Uh, you're old enough to be my dad...

Current listening: "Under the Iron Sea," Keane.
Current reading: "The Time Traveler's Wife," by Audrey Niffenegger
Current watching: "Battlestar Galactica," season one (soon to be followed by season 2.0)

I work with some fairly odd people. A lot of the reporters at the paper are sociable and can form coherent and non-awkward sentences with strangers. But, as a copy editor, I don't really work alongside them. No, I work on the copy desk, which is next to the design desk. Thus, every day, I am forced to work with Creepy Design Guys.

Now, CDGs are pretty common at publications. I mean, how many creative and sociable people are willing to paginate inside pages for a living? Exactly. So, those of us on a career track have to cooperate with older people (in my case, men) who've given up on life. Or really, they don't want to give up on life, but they've found themselves stuck in the rut of working an average job, making below-average wages, yet not mustering up the ambition required to advance. So, they haunt newsrooms across America and annoy the crap out of the rest of us.

The CDG I have to work most closely with has got to be in his 50s or 60s. All he does is design the feature section pages, handling two sections for Sundays, as well as the paper's calendar. That's it. And I have to edit those pages. Let's call him Ned. Unfortunately, Ned is kinda crazy. Like, I-turn-around-at-my-desk-and-see-him-talking-animatedly-to-the-computer-screen crazy. We're afraid one day we're going to find him in a closet, talking to himself in a fetal position, rocking back and forth. Or else he'll just go postal and bring a gun to work. I really hope I'm off that day.

The other CDG, let's call him Joe, is about 42 and lives by himself in my apartment complex. He's short and insecure, and his eyes have the habit of wandering if you catch my drift. He tries to make conversation, but it usually just creeps me out in a Has-he-ever-been-on-America's-Most-Wanted? kind of way. He likes to shoot Styrofoam airplanes at us, or toss us his stress ball, or whatever. But mostly, he pouts when he doesn't get his way and no matter what we're doing, if I turn around and scan my eyes across the newsroom, I'll always meet his eyes. Always.

So, all this to say, pray for me. Pray for all the young people out there who must work with social pariahs who are holding on to our entry-level jobs. Pray for the young go-getters who are attempting to climb the corporate ladder, stepping over one old person at a time.