I spent a month and a half of my time interviewing for a possible promotion that I was really hoping for. It was in a field I had been trying to break into for some time, would give me massively better work-life balance, and a raise. Then come to the week where I'm told that a decision would be made, I get told not only am I not getting hired for it but nobody is because of a hiring freeze that supposedly just got announced, and the worst part is that they said if there hadn't been a freeze I would have been the one offered the role.
So then I start talking to my team, and someone else says they had the same thing happen to them. And then another. And then another. Basically over the past 2 months I know of 4 people who got promotions blocked because of this supposed “freeze” that nobody was told about.
So I'm doing what any rational person would do, I'm making sure everyone around me knows about the freeze so they don't bother wasting time applying to roles that are still showing as open and even being interviewed for, and I'm applying at other companies.
Things like this are the norm for companies today, and yet people still want to pretend like people should be loyal to their employer. Companies only exist to use their workers as much as possible and have no problem screwing them over the first chance they get.