Boss From Hell

It's midnight and I'm just getting home and unwinding from work. I have no idea what happened to my life! When I started this job I was told by my boss that I could make my hours, that I would have benefits and that I would never have to work weekends; now I am working until 11 every night with no pay for over-time or stat holidays and I have also been told that I have to be available on weekends.
I don't ever hear the words 'thank you'. I don't ever receive a pat on the back for a job well done and I have never in the two years that I've been at this job received a raise. Most days I feel like a slave on a plantation with no hope of release.
I am doing everything I can to find another job so that I can have a life but they are few and far between; I get so tired of trying to be positive but I know that I have to keep going.
Anyone else have a boss like this? No? I didn't think so. I guess I'm the only one who works for Satan's spawn.

Harvey's Cat

Yesterday I had a small breakdown because right beside the entrance to a Harvey's restaurant I saw a dead cat. He was lying there with his tongue hanging out and blood was oozing from his open stomach. I was angry because the person responsible for his death was obviously so intent on getting inside to have his meat fix that he hadn't noticed that he had run the cat over and had left him there to die.
This always happens to me when I see a dead animal. I get so angry that I have no choice but do something about it. I walked into the Harvey's and asked to see the manager and when she did appear I was surprised to see that she was a tiny little thing no more than twenty years old. What really made me angry though was her response to my telling her that a dead cat was blocking her entrance. Instead of doing something about it she just stood there chomping on her gum.
"That's not my responsibility."
Wrong answer.
"Get me a f***ing garbage bag and I'll do it myself then!" I swore loudly enough to make her stop chomping. When I went by today the poor little beast had been taken away.
Will someone please tell me when it was that as human beings we lost the capacity to care about other living beings?

Shotgun

I recently came into contact with a very young woman (around 20) who is 3 months pregnant and is being forced to marry the boy who knocked her up. This is not her decision, it is her parents forcing the issue. She doesn't want to get married and truth be told she doesn't want the baby either; she is just going along with what her parents are telling her.
This young girl is so sad and angry at her situation that she can't see her way out of it. She asked me for advice and I told her that I thought she should stand up to her parents and tell them exactly what she wanted. And did she?
The wedding is scheduled for next week at City Hall.
Why would her parents force her into something that is doomed to fail from the start? Do they really want their daughter to go through a divorce and raise her unwanted child by herself all for the sake of appearances? She is only 20, still a baby herself, and she is nowhere near ready to be a wife and mother. What worked for one generation doesn't fit the next, when will people get that through their heads?

What They Aren't Teaching

I must be getting old because I can still remember when literature was still included in the High School curriculum. Maybe it's just Ontario but it seems to me that the books that I was told to read (and which I secretly loved) in High School have all but vanished.
I work with a lot of teenagers and it bothers me that not only can they not spell but they have never been made aware of the joy of reading a really good book. When I asked one them today what she was reading in her English class she replied 'I don't read books.' When I pressed her further she produced a book called 'Slam!' that she was supposed to be doing a report on. Apparently this book is required reading now. When I asked her if she had started on 'Animal Farm' yet, she looked at me like I had two heads. She had never heard of 'Animal Farm'.
She had also never heard of '1984', 'To Kill A Mockingbird', 'Watership Down' or 'The Outsiders'.
This is what really frightens me about this generation, they have no idea what they are missing.
I remember being so enthralled by these books, 'The Outsiders' especially, and it makes me sad to think that they are being lost to so many. I also remember when English teachers took a keen interest in what their students were reading and they tried to open their minds to different avenues.
Maybe I am getting old.