[matwood]

This is how big company middle management works across the board regardless of profession. You think it was age, but it could simply be your manager didn't like you or was threatened by you.

When I worked at big companies I was fortunate to have great managers, but I was able to see how bad ones worked from the outside. I got tired of rolling the manager dice and have since decided to only work at smaller companies. At smaller companies it is a lot easier to see how things will go during the interview.