What happened to you: don't these fuckers realize that this is bad business? I don't find it surprising that people in control of business decisions are greedy. They're supposed to be greedy (but hopefully not unethical). It's astonishing to me how stupid a lot of them are.

Let's get real about this shit. An employee who is around for less than 6 months is of very low value to the organization. You want people to stick around? Treat them decently.

In our parents' time, a 6-month job tenure was a black mark, so companies could treat employees like garbage for the first 2 years because it'd be career suicide to leave. It meant you probably got fired, because people just didn't leave stable employment. This day in age, fail-fast is the rule and there's just no such thing as stable employment-- unless you're a senior politician in a one-party district, because the voters are disinclined to fire the bad ones.

A job under 2 months should just be omitted. It's not illegal or unethical to do this; you probably didn't accomplish anything, so it'd just be noise to include it. A job between 2 and 6 months gave you enough time to accomplish something and it should usually be represented as a project-based/consulting gig. Describe the project; skip the politics. Between 6 and 12 months requires a good reason, but if you can describe a bait-and-switch (which is the most common case) in a professional and conservative way that doesn't disparage anyone, you're OK. Priorities shifted. For "Why did you leave?" advice, just go to a bar and ask 10 people why they left their most recent jobs (you're doing a survey). Learn what sounds good and what sounds bad. 12 to 48 months was a "short stint" in our parents' time, but isn't in ours, so don't even worry about that. You left for better opportunities.