Career Help and Advice

I got laid off, or told I would be laid off, on my 51 birthday from the biggest employer in this area. Now I am not gonna name names but what they did to their employees (laid off almost 5000 people) was not being a good neighbor, guess they needed the extra money to hire Jimmy Fallon for their stupid commercials. Thing is in this state, for my job classification, they had to give me 3 months notice and allow me to post for other jobs in the company. I tried for several but just missed one or two (one was given to somebody who had held the position before but had moved to a different department... so a fair cop.)

Anyway, my exact position was reposted about 3 months after I left. Apparently, moving it to a hub office did not work out like they thought it would. Now, this is a position I had for 20 years. I sent in my resume and got rejected out of hand so fast that I am sure nobody even looked at it.

From the paperwork that we received at termination it is absolutely clear the layoffs were age related. 75% or more of those terminated were 50+. They made us sign that we would not sue for age discrimination to get our severance, which was ... way over-generous. I got 3 years of my salary for mine.

So... now I am in a better position in a state agency with people who respect my skills far more than the other company, and I am even considered the entire state's SME on my particular specialty. All at double the pay of the previous job and union protection.