u/Crimson_8N

I am a senior finishing up my degree and I finally got what I thought was my first real break. It was a junior role at a mid-sized firm and the initial screening went great. Then they sent over a "take-home assignment" to test my skills. They said it was a standard part of the process to see how I handle real-world problems. Being naive and desperate to land something before graduation I put my entire life on hold for it. I spent about forty hours over ten days building a full-stack module that solved a specific data sync issue they were having . I even documented the whole thing like my life depended on it.

When I submitted it the hiring manager told me it was impressive and asked for a "quick call" to go over the logic. During the call he actually asked me to explain the edge cases and how to deploy it into their existing infrastructure. I thought I was crushing it. I felt like a pro. He thanked me for the hard work and said the team would get back to me with an offer by Friday. Friday came and went so I sent a polite follow up on Monday . Nothing.

A few days later I was browsing a local tech forum and saw someone else talking about the exact same company. Apparently they have been posting this "junior" opening every month for a year. They cycle through candidates and give each one a different "module" to build as a test. It hit me like a ton of bricks that I didn't just fail an interview I actually completed a sprint for them for zero dollars. They literally used me for free labor to patch their technical debt and I was too stupid to see it because I wanted that job so bad.

I checked the repo I sent them and saw they had already cloned it and probably integrated the logic. Now I am sitting here with no job offer and a giant gap in my finals prep because I was playing house with a company that ghosted me the second the code was pushed. I feel like such an idiot for thinking a forty hour assignment was "standard" for an entry level position . I guess I learned my lesson about being too eager to please people who only see you as a free resource.

I sold my old Volkswagen Passat B7 about a month ago. I am a mechanical engineer by trade and I keep my stuff in decent shape, but a ten year old German car is always going to have something waiting to break. Before the sale, I sat the guy down - he was a casual friend from a local car group - and told him straight up that the turbo was starting to whistle and the DSG service was coming due. I even showed him the diagnostic logs. I sold it to him for a fair price, well below market, because I wanted a quick sale and thought I was doing a buddy a favor. We signed the paperwork "as is" and that was that.

Last week, he calls me up absolutely losing his mind. Apparently the turbo finally gave up the ghost while he was on a road trip and he ended up with a massive towing bill and a repair quote that he cannot afford. He started accusing me of "hiding" the severity of the issue and demanded that I pay for at least half of the repair costs. I reminded him about our conversation and the fact that the price reflected the risk he was taking. He did not care and started calling me a scammer and saying he was going to tell everyone in our social circle that I ripped him off.

I did not argue. I just hung up and blocked his number on everything. I also blocked him on social media and left the group chat we were both in. I do not have the energy for high school drama over a used vehicle transaction. My logic is simple: the deal was transparent, the paperwork is legal, and his lack of maintenance planning is not my financial emergency.

Now I am getting messages from mutual friends saying I am being "cold" and that I should at least talk to him to reach a compromise. They say "friends help friends" and that blocking him was an overreaction. From my perspective, once you start threatening my reputation over a machine I warned you about, we are no longer friends. I am not a warranty provider and I am certainly not a bank for people who do not listen to technical advice. Am I wrong for just cutting him out completely instead of "negotiating" a fix for a car I do not even own anymore?