The Technology Company in San Diego

This one hurt a lot.

So, now I’ll tell the story.  This occurred in February of this year.

In the 1980’s, in my capacity as manager of a small sized firm, I licensed a brokerage back office system named CAESAR.  I dealt directly with the programmer and owner of the code, and installed it into my firm’s back office.  It worked as advertised and although customization was minimal, it provided a good out-of-the-box solution to my firms needs.

American Express buys the software about a year later and puts money and resources into improving CAESAR’s scale and markets it as a solution to small and medium sized broker / dealers.  They never get traction.

 In the early 1990’s, the code is purchased by Financial Database  Systems.  These folks had some  programmers and they build some  support, and go out targeting small insurance types and again,  small  brokers.

 I’m at a different firm and now in Hawaii, and I purchase/license the  system for a second time.  It was not cheap and the workgroups were busy and our conversion was successful.

 At the beginning of this year, I see a series of ads in [[Careerbuilder]]  from FDS.  At least two of the positions are clearly solidly within my  abilities (marketing and service management jobs) and in fact, my  background and practical application knowledge as a 2 time  purchaser gave me great insight into being able to perform the jobs  with extraordinary skill and insight.  Training or industry  knowledge would never be an issue, as I could teach the class.

And the same people were still employed there as they had been in the late 1990’s.  I thought, this is perfect.  The president of FDS and I had many friendly conversations and I felt strongly he was a good manager, a good person, and an effective leader of a small technology company.

So I called his secretary and asked for his fax number so I could fax my resume and cover letter to him rather than go through the Careerbuilder system. She says: “He’s in today, I’ll wait for your fax and hand deliver it”.

Days later, I call. 

Not even the courtesy of a call, an email, a letter, anything to say that he does not want me to work there.  Nothing. Silence.

So, why the harsh treatment?  This was the perfect job for them and me, but I was too old. A young crowd in a beach town. Age discrimination. Thanks Eddie.

Tagged as: age discrimination, age discrimination blog, aging workforce, boomer, boomers, civil rights, employment blog, hiring bias, job discrimination, older workers, workplace bias