Long story short, there was an internal job opening/promotion where I work. Several people did apply for it.
Time passes, nobody's hired for it, but managers act like it's ongoing.
So now fast-forward SEVERAL months later, one of my coworkers is getting another job so they let the manager know. They're one of the better workers we have and managers like them. The first response they got was “I thought you wanted to be a (job they applied for)?”
They told me that story and I was laughing. MONTHS have passed and they're acting like nobody should move on with their life in the insanely off chance this posting they had was serious. If it was, would it take that many months?
To this day nobody has been hired for it, every manager knows which employees applied for it, and I believe everyone who had applied for it except maybe 1 or 2 people have moved on. Our assumption was that they wanted a certain person to get hired, but they either didn't apply or for sure wasn't better than the applicants, so they wouldn't be able to justify the hire to their bosses, and also, managers all know who applied, so now they know who “wasn't happy settling for their current job”, which you would think is a good thing since it shows you want to move up within that place, but it's probably been spun into a negative.
Any fans of Challenge USA? This job posting felt like how the finale went (if you saw it you'll understand, if you still don't, I can explain it if you want)