Mr. Furious: After all, I am a ticking time bomb of fury.

Let me tell you a story, boys and girls, about a nice girl working in an evil place.

At the beginning of 2005, I started working full time at the newspaper in Rice Lake as the circulations assistant. I was immediately overwhelmed, but I kept at it because I felt guilty that I was given the chance to work there full time. I had more responsibilities than I had ever imagined possible. I was not only a back-up for the receptionist and responsible for customer service and telephones, but I was also in charge of all newspaper subscriptions and customer accounts, taking ads over the phone, running about 5 computer programs, payroll for carriers, mailing labels for all people who had their papers mailed to them, assisting bundling of papers on publication day, and smoothing over all complaints related to subscriptions, plus whatever complaints came in by phone or at the counter. Busy, right? Oh, that's not all, my friends.

I also had to measure each advertisement in the paper, create postal reports, price every ad in the paper, compare prices against copy, mail out "thank you for renewing your subscription" freebies, stuff envelopes for billing at the first of the month, color code mailing labels, attach tearsheets to invoices, file... And then, after I finally started to get the barest grasp on that, then I had to learn two more computer programs--typing in all the classified ads, posting them to two programs, print them for proofing, make corrections, re-post the ads, print again, and then cut and paste them onto giant paper. I ended up only doing the latter a couple of times.

I complained to the publisher and one of my supervisors that I was overwhelmed. I was working roughly 60 hours/wk, taking home work to finish it... I was exhausted. Barely any sleep. Depressed. And the headaches! Oh, God. I think I can safely say without exaggeration that I'd go through about one bottle of Excedrine a week.

Did they help me out? Oh, they sure thought so. They took away my filing duties, which normally took me about an hour, including attaching the tearsheets. They gave the filing to the receptionist. In return, they took away one of her "little" duties to give to me. So instead of an hour of filing, I ended up getting her duty of calling back all the people whose classified ads had ended that week to see if they wanted to rerun the ad or start a new one. An added 5-6 hours a week. What a big help.

I tried it. I honestly did. I did my best. But I was miserable. An in addition, my female supervisor, Mary Kay, talked down to me. She treated me like I was stupid and she gossiped more than any person I've ever met. So I made another complaint about how overwhelmed I was.

Within the week, I was hauled into the office and Mary Kay said, "You have a lot more to learn, so if you can't handle it, you'd better let me know now so I can hire someone else." Then the publisher tried to soothe me by saying, "We've been really impressed and grateful for all of your hard work." But the bottom line was, I had to suck it up and do it all or leave. And they specifically said that hiring another person for a few hours a week to come in and help with things was out of the question. Oh, and I should mention that there used to be another person whose whole job was taking care of those classified ads! But, since I couldn't get any help, I felt my only option was to leave. I put in my notice, stuck around 6 more weeks for them to advertise, interview, and finally hire a new person for my position. I was told my last week that I wouldn't have to do anything but catch up on old work, and my two supervisors would train the new person. But of course they didn't. That was left to me to do, also.

I made it a full 5 months there. And now, ladies and gentleman, 5 full months after I've left, there is a new ad in the paper. A posting that there is an immediate opening for a part-time office assistant to help with computer programs and customer service.

Gee. I wonder what that means. Oh, wait! I know! The woman who took my position hasn't been able to miraculously to the job better than me, either, and she also needs some help. But gosh, I thought they said that hiring a little helper was out of the question.

I was so pissed when I saw that ad. I can't even begin to tell you how angry I was. If my grandparents hadn't been there, the walls would have been blushing because of my foul mouth. I went up to my room and was literally shaking with anger. I could have cried. I was absolutely miserable because of all I'd had to put up with there. I was forced to leave. I was unemployed for the entire summer, without compensation because apparently the only reason I could get unemployment pay is if I had been counseled to leave by a physician.

I can't even say anymore. I'm so, so, so angry.