Overall, for me hiring, I never considered a resume gap to be a problem, and think that employers who do are literally stupid (sadly, nothing prevents such stupidity). At most, it is a potentially interesting interlude for a person's life and career - what did they do with it?
For OP, I'd definitely recommend rearranging your work situation so you are not so exploited and pressured. Either get your employer to hire more people so you can work on something other than a constant firefighting basis, or leave. It very much looks like the main reason you have not yet "come up with a solution from scratch of my own and provide any value" is because you aren't given a moment to breathe (and your assessment of not adding value is wrong - you are obviously adding value, it's just that you can see some left on the table).
Seems what you need, at almost any cost, is to get perspective.
Good that you see it and here's to your future success!
Agree. Things were different in the 90s, think peak crime and crime bill. Also, everything wasn't categorized as a felony back then, it seems like felony was limited to much more severe crimes (except drugs crimes), unlike today.
>it would come up in a background check (which would almost certainly be a requirement for such a job)
It would, but background checks cost money and I'm guessing it was a pre-screen method to save. I'm not defending it, I'm just repeating what I was told back then.
>A gap in someone's resume is a pretty worthless signal for whether they've ever been incarcerated.
Unfortunately, people have been doing stupid filters on hiring for decades. It's not a new phenomenon.
If a criminal record is an insurmountable hurdle for a specific role, then it would come up in a background check (which would almost certainly be a requirement for such a job), and the job posting should be explicit about the required clean criminal history. A gap in someone's resume is a pretty worthless signal for whether they've ever been incarcerated.