Hec, you might look into HR or other support (but my impression is HR pays best) positions at local Universities or publishing houses. They are generally a lot less firing-happy than, say, law firms, and the whole publishing thing could be a gateway into more satisfying work.

There is often CYA anti-lawsuit stuff, but state law says you can get rid of anyone whenever you want.

Okay, so it looks like Big Boss won't be in his office for a little while. Therefore I shall send him an e-mail asking for a quick meeting at his convenience.

Because my immediate supervisor just told me he's leaving shortly for an appointment.

Okay. Well, that simplifies things.

Because my immediate supervisor just told me he's leaving shortly for an appointment.

Before he leaves, tape a note to his back that says, "Someone in my staff is quitting."

They are trying to avoid you so you can't give them notice! Don't let them!

Sneak into their offices and wipe their computers while they are gone!! Oh, wait. That's if they were getting rid of you, not vice versa.

Oh god, I've totally had that happen -- it's so traumatic waiting around for a boss to be available for quitting!

I can't even believe Hec's employers can do that! I always thought you had to have written warnings and counselings and such before you were fired (unless your position was eliminated).

I'm guessing California, like New York, is an at-will employment state. As long as they aren't firing you for being black (female, etc. -- in a protected class), they don't have to give a reason at all.

Hec, you worked for HR, right? So even more shocking that your bosses can't handle a termination more gracefully.

As Jesse notes, it's an at-will state. But as Sophia and Theo note, they really handled it terribly and also (just from an HR perspective) left themselves open (just barely) to a wrongful termination suit.

I don't think I have a viable case, but by not documenting anything beforehand they left themselves vulnerable to an age-discrimination suit. My new (now ex) coworker is 23. If they hire another 23 y.o. woman for my position they're not going to look good. Particularly since when I and my original coworker were hired, there was much talk in the firm about the fact that we were men in our early 40s, and this was unusual and actually ruffling some feathers.

I know they were talking to one of the labor law Partners about the situation.

I don't want to paint a distorted picture of me as the perfect employee. I wasn't. I resented having my responsibilities with the recruiter scaled back to the level of typing and data input. My filing was way behind. But I did create a lot of systems to deal with the office's gaping holes. I built the MCLE tracking database from scratch and ran it for three cycles. Did quarterly vacation balance reports by downloading data from their crap-ass tracking system which didn't even do year-to-date accruals. I knew the payroll system, the applicant tracking system, the personnel action system way way better than anybody in my unit.

There were many things I did for them, and could do for them, but in the end they really wanted a glorified filing clerk.

40 is the line for age discrimination, right? Do you have any interest in using that to get more money out of them? That seems to me like the most egregious part.

Aside from just being wrong, that seems so un-San Franciscan. You are suppose to have diverse offices there, not a bunch of clones.

(I say this in my 100% white male department)