I do not look like I have grandchildren in school. I once had an HR person hand back my application within a minute saying I had messed up my date of birth. It was not wrong.
As a contractor, at this place I have to pass multiple background checks that most people do not pass and I have never failed one so that is not the issue.
Either I am on some sort of hidden black list or they do not want to pay for my health insurance. They take contractors here who are old enough to be on Social Security or close but new hire directs are all in their early 30's