This will require a lot of context to fully explain, but I’ll try to keep it short
My last job was my first professional job. I was desperate, a year or so past graduating college, and willing to accept anything that was in my field. I actually enjoyed it for the first few months. I liked my coworkers and my manager was great at his job. The field of work it was in was pretty niche and took a few months to learn. The training was also done 100% on the job, which didn’t help.
A few months into my time there, all of my coworkers quit and my manager got promoted. I only had 3 coworkers and it wasn’t a coordinated event. They weren’t too unhappy with their job, they just didn’t want to work in that field forever and all happened to get better job offers around the same time. That suddenly left me as the most experienced person in the department, and I had no idea what I was doing. I had two other coworkers who were brand new hires at the time.
Around this time, a new position opened up that would have been a promotion for me. I applied for it, knowing I wasn’t qualified, but was happy enough with my job that I wanted to put my name in for long term consideration. I never heard back from anyone about it, and no one was ever hired. I wasn’t upset by this
The work we did was onsite contractor work. It was hard work, but my old manager was an expert at balancing the schedule. Typically you’d have one day a week that was extremely easy and you’d be done very early in the afternoon, in addition to fridays being office days in which you were almost always done by noon. You could put whatever you wanted down for your hours and they’d get approved. The other 3 days might be the worst days of your life, but he was obviously conscious about that and seemed to make a legit effort not to overwork anyone too badly.
That changed when he got promoted. The manager who was brought in to replace him when he got promoted scheduled us to our max capabilities every day. This was bad for morale but also caused real safety and preparation issues that I won't get into here. He also made it clear that he intended to crack down on our hours, which didn't make sense for our work. If we can do a 6 hour job in 4 hours, why should we get paid less? Especially when finishing our work quicker just meant we would get sent out to a different job. I held a meeting with my 2 other coworkers and we came to an agreement to threaten to quit if it came to it. This was a rare case where we were actually irreplaceable. We were probably bringing in upwards of $100k a week in revenue and they wouldn't be able to train anyone if we all walked out. We were the highest performing branch of a nationwide company, and most of the revenue was generated by us. And we were so tired we didn't even care if they called the bluff.
At this point I was growing frustrated with not just the work, but my lack of advancement as well. In my interview, they laid out an advancement plan that most people in my position followed (and was later confirmed by my coworkers). At roughly 6,9,12, and 24 months of employment you could take a test and earn a raise. I was approaching a year of employment, was leading on every job, and doing very good work but had not had the opportunity to take even my first test despite asking multiple times. At this time, they hired another person, initially hoping to quickly promote him to the position I mentioned earlier. He was very interested in discussing wages at first and we found out he was making $7-$8/hr more than any of us. He was also very incompetent and completely unwilling to do many essential tasks of the job. We all had to work around him despite how much more he was making than us. We later found out that was not his fault, since my manager grossly misrepresented the job during his interview.
That leads to the day in question. I was scheduled to work with my manager. He frequently put himself on the schedule so we could fit more jobs in. Then every time we got to the job site, he would do absolutely nothing while whoever he was with did all the work. We had 3 stops on the schedule. Typically, one stop per day was reasonable, 2 was doable if they were small jobs and close together, 3 was practically impossible under most circumstances. I got to the office that morning and he told me we had to be back by 2 because he had an interview scheduled. I was all for it because it had been an absolutely brutal few weeks and I was exhausted. I was skeptical because I had heard it before, but I figured an interview might be important enough to cancel anything we didn't get done before a certain time. 2 of the stops were right by the office, so I figured we might end up just doing those and skipping the 3rd since it was obvious to anyone except him that there would not be time for it.
We did all 3. We managed to leave the 3rd at 2. The interview was scheduled for 2:30 on the phone. We were 2 hours away from the office. He said we would drive, he would pullover somewhere, buy me lunch with the company card, and go do the interview. We hit traffic and barely made it down the street. He pulled over into an abandoned parking lot and said he'd do the interview there. He gave me an expectant look as if to tell me to get out, and I just looked back and continued sitting. He got out and tried to do the interview from the back of the work truck, but came back in because his phone overheated. I again made it clear through body language that I would not be getting out of my seat until we were back at the office, and he called the guy back to complete the interview with me sitting right there.
I got to witness the lying my other coworker referenced firsthand. He said we worked maybe 50 hours a week (we were working at least 60). He said travel was occasional (I was typically in a hotel 3 nights a week, sometimes more, always at least once per week).
Then it came time to discuss the promotional schedule the company had laid out. He started explaining it, and for some reason decided to mention I was there with him and turned to me to confirm it. I very innocently said “oh, I'm not sure, I've been here a year and haven't taken my first test yet”. He very quickly backtracked and said something like “yeah, yeah I think it's like 6 months for the first test”. He wrapped the interview up shortly after that. The guy never responded to any messages afterwards and never got hired. We did not get lunch. I don't know why I said it, I was just mad about things and knew it would feel good.