I need “trigger warnings” for a few things myself

I’ve written about how ridiculous both left-wing ultra-woke-ism and right-wing cancel culture snowflakeyness are. In doing so, I had four people agree with me, 237 left-wingers explain how I don’t have a right to my opinion and have caused them great emotional pain, and 326 right-wingers throw their Bud Lights at me while screaming that “Mermaids ain’t black!!”

All of the responses led me to a groundbreaking conclusion: “Wow — 567 folks actually read my article! That’s a new record!”

I’m just joking, of course. No one reads anymore. They more likely saw a picture and a headline and dang near fell out of their bubbles to comment.

However, I must confess that even folks like myself with vast amounts of common sense and non-artificial intelligence who can actually see a story or issue from more than one point of view can also be triggered on occasion. So, if you want me to be triggered, sending me into a safe space for my tears or a into a cancel-culture hissy fit, here are a few terms you can throw at me. Much of it stems from my days in the newspaper business.

Synergy: This was a popular corporate buzzword for a while that sounds like it means bringing different elements together so that they deliver a greater outcome than they could separately — sort of like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. What you really get with most synergy, however, is a peanut butter and onion and mustard and tofu and vinegar and Clorox sandwich.

Collaboration: This is a close corporate relative of synergy. It means grouping people who don’t like each other for the common purpose of accomplishing less at a slower pace with a 15% chance of someone getting strangled.

-gate: After Watergate, throwing the four letters “g-a-t-e” at the end of every controversy. That’s pretty lazy. Irangate. Sharpiegate. Troopergate. Travelgate. Whitewatergate. Every time there’s an issue, you just can’t be throwin’ a “gate” on the end of it. I’m pretty sure there was a conspiracy by most teenage girls in the 1980s not to go out with me, but I didn’t go around calling it “Jennifergate.” (Although, something clearly was definitely fishy.)

Meeting: It was well known at the newspaper that I hated meetings. Worse, I hated it when execs looked so harried because they were “working” so hard running from meeting to meeting or leaving a meeting early so that they can get to a more important meeting. We just rolled our eyes and went back to working and getting stuff done. That, however, doesn’t get you paid. Meeting gets you paid. The more you meet, the more you get paid. Doing stuff, not so much.

Regularly scheduled meeting: These are the three most inefficient words in the entire American lexicon. You wanna get stuff done, look for one of these going on at your corporation and cancel it immediately. When I took my job at The Fuller Center for Housing, my predecessor told me that every Thursday morning I was to meet with the president to discuss communications operations and plans. At our first meeting, I told the president: “Your office is about 20 yards from mine. How about this? If you need to talk to you, I’ll come over here, and if you need to talk to me, you can come over there. And this can be our last regularly scheduled Thursday meeting.” It worked for him, and we get stuff done. And whenever we have any staff meetings, they usually end with, “Well, I can see Chris is getting bored, so maybe we should wrap this up.”

My phone ringing: I find this terribly offensive and hurtful. Granted, I have an outstanding ring tone — the theme from “Sanford and Son” by Quincy Jones — but I’m not a huge fan of humans in general, must less talking to them. Ugggghhh. I prefer texts. Well, email is actually preferable. Then again, just a polite wave or nod is about all the communication we probably need.

Meanwhile, if you call me to tell me we are going to have a meeting about synergizing our collaborations and that it may require a series of regularly scheduled meetings, be warned that I’m going to be triggered. That means you’ll either finding me crying in a fetal position or flying into some kind of rage that may forever be known as “Chris-gate.”

Fortunately, this ultra-woke adjunct professor got fired. Folks on the left and right need to be a lot more tolerant of those with whom they disagree.