was eliminated. The EEOC's argument lacks merit because the reasons given by Defendants for Cornell's termination are not inconsistent. See Nidds, 113 F.3d 912, 918 (9th Cir.1996) (where the reasons given are not incompatible they do not raise an issue of fact with respect to pretext). Both Kalish and Benford consistently testified that Cornell's position was eliminated. Moreover the EEOC has not disputed that sorting the mail was a primary duty for Cornell, that it took up a lot of his time, and that the mail system was changed.
In addition, the EEOC has not shown that Kalish's calling Cornell an old man were tied directly to the elimination of prior mail system or to Cornell's termination. The use of the term old man in passing, with no indicationas to when they were made, does not establish that Cornell's position was not eliminated, or that the reason provided is not worthy of credence. For these reasons, Defendants' motion with respect to Cornell's claim is GRANTED.

4. Sharon Derengowski; Timothy Gittus, Kevin Stockton and Bernard Lucido

In 1997 when Republic Industries purchased Silver State Disposal, the Data Processing department consisted of Manager Bernie Lucido, born in 1952, Timothy Gittus, born in 1956, Kevin Stockton, born 1960, Sharon Derengowski, born 1950, and three other people. Derengowski was Lucido's administrative assistant. At that time, RSSD had custom software programs for billing, payroll, accounting and other functions, which were written, maintained and modified by the programmers and run off a local UNISYS server.
The department became known as the Information Technology ("IT") department.