Wow . . . I haven't posted anything in a while.

In my defense, I'm not lazy. I was suffering from exhaustion . . . just like Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan.

Too much travel, too much drinking while traveling, too much stress . . . my publicist told me I should lay low for a while and claim exhaustion--exhaustion being the new code word for "excess."

But I'm better now. Thanks for asking.

In the last post I wrote before the exhaustion set in, I talked about the five communicators I meet on the road: The Dr. Phils who use employee vehicles to hand out patronizing "life advice." The Julies from the Love Boat who try to be the social director at the company.

The tough-talking Barney Fife sissies who let everyone walk all over them. The suck up Larry Kings who never push their executives--or anyone else--to communicate properly. And the Winston Churchills--the communicators who are willing to fight the good fight wherever and whenever they need to, in order to improve communication at their organizations.

Well, as I was laying in bed, suffering from exhaustion, I was re-reading some of my recent C.R.A.P. (Corporate Rhetoric Awards Program) columns in Corporate Writer and Editor. (When you're suffering from acute exhaustion, you don't have the brainpower to read anything new; the only thing you can do is read stuff you've already written.)

And one recent column was a perfect example of two of those five people: A Julie from the Loveboat and a Dr. Phil. So I thought I'd share them with you, as a way to slowly climb out of the exhaustion pit and start blogging again.

So here's the column . . . .

A smorgasbord of C.R.A.P.

Oh . . .where to begin?

When you are up to your hips in C.R.A.P (Corporate Rhetoric Awards Program), how does one begin to shovel out? This month, we’re giving out not one, but two C.R.A.P. Awards!

Our first award goes to an editor who actually runs a regular feature where she asks employees: “Do you look like your pet?”

She then encourages the employees to send in photos of themselves with their look-a-like pet, and she runs those photos!

The damage this editor must be doing to her reputation with senior management aside, there are two other important reasons not to do this feature:

First, people who think they look like their pets are weird. They are lonely. They are desperate for attention. Imagine the kind of prescription medicines or illegal drugs you would have to be on in order to one day decide, apropos of nothing, that you look like your dog. Can you imagine the scene?

Wendy from accounting sits in her cluttered living room. There is dog hair everywhere. Empty vodka bottles litter the room, and the pungent stench of low-grade marijuana hangs in the air. Wendy, bleary eyed and unstable, sits on the floor in a filthy bathrobe, holding her miniature schnauzer, Pookie, by the scruff of its neck, as she stares into its face.

Wendy (slurring her words badly): "Well . . . I’ll be God damned. You and me, Pookie. We’re the same, aren’t we girl? We’re all we’ve got, baby."

You don’t really want to profile Wendy, do you?

The second reason you don’t want to do these stories is because nobody ever looks like their pet! Never. We’ve seen these stories in consumer publications quite a bit . . . and the people who send their photos in never, ever look like their pet.

This article carries with it a photo of a woman and her dog. She thinks they look alike. But they do not. For example, the dog’s hair is blazingly white. The woman’s hair is jet black. And . . .one of them is a dog. Saying this dog looks like this woman is like saying Snoop Dogg looks like Cameron Diaz . . . and I can say that without knowing for sure what Snoop Dogg even looks like.

If you get a woman who really looks like her pet, don’t run her picture in the employee publication. Call the circus, and put her on a double bill with Jo Jo the Dog-faced Boy.

Our second C.R.A.P. Award this month goes to the editor of a health-care publication, for running a bunch of tips on keeping your child safe during the summer months.

All of the tips are fairly patronizing and obvious, such as these:

* Have an adult watch your child at all times when near any water—pool, lake, river or ocean.”

Do you really need to tell parents that? Do you think there’s a chance that Darrin and Laura Smith are sitting down in Florida, on vacation with their four-year-old son, Mikey, and this scene occurs.

Darrin: (half asleep on the beach): Honey, where’s little Mikey?

Laura: (engrossed in a Danielle Steele novel): Hmmm? What’s that? Oh, I think he’s in the ocean.

Darrin: In the ocean? By himself?

Laura: I think so. He said something about wanting to see what an undertow is.

Darrin: You know, I think I read in the last issue of my employee publication that you’re not supposed to let kids go into the ocean by themselves. Should we go see if he’s okay?

Laura: Okay . . . as soon as I finish this chapter.

If you really think you need to tell employees to keep their eyes on their children in the ocean, you need to get new employees!

And when the tips aren’t patronizing, they’re unrealistic. Listen to this one, on staying safe in the sun:

“Protect children with sunglasses, hat and T-Shirt, and limit exposure during the hottest part of the day—10 a.m.-4 p.m."

Does this writer even have kids? Have you ever spent a summer with a child? You want them out of the house all day! And children don’t wear sunglasses! I hope to God the woman who wrote this article does not have kids. I can only imagine the conversations her house, if she does:

Little Johnny (standing by the door with is baseball mitt): “Mom, everybody’s playing ball in Mikey’s yard. Can I go?”

Overprotective, dim-witted Mother: “Not yet, Little Johnny. It’s only 3:30, and the sun is still far too hot. But I’ll tell you what. If you put on your burka, your sombrero, and your aviator glasses, I’ll let you go out at 3:45 today . . . but only this once.”

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: People don’t need you to tell them how to raise their kids. Let them screw it up on their own, like everybody else.