When you get called into the supervisor's office, and the HR manager is in the room (and seated) when you get there, it's never a good thing.

I was told by my manager that she was sorry - she had overshot her projections on new product introductions this year, and that there wasn't enough work to keep everyone in the department going through the end of the year. So in a recent restructuring (that's been going on behind the scenes, apparently) they decided to eliminate my job.

Now here's what got me going in the aftermath. Four people were hired into the department after me, all of them well under 30. I trained two of those folks. Out of 120 people in the company, this 56 year old guy was the only one whose job was eliminated. Sound a bit fishy? Maybe. I'm going to be following up on that angle. I was offered a lousy severance package that I have a few weeks to accept or reject. If I reject the package I'm free to follow up with an age discrimination inquiry. But if I take the package which offers two lousy weeks of pay, I'm barred from any other remedy.

But anyway. I'm still in shock, I guess. I was just starting to get back on my feet after an extended period of unemployment basically destroyed me financially. And now this. The only good thing (if there is an upside) is that I put in enough weeks to fully qualify again for unemployment, and I don't have to reopen my earlier claim. The clock is reset to 26 weeks.

One thing I do know: I can not possibly weather another 15 months of unemployment, financially or psychologically. That knowledge scares the living crap out of me tonight. It's going to be difficult to sleep.

Update: The outpouring of good wishes, compassion, and advice regarding my situation has been nothing short of heart rendering. I very sincerely thank everyone for their kind thoughts, legal input, and alternative late-career suggestions. I'll be revisiting all of the comments in the morning.

As an update, just a couple of general comments: There are no skeletons in my situation with my ex-employer. Heck, I wasn't there long enough. :) About a month back, I received a great interim performance evaluation, and actually thought there might be a promotion in the near future. Ah, well. Anyway, there's not much more to the employment story other than what I've described above.

There are a couple of pieces of advice that resonate with me, and that I was already planning to pursue in a manner of speaking. I have a fee free consultation on Thursday with a labor attorney who does nothing but discrimination suits. We spoke on the phone for about 1/2 hour this afternoon, and he wants to review the severance agreement. Additionally, prior to the lawyer's appointment, I'm going to be going to the Philly EEOC offices (they take walk ins starting at 8:30). I've already filled in an intake form which is available online. One piece of advice in several of the comments really stood out: just the threat of an EEOC claim may make them move on the severance. I sent a very nice note to the HR manager indicating that I had taken the recommendation of the ADAE paragraph of the severance letter, and spoken to an attorney (the underlying implication being that I was prepared to go to the mattresses on this claim). I believe they know they're on thin ice, and that at a minimum, I'll get a much better severance offer.

So, I will report back in the near future on how things went. And I will keep my chin up every day, and come back and read the empowering comments below on days when it's difficult to maintain a positive attitude.

Again, my heartfelt thanks to everyone in this great community.