'We don't even get that luxury': Reddit debates whether crappy fallback jobs have become as competitive as real ones
A post on Reddit’s r/recruitinghell has talked about someone who is in marketing, has five years of corporate experience and a bachelor’s degree, and applied to an entry-level print shop position paying approximately $40,000. They note that they did it not because it was a good fit, but because bills need to be paid while the actual job search continues.
They were rejected. The likely reason: they are an obvious flight risk who will leave the moment something better comes along.
“We used to be able to work jobs like this and hate them,” they wrote. “In 2026, it seems like we don’t even get that luxury. If you’re a white-collar professional, it’s like you can’t even fall back on a crap job to pay your bills.”
They also pointed out how, in 2019 and 2020, labour shortages made employers so desperate that they were “begging the biggest pieces of human garbage to work there.”
What Reddit said
The thread produced a range of responses, not all sympathetic.
One commenter with three decades of professional experience noted that overqualification rejections are not new: “I got turned down for jobs 30 years ago because I was overqualified and scared people. This is nothing new.”
A commenter in the same industry offered a glimpse of the financial reality driving the original poster’s decision: “I’m in marketing. Dog [redacted] pay. Like 45k. Debt every month. Been trying to move into an electrician apprenticeship but even that is extremely oversaturated.”
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One commenter pushed back on the framing of retail and print work as “crappy jobs”, which was a reasonable objection, though perhaps beside the original poster’s point.
Another person was critical of the original poster’s situation: “With insane taxes and cost of onboarding a new employee, why would they waste time with you if that job is just a placeholder? You sound entitled.”
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