I am ashamed to admit how much time I spent trying to find out the name of the song that’s playing in the background.  Granted, I know how to use Google, and I found it in about 10 minutes, but I can’t remember the last time I was so eager to know a commercial jingle.

If anyone’s wondering, it’s called “Le Disko” and it’s by Shiny Toy Guns.  I bought it on iTunes last night and I’ve been listening to it nearly non-stop in between a Smiths album I rediscovered (this particular version of “What Difference Does it Make?” is the shit).

No way.

The Toronto Star ran an here detailing the layoffs businesses will face due to this unprecedented 10% increase and what can happen during big increases to minimum wage. Apparently business owners don’t understand that if you can’t afford to pay employees a decent wage — in Toronto that *should* be at least $10 an hour, per employee — you can’t afford to run a business. Even $8.75 an hour is a slave wage, and business owners who are whining about that increase and the eventual cut-off at $10.25 in 2010 should be embarrassed and ashamed at having to rely on slave labour.

I was 20 when I moved out on my own. I was making $9 an hour at the time at my current job and I think the current minimum wage at my other job, whatever that was ($7 an hour? I’m not sure; I’ve held a couple of second jobs in the last three and a half years). I lived it, but in hindsight I don’t know how I did it. My grocery store job allotted me about 20-24 hours a week, there were about 15 hours at the other one. My share of the rent was paid every month but that was it. I couldn’t start saving for college until I was making $10 or $11 an hour.

And I work at a unionized grocery store — boy, do I ever. The union is more concerned with not letting the store fire employees who are rude to customers than actually protecting our rights (but that’s a whole other entry…in short: We work in a customer service industry. We’re paid to be doormats. If you don’t like it, quit.).

The minimum wage issue is only the tip of Ontario’s poverty iceberg. Seventy percent of jobs offering benefits and a living wage will require post-secondary education within the next few years. Post-secondary education is out of the reach of many Ontarians. At the very least, Ontario should introduce more funding to colleges or better yet, adopt a European-style system that offers free college educations to qualifying students. Given that’s not likely to happen, there needs to be more flexibility with OSAP funding.

I’m bright enough to go to college full-time and my high school transcript testifies to that. I had four university and college offers when I graduated from OAC in 2002, but it came down to money — higher education was a luxury out of my reach, and I questioned the wisdom of ending up tens of thousands of dollars in debt for an English degree. Instead, I sucked it up and started working and trying to save for college, which I figured would teach me a useful job skill, and I could find a better-paying job and save for university. I stand by that decision — I’m going to be a kick-ass legal assistant/law clerk

But going back to OSAP — when I looked over their website, I found that I didn’t qualify for their paltry one-time grant of $150 because my boyfriend and I (legally common-law) made more than $34,000 annually combined and we don’t have any children. I wasn’t looking to have my entire education funded, I was hoping for maybe $500 a year (per YEAR! I’m attending year-round!) to help with textbooks. Alas, it was not to happen, and my scholastic aspirations were put on hold for another semester until this past January so I could work some more. Money constraints have forced me to attend class only six hours a week this semester, but I’m going for nine in the summer, on top of a 32-37 hour workweek.

And while I’m at it — to my workplace: Make more full-time jobs available. It cuts down on turnover, customer service is better and increases productivity. Just a suggestion.

For people of my generation — at least the one who are bright and willing to work — it’s possible to get by on minimum wage, but that’s it: You get by. It took years for me to able to afford to go back to school so I can get out of this rut.

I use the TTC solely for transportation. I don’t drive, let alone own a car. In the last two years, Dee and I have used our single window air conditioner a whopping four times, and slept in the living room where it’s located on those nights to contain the cold air. We do all our laundry in cold water. In the summers, we prefer the ambience of candlelight (this is also economic, since our hydro bill nearly doubles every July no matter how many energy-saving tactics we’ve employed — dammit, I want everyone to pay for their own hydro so they’ll know just how much energy costs). In the winters, we bundle up and turn down the thermostat. We use energy-efficient bulbs, turn off appliances when not in use, bring our own bags to the grocery store — you get the idea.

There’s nothing more I can do to reduce my eco-footprint or whatever the hell it’s called short of evaporating off the face of the earth.

Which is why I’m not making a big deal about Earth Hour. My lights will be turned off because I’ll probably be outside looking at the stars, a rare sight in the east end, not to raise awareness about climate change to anyone who might look up at my fourth floor windows and wonder why they’re dark.

Earth Hour is the real-life equivalent of an online petition circulated via e-mail. It makes people feel good without actually doing anything to disrupt their lives. Turn off the computer, the toaster and the lights for an hour and presto! You’re saving the earth. That, my friends, is bullshit.

Invest in energy-efficient appliances. Unless you’re elderly or have respiratory problems, you don’t need your damn air conditioner running every day until icicles start forming in the kitchen doorway. Stop getting your stuff double-bagged at the grocery store — I’ve been in that business longer than I care to admit, and a 12-count pack of yogurt will not break a plastic bag, I promise you. Safely dispose of your toxic cleaners and stop by the corner store for vinegar and baking soda; that and some water are all you need to clean a bathroom. Unless you’re digging ditches or you’re a mechanic or do something otherwise messy, you don’t need a full cup of laundry detergent to wash your T-shirts and underwear. Search out businesses that sell locally grown produce and patronize them. Going back to the grocery industry, most organic stuff is trucked in from California and other southern states and used shitloads of fuel to get to Toronto. Go local and eat in season. Cut back on your meat consumption or give it up altogether. Leave your car at home and use the TTC or GO — if nothing else, if more people start congesting those systems maybe they’ll get federal funding.

What it comes down to is I live as environmentally-friendly as I can, full-time, and do far more for the earth than most of the people swallowing this Earth Hour Band-Aid solution. Tomorrow most of the people will be sitting reverently in the dark tonight will be stopping for a tank of gas on the way to work, maybe some drive-thru served in a paper cup, and then ask the cashier for extra bags in between screeching about Air Miles bonus points at the grocery store checkout. Give me a break.

Virgin Mobile has used some inappropriate marketing tactics in the past — back in the day when they were brand-new and strictly pay-as-you-go they had a medical/themed campaign featuring lots of sexual innuendo that featured “The Catch,” referring to other long-term cellular contracts. Subway ads ran with slogans like “Feeling violated? You’ve got The Catch.”

Anyway, for those who don’t feel like waiting for a pdf file to download, the newest ad features Eliot Spitzer with a thought bubble that says “I’m tired of being treated like a number.” The fine print says that you’re not just a number or client at Virgin Mobile, and whether you’re #9 or #900 you’ll be treated like a human being, blah blah blah.

When I was reading the paper yesterday on the subway and came across it, I was as shocked as the time I saw a print ad for a new cigarette brand in Eye Weekly (those ads being illegal in Canada). Excellent marketing or trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator? Hell, it made me jump, but that’s also because I’ve been devouring every piece of information about the Spitzer scandal I can get my hands on — I’m a sucker for scandals.

(For the record, I used Virgin Mobile for a few years when they first set up shop in Canada. I was broke and their initial prepaid rates were fantastic. Then I started making more money, they started to suck and I was forced to switch to a Telus contract that featured a phone that actually gets reception in my workplace and the subway tunnel between Warden and Kennedy stations.)

As an aside, WordPress makes me feel like an ass. I know the HTML to make a link open in a new window, but WordPress seems to prefer that they do the code and I can’t write in the target=”_blank” part of it. Arrrgh.

In short:  I’m female, 24 years old, gainfully employed as a supervisor and service clerk at a big box grocery giant and a part-time student at Centennial College.  I live on the Toronto-Scarborough border with my fiance Dee (four years together and counting; the wedding’ll be in April 2009 when I’m through with college).  I write novels, short stories, anything but poetry.  I’ve published a couple of chapbooks and I write zines.  I take pictures of trains, I drink far too much coffee and I wear far too much eyeliner and black nail polish.  Dee and I have two cats, Nieve and Stevie Ray.  I vote in every election and I’m not afraid to express an opinion.

 And we all know the best way to express an opinion is to keep a small, little-read corner of cyberspace.  Enjoy!