Less than a year ago I was the one sending out applications. Relentlessly. You know how that feels. Now I'm on the other side of it and I think it's breaking me.
I was hired into a small healthcare org because I had the technical skills they needed. I solved what I could solve. I upskilled for the rest. Did the work. My employers got excited and spun it into its own company — with me as "Co-Founder," which sounds impressive until you see what that actually means.
The product works. It solves a real problem. It replaces a clinically expensive step with a cheap data-entry one — and even that can be automated further. But outside our org? Nobody cared. Marketing was dead on arrival because the employers won't spend on it. My contacts are all outside healthcare, outside the US. Nothing came of it.
Then my employers told me they'd market it to their contacts organically — if I added a feature that is legally a gray area. I said I needed help first. Legal help. A colleague to sort through the compliance stuff.
They agreed. I posted the job myself because we don't have HR. Applications came in. Really good ones. People who were qualified, people who deserved a fair shot, people who probably needed this job. And then, somewhere between me posting and those applications landing in my inbox — the role quietly died. Employers didn't want to pay for it anymore. The "assistance" just became me. Working longer. For the same pay.
I had to reject every single one of them.
I read each application properly. I responded to each one kindly. That's the least I could do. But I sat there looking at those profiles and I just — I kept thinking, that was me. That was literally me, not even a year ago. And now I'm the one sending the rejection.
I put up a ghost job. I feel sick about it.
And I can't quit. The market is a nightmare. I can't job hunt. I'm too burnt out to even think straight. I just want to actually live, not just survive, but that feels like a luxury right now.
I don't even know what I'm looking for posting this. I'm not okay. I just needed someone to know.Less than a year ago I was the one sending out applications. Relentlessly. You know how that feels. Now I'm on the other side of it and I think it's breaking me.
I was hired into a small healthcare org because I had the technical skills they needed. I solved what I could solve. I upskilled for the rest. Did the work. My employers got excited and spun it into its own company — with me as "Co-Founder," which sounds impressive until you see what that actually means.
The product works. It solves a real problem. It replaces a clinically expensive step with a cheap data-entry one — and even that can be automated further. But outside our org? Nobody cared. Marketing was dead on arrival because the employers won't spend on it. My contacts are all outside healthcare, outside the US. Nothing came of it.
Then my employers told me they'd market it to their contacts organically — if I added a feature that is legally a gray area. I said I needed help first. Legal help. A colleague to sort through the compliance stuff.
They agreed. I posted the job myself because we don't have HR. Applications came in. Really good ones. People who were qualified, people who deserved a fair shot, people who probably needed this job. And then, somewhere between me posting and those applications landing in my inbox — the role quietly died. Employers didn't want to pay for it anymore. The "assistance" just became me. Working longer. For the same pay.
I had to reject every single one of them.
I read each application properly. I responded to each one kindly. That's the least I could do. But I sat there looking at those profiles and I just — I kept thinking, that was me. That was literally me, not even a year ago. And now I'm the one sending the rejection.
I put up a ghost job. I feel sick about it.
And I can't quit. The market is a nightmare. I can't job hunt. I'm too burnt out to even think straight. I just want to actually live, not just survive, but that feels like a luxury right now.
I don't even know what I'm looking for posting this. I'm not okay. I just needed someone to know.