Killing me not so softly

I hope everyone's Halloween was a blast and I'm really looking forward to the upcoming holidays, but I just have to ask: Is this year over yet? It's just dragging in some spots, then in others it zooms right by me. I'm tired of marking time using employment milestones. I've started to think of them more as millstones, anyway. My job just gets more choc-full-o-crap with every day that passes. Last week there was an article in the paper that threw a big, shiny spotlight on the inequitable hiring and salary practices here, and yet it seems to be a hush-hush event. Lots of whispering and furtive glances around corners, but no forthright information from the higher-ups. It would be nice if someone would at least try to allay our concerns. But I guess pretending that no one has concerns seems to be working just fine for our management. Their mindset seems to be the old standard "The beatings will continue until morale improves" routine. Meanwhile, my boss's door is closed for the majority of the time he is even occupying it and I don't find him approachable or supportive in the least...I have someone who is not my boss (and who is kind of annoyingly clueless yet acts like the authority in everything) deciding what my job is or will be (whatever it is, it certainly IS NOT what I have been doing for the last nine months with no compensation, that's for sure)...and one of the other grunts called me yesterday to discuss the fact that his workload doesn't match his pay (Ha! Join the club, sport!!), since someone who does considerably less than he does just got promoted with an accompanying raise as "a gesture" as my boss put it (the person who got the unwarranted promotion had threatened to quit before - actually followed through with it once than came running back days later to ask for the job back, and isn't even that good at their job...hey, speak of the devil - probably calling to ask how to place an on-line order with a credit card - AGAIN!). Some days it just doesn't pay to be Answer Girl. And on Monday our new "receptionist" came to ask me why it seemed like the old "receptionist" (now working in another department) didn't like her. We had to have a little sit-down so that I could explain that our former co-worker was an overly-ambitious child who didn't have time for peons such as us since we were of very little use or consequence to someone of her status. It goes doubly because we're not men and can't be manipulated through flirting. I think I probably put it more nicely than that, but that's the gist.