By the time I left my (now previous) company, I was the 13th young woman to quit. 13 girls all in their mid to late 20s. All under the same VP, a woman and the company owner's daughter. All women who recently got engaged/married/newly pregnant.
After comparing notes, some of the girls and I realized these connections. A few weeks before the first girl left, we all were asked to provide our hourly breakdowns of our work week – completely unprompted. None of the men were asked nor the women who were single or 35+. Then we were given non-formal disciplinary action with a brand new (unrelated) HR rep in the room. We all worked under the HR umbrella so it wasn't entirely uncalled for, but we were all in specialized roles of communication, training, recruiting, etc. Why the need for an HR generalist? They kept saying we needed to improve our productivity or focus or output when simultaneously no new major projects were being given to us.
My “disciplinary” meeting happened two days before my wedding. My now-husband told me to quit there and then but I let it drag on for a bit, convincing myself that I could pull it together and keep my job even though I didn't really need to. This VP was heartless. When my mother-in-law died, she pulled me into her office a week later to talk about my department “slipping” in my absence like it was my fault I did all the work.
The paranoia was insane in the office. Nobody knew who we could trust. One girl's comment about having a lighter day waiting on recruiting responses and offering to take something off of someone else's plate. That same comment got snaked back to the VP as her saying she had nothing to do.
Once the first girl left, we all fell like dominoes. All of us were either not replaced at all or replaced with men. I felt so alone in this until I spoke with one of the girls who left and found out she had an identical experience. People began flooding Glassdoor and the HR team flooded it right back with fake, peppy reviews.
There is no way that should have been legal. We know we were targeted because of our age, gender, and life status. Just yesterday, I learned through the grapevine that the VP's husband moved out the very same week we were all asked for our hourly schedules. Sometimes my husband and I would speculate about what kind of wrongful termination lawsuit us ladies could have formed had we all kept going and waited for them to fire us. If only.