Sentence:  Roleplaying was offered as a solution - and the procedure worked as follows : all candidates were invited to a hotel conference room , where the president explained the <WSD>difficulty</WSD> he had , and how unnecessary it seemed to him to hire people who just did not work out . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  a condition or state of affairs almost beyond one's ability to deal with and requiring great effort to bear or overcome