The truth? All entry level jobs suck, no matter what the profession. Its' called "paying your dues." Keep at it, keep your eyes open for opportunity, and in a few years you'll be a senior developer with a whole new set of job related issues to bitch about.

This is going to continue until you start point blank telling them to fuck off. Accommodating these people is like accommodating a disease. It's like settling for having stage 2 cancer instead of fighting to have no cancer because of a misguided belief that the cancer somehow has a right to exist in your body, and that the alternative is stage 4 cancer.

They've managed to make exclusivity look inclusive

It's all about control. These are people who cannot control outcomes based on excellence of work, or even mere competence, so they seek to do so by controlling the rules. In any organization or field, the least competent always gravitate to politics.

Anecdote #1

In a previous career I managed a 1200 person business unit for a technology company. When the company was sold the new owners instituted 'behavioral interviewing.' The theory was that, under the existing interview process, interviewers were questioning interviewees for ten minutes, and then basing a hiring recommendation on who they liked. So in comes 'behavioral interviewing.' A million dollars spent on software and training, with exactly the outcome I predicted - interviewers would follow the new format, questioning an interviewee for an hour, and then basing a hiring recommendation on who they liked.

Anecdote #2

Many years ago, during my very first job interview, I was asked what kind of a tree I would be, if I was a tree. I looked the interviewer straight in the eyes and said "a tree with a fucking job." He offered me the job.