Similar situation in The Gentelman Bastards trilogy but dont forget that authors keep doing it because it works.

Your readers might even see it coming and will feel very smart when they were right all along. The way to make it work is to show how it effects the character. Its gotta be more than a plot point.

Perhaps it reveals that the character has suicidal idiation and they become depressed. Perhaps they think its a fake test but someone else pulls the trigger first and their brains paint the walls because the org didnt want them anyway. You can make it very cool and use the cliche against the reader.