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IBM Fired Me Because I'm Not a Millennial, Alleges Axed Cloud Sales Star in Age Discrim Court Row (theregister.co.uk)
A laid-off IBM cloud sales ace is suing the IT giant for age discrimination, alleging he was forced out for being too old. From a report: Jonathan Langley joined Big Blue in 1993, and worked his way up the ranks over the next 24 years. Then, in 2017, as worldwide program director and sales lead of the Bluemix software-as-a-service, he was let go. According to his lawsuit paperwork, Langley, 60, "was a successful employee and his performance met or exceeded IBM's expectations." Had he "been younger, and especially if he had been a millennial, IBM would not have fired him," his filing claimed.
Langley, of Texas, USA, was seemingly doing very well for himself within Big Blue. For instance, he netted a $20,000 performance bonus in January 2017, the largest such windfall within his team in Austin, we're told. His annual performance scores put him at the top or near the top of his group. Curiously, the month before, though, he was warned privately by his boss's boss -- Andrew Brown, veep of worldwide sales of IBM's hybrid cloud software -- that he needed to look for a new job, it is claimed. At the end of March 2017, Langley was formally told he would be laid off at the end of June. Langley was unable to get a role elsewhere within IBM, and its HR system marked him as having "resigned," it is claimed. In early July, days after he left the business, Langley got a letter congratulating him on his "retirement." IBM management told the US government's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that Langley was laid off after his supervisor Kim Overbay ranked him, in January 2017, as the worst performing person on his team, despite him bagging the biggest bonus that quarter, and earlier meeting or exceeding performance expectations, according to the lawsuit.
Langley, of Texas, USA, was seemingly doing very well for himself within Big Blue. For instance, he netted a $20,000 performance bonus in January 2017, the largest such windfall within his team in Austin, we're told. His annual performance scores put him at the top or near the top of his group. Curiously, the month before, though, he was warned privately by his boss's boss -- Andrew Brown, veep of worldwide sales of IBM's hybrid cloud software -- that he needed to look for a new job, it is claimed. At the end of March 2017, Langley was formally told he would be laid off at the end of June. Langley was unable to get a role elsewhere within IBM, and its HR system marked him as having "resigned," it is claimed. In early July, days after he left the business, Langley got a letter congratulating him on his "retirement." IBM management told the US government's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that Langley was laid off after his supervisor Kim Overbay ranked him, in January 2017, as the worst performing person on his team, despite him bagging the biggest bonus that quarter, and earlier meeting or exceeding performance expectations, according to the lawsuit.
Someone at IBM is very, very stupid for having fired that dude, if data he used as evidence can be confirmed.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Usually know a lot more, and have grown up. The usual management tricks no longer work on them - fake crises, OMG you gotta work extra hours or no promotion/pay raise. or we'll all lose our jobs, and so on - we won't be pushed around as easily as the kids.
What we lack in intensity we make up for in ability to just get it done quickly with what we already know, and wisdom to not fool around doing the old fire drills. But MBAs - who should realize they're the incompetent ones - think seeing all that bustle is what makes a bottom line, so...
All the other older guys I know are now consultants if they're any good at anything, and charge commensurately. They don't need to work full time to get the same amount of work done as a youngster, or make enough money.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
I'd rather work at a place where my performance matters, not bullshit superficial appearances.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
being old at a company like that usually also means you have gotten a raise too many times and cost as much as 6 millennials >_> aint saying that's ethical or anything but that seems to be... well... happy murika day.
eyond that, keeping current with technology, including fads, also helps.
This guy was a "cloud" salesman, and a very effective one. Clearly he was keeping up with fads!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
IBM hires outside advertising and marketing agencies to handle both their internal and external sales and marketing materials, including some of the research and the entirety of their branding. Their leading agency partner since the mid-1960's has been Ogilvy & Mather. This means that IBM's "outside counsel" is gravely complicit with enabling IBM to push forward these violations. (For more chronology, see http://adage.com/article/adage...)
P.S. Ogilvy & Mather personnel have previously been held responsible/guilty for things like embezzlement, misappropriation of funds from federal contracts, and various grey legal area misdeeds.
I've dealt with IBM on various projects for the past 20 years and what I see is they aren't retaining people any more, unlike 10-15 years ago. Each time I meet with someone from there now for even a similar piece of hardware it seems half the team I dealt with has moved on and now it's a couple of new kids in suits fresh out of college who I probably won't ever see again after this transaction. Other people I've spoken to report the same in other lines of IBM's business.
IBM is a pale shadow of their former selves, now a software and hardware reseller/consulting firm run by beancounters chasing the next quarter's numbers, institutional knowledge, experience and dependable products be damned.
The lesson here is stop this bullshit of being loyal to your employer, because they sure as fuck aren't going to be loyal to you.
Stop drinking the kool-aid and thinking your company gives a shit about you.
Yes, in this case it sounds like the reasons they gave are pretty flimsy, and in this case I agree he should be going to court.
But, in general, I've pretty much decided that any form of loyalty your company is a stupid thing, because they'll drop you without a second thought.
Fuck 'em, they'll get as much loyalty from me as they've demonstrated quite clearly around me ... which is to say I'll do the work, collect the pay check, but don't ask me to be a corporate cheerleader or work free overtime for the privilege of working for your company.
The bigger the company, the more you should not give a fuck and be prepared to leave if something better comes along.
I stopped attending the quarterly "aren't we awesome, but there's still no money for raises" meetings a decade ago. Sorry, it was lies and bullshit last quarter, it's lies and bullshit this quarter, and it will be lies and bullshit next quarter. I don't need to attend to know this.
He is only 60 not 80. Also you need money to retire and there are not enough qualified people in many businesses. Pushing out older people is also stupid.
Posting as AC for obvious reasons. I joined IBM in 1993, my first job. I dedicated my life for the company, so much that I didn't even see it coming. I was an exceptional employee. Couple of weeks before my boss gave me a hint that I was being fired. If you are +40 be advised, we are too expensive, we will be let go. I hope the best for the company, but everyone with experience is being fired. It used to be that our culture made the company great, and the culture is dying. I don't know, it really makes me sad... I was loyal and commited, just as I learned from the guy who hired me and later retired. "We changed the world twice already" he used to say.
...because I answered the manager's anonymous evaluation survey with what I really thought about my boss. He was only managing four people so he spotted me very quickly. He was very angry with me because he didn't get a money bonus because of that survey, and he even told me that in my face.
I'd rather work at a place where my performance matters, not bullshit superficial appearances.
Agreed. Wondering if this will have any measurable repercussions? Less than two decades ago, I remember coming across the old adage "nobody ever got fired for picking big blue". Is any backlash relevant? (With the sale of client/server to Lenovo what seems like ages ago). As a GenX IT consultant, IBM just rose to the top of my sh!t list. Odds are they aren't the only one doing this, they just got caught and made El Reg. Would like to know the outcome of this case. Seems like a David vs. Goliath. It'd be nice to do more than just send good wishes to Jonathan Langley. Like a KickStarter for his legal team, or a GoFundMe for his (inevitable) side-gig (not mentioned in TFA).
IBM sucks, which was apparent nearly a century ago. How is this not a modern-day twist on Dehomag, 45 notwithstanding?
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety
Bingo, spotted the Union worker. What do I win?
I recently had the same experience with one employee - decades of great performance reviews and promotions until I stepped in and saw they were full of themselves and had been bullshitting their managers and themselves for at least a decade. Since nobody knew exactly what they were doing or supposed to be doing and they were very good at talking themselves out of situations, there were some that had hunches but no concrete evidence. Trying to fire them now is hard because 'age discrimination' claims.
This guy was a "cloud sales star", not necessarily technologically adept, just good at talking.
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and I'm one myself. I'm not as good as I was 10/20 years ago. My experience might compensate but I also don't work 60 hours a week for 40 hours pay like a kid fresh out of college.
Here's the thing, if older folks are so valuable why do we need laws against age discrimination? Wouldn't the free market shake things out when a company that hires these more experienced laborers out competes the one that fired them?
Reality is that if I'm running a business I need 1 experienced old guy to manage 10-20 young engineers. The reason we ban age discrimination is the same reason we have (had?) a 40 hour work week, unemployment insurance and minimum wage. They're regulations used to artificially raise wages because in their absence wages collapse. We've been pulling back on those regulations for 40 years now and wages have been steadily declining while productivity goes up every year.
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chase the same dragon Sun Microsystems did? Cheap Chinese hardware and cheap Linux boxes made their old model obsolete. Cheap IT labor from India and a lack of worker protections gave them no reason to invest in employees outside of the top level math majors. In that environment what were they supposed to do?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
http://articles.latimes.com/20...
The next supreme court justice will definitely be pro-corporation.
Corporations will have increasing power over individuals for the rest of our lives.
The current ruling that they are artificial people with all the rights of humans but who can't be imprisoned is already bad enough.
I don't see anyway to stop it so prepare to suffer.
This case seems pretty blatant but age discrimination in the technical field was going on already in 1988. I saw a 45 year old programmer laid off as too old and he couldn't get back into the field then. I decided I needed to be ready to retire by 45. It meant less luxury cars and so on and I missed my goal by 6 years but I was able to retire at 51.
And I was literally laid off one day before I was going to retire.
I was going to retire on january 1 for the five weeks vacation benefits money and had trained two of my team to replace me as manager. In September, the company laid off 90% of programming staff as of december 31st to replace them with Infosys after they had been our "partner" for about five years.
My director never knew why I was so happy to be laid off. I told her I couldn't tell her for legal reasons. She was let go too a few months later.
Some of the people laid off with me have never found a job again and have fallen on very hard times. They were mostly 55+.
I also have another friend who was a manager and being courted by other companies. But once he was laid off, no one was interested in him. He can't even get an interview unless he lies about his age. After six months he tested that. When he lowers his age to the 30s he gets call backs. When he's 40 or older he gets no call backs.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Just invite one of your helicopter parents to join you on your next employee performance review.
Trust me, your manager will consider you to be a defacto millennial.
The guy is 60. His parents likely aren't alive anymore, or if they are, suffering dementia.
Beyond that, keeping current with technology, including fads, also helps.
The guy was in cloud sales. A "technology" so current, the hipsters haven't moved on yet. A "technology" so hypey and buzzwordy you could win a game of Bullshit Bingo by listening to this guy for 10 minutes. Being current was not the problem.
In this particular case, it was just the world coming full circle, to IBM. They've been selling people on other people's servers (theirs) since their inception. Cloud is tailor made for IBM. And this guy knew it, exploited it, and made the company millions in sales. They fired him because IBM has a policy of not rewarding successful employees. Nobody is ever supposed to hit that bonus level and make the company actually pay out. It's supposed to be aspirational, like winning the lottery, to make the proles slave away just a little bit harder. It's supposed to be the carrot dangling in front of the donkey. The donkey is not ever supposed to get the carrot. He might stop moving forward if he does.
IBM could actually weasel out of the age discrimination suit, if they were wiling to admit in writing their real company policy, which is to fire all high achievers regardless of age, because they don't want to pay those bonuses. IBM is just stupid enough to do it, but their lawyers will prevent it.
I don't have numbers, of course, but I have to suspect Langley's situation has more to do with his seniority than his chronological age. He's probably right at the top of the salary range for his position, and he's also earning these huge performance bonuses.
So some bean counter in HR or Finance probably figured they could replace him with two or three millennials for about the same price, pay out zero bonuses, and not have sales suffer all that much.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
"Age discrimination" is merely an excuse, an legally aggressive way to describe something that really has absolutely nothing to do with age.
I have no doubt that he was a great performer -- experience, age, and the bonus indicate that pretty well. But "performance" in a business context has absolutely nothing to do with "performance" in a production context.
It's easy to be the "worst performing person on the team", when you get paid the biggest bonus. Production / Paycheque. Raise the salary, and the employee quickly becomes the worst on the team.
It's not unusual to fire the most expensive employees, and it's not unusual to fire the most experienced employees. Quite frankly, it's typical. Ideally, most companies want employees who don't demand high salaries, and who do what they're told.
Yes, this is in-line with hiring younger people, and firing older people. But it absolutely nothing to do with their ages, and everything to do with the realities of their value as employees.
I'd rather work at a place where my performance matters, not bullshit superficial appearances.
Neither of those actually matter. It's only the company that matters and it will get rid of you in a second if it makes the next minute better for them. The line about "employees being our most valuable asset" is *complete* bullshit and if you hear it, or any other rah-rah slogans being bantered about by Management, start looking for job elsewhere. Just my $0.02 earned over my 30+ years of experience ...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Article says he was in Bluemix, which is IBM's offering to compete with AWS/App Engine/Azure, he wasn't selling old services.
Disclaimer: I'm a former IBMer who worked in cloud
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
Dude, you're old enough to remember Bob Cringely writing about this crap at IBM incessantly for a decade. But you weren't so old then, were you?
Go work for an American company who will value your skills and pay you more.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Is Kimberly Overbay. A woman. That probably explains it all. She needed to get rid of the old white guy in order to promote diversity.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
I have found this to be generally true. But “in general” they are exceptions a lot of them.
A tech worker who started in the 1980s or 1990s who found that they had a niche where they excelled in may have stayed in that niche while technology moved on they then find themselves hopelessly out of date.
However others at the same age and experience may have had their career more flexible they may not had been the star in the niche but good enough, however they would keep up on what is going on and being interested in what’s new. These people are actually valuable assets as their experience combined with the new stuff really has a value where mistakes that seem to reoccur with new tech can be caught and worked around.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.