Believe it or not, I’ve often been accused of going too far with my writing, or with my presentations. I’ve offended a lot of people over the years . . . which I have no problem with. Because I like to think I've reached a lot more people than I've offended, with my writing or my seminars.

I've always said: People get offended very easily. If you're not offending someone, once in a while, you're probably too vanilla to be effective as a commentator.

But occasionally, I do go too far and in doing so, I obscure the point I was trying to make in the first place. Meaning, more people pay attention to whatever the “over the top" stuff was than to the point I was originally trying to make.

When that happens, you’ve failed as a writer, or as a presenter. I know that.

And we’re now faced with a perfect example of that . . . but not from me, thank God. It comes from someone named Kathy Griffin, who is a comedian of some sort.

I had never heard of her until I was sitting in a café in Lisbon a couple of days ago, reading the International Herald Tribune (can we all agree, those of us who have done it, that there is no better place in the world to be than sitting in a European café, drinking a cold beer, reading the International Herald Tribune?).

By now I’m sure you’ve heard the story: Griffin won an Emmy for something, and she started her speech like this:

“Can you believe this shit? I guess hell froze over . . . a lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus.”

Now, at that point, I’m raising my beer to Griffin, thinking: “It’s about freaking time someone said that.”

As a mild agnostic, I can’t stand it when football coaches, actresses, actors, policians, and others thank Jesus for their accomplishments. As if God cares who won the big game on Saturday, or as if Jesus gives a shit which actor won an Oscar for playing which mentally challenged character.

(Can you see the Big Guy up there, saying to Gabrielle or Michael or one of his peeps: "I don't know, guys. Gibson was pretty good playing that autistic rapist, and he did do us up nice in that Passion thing . . . but did you see Hoffman playing that retarded piano player? I mean, that shit was whack! But let's give it to Gibson just to piss of the Jews again, okay?)

If there is a God, I’m fairly sure he’s got other things to worry about than whether or not Missuagua State beats Bofunk Technical University, right?

But then . . . Griffin went too far. And as someone who has been "too far" a few times myself, it’s hard for me to criticize her. But she just went too far. Nine words too far, in fact.

After saying Jesus had nothing to do with her Emmy, she went on to say:

“So all I can say is, ‘suck it, Jesus.’ This award is my god now.”

Now, I don’t have a problem with her saying that. I think it's kind of funny, actually. But, as you can imagine, many, many people did have a problem. And of course they were offended, and the resulting backlash continues.

She'll probably have to aplogize and then check into a rehab clinic.

But I don’t care if she offended millions of people. If you’re a comedian and you’re NOT offending people, you’re probably not doing your job.

But, in offending all those people, she obscured what could have been a great point: Namely, that thanking Jesus for winning a stupid TV award or an even more stupid athletic event is silly, pretentious, and assholish.

But now nobody is going to get that. They’re just going jump her shit for the Suck It remark, and she’ll look like the asshole, instead.

If only she would have taken out nine words. Namely:

“So all I can say is, ‘suck it, Jesus."

She still could have made her point. She could have even said the award was her God. It would have been brilliant. It would have won her legions of new fans. It would have been impossible to criticize without coming across as a Holly Roller with no sense of humor.

But she wasn't able to stop herself. And that's too bad.

When you travel on business as much as I do, you learn a lot about customer service. Specifically, you learn that the people who man the airline counters, hotel check-in desks, restaurant hostess stands, and rental-car booths wield a lot of power.

They can make things happen for you. Or they can screw you.

That is why I am unfailingly polite and nice to these people. (Actually, that’s one of the reasons, the other other one being that I was brought up to be polite to everyone; want to know the true nature of someone’s character? Watch how they treat the wait staff).

But I’m always shocked by how many, for lack of a better word, dickheads there are in the customer service jobs in the travel industry.

These people won’t make your life easier, even though they can. They hate their jobs, they hate their lives, and they hate you, even though you treat them with respect.

Case in point: United Airlines. Now, I fly United all the time. And I’m constantly trying to switch flights, get on earlier flights, get an aisle seat, etc.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve got to an airport early, went to the United desk, and asked for a seat on an earlier flight.

Because I know they can put me on the flight, with a reserved seat. I know it, because I’ve had plenty of nice customer-service people do it. They take my ticket, rip it up, and give me a guaranteed aisle seat, in economy plus, on the earlier flight.

No standby seat. No waiting to see if you make it. A guaranteed seat, at no extra cost.

I never ask for this service. But if I'm polite and friendly, and the customer service person is a decent human being, and if there's room on the plane, it happens more often than not.

Unless you have a dickhead manning the counter. These people aren’t going to make it happen. They could, but they won’t. Because they are dickheads. They enjoy watching people suffer.

It happened in DC earlier this week. I had to get home early in order to catch my son’s football game, so I got to the airport in time to catch an earlier flight.

There was nobody in line at the check-in counter, so I went up, greeted the surly son of a bitch behind the desk nicely, asked him how his day was going, and explained what I was trying to do.

He didn’t say a word. He printed out my original ticket, and a stand-by ticket for the earlier flight. Meaning, I wouldn’t know if I had a seat until the last minute.

“So . . . I need to check in at the gate, then?” I said.

“When you fly standby, you are not guaranteed a seat,” he said, refusing to even look at me.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. The flight was full. No, it was not. I went to the gate, went up to the lady there, politely told her I was trying to get on the flight . . . and after some friendly banter, she ripped up my old ticket, and got me an aisle seat in the exit row . . . maybe the best seat on the plane.

The plane was half empty. The dickhead at the first counter could have done the same thing, but didn’t. Because he’s a dickhead.

You run into dickheads in hotels, too, believe it or not. You would think that when hotels put people through “hospitality” training, they would have some sort of test to see if someone is a dickhead.

They don't.

Here’s how I know that the hotel industry is lousy with dickheads. On Day Two of a seminar (usually a get away, travel day), I always ask for a late checkout, so I can have lunch and make calls from my room.

Otherwise, I have to pack up, bring my bag down to the seminar room, and find somewhere to have lunch. It’s a pain in the ass. If get a late checkout (1 p.m. versus noon) I can relax in my room and watch the Weather Channel while I eat.

So, every time I do a seminar, I call the morning of Day Two, and ask for a late checkout. Nine times out of ten, it’s not a problem.

But every tenth time or so, I’ll get a dickhead hotel clerk, who will say no.

“The latest we can do is noon,” she’ll say. “But we can store your bags for you.”

Well . . . I’ve learned how to deal with these dickheads. I wait ten minutes, and I call again. If someone other than the dickhead answers, I ask again . . . and I always get it! Always. Because it's only an hour, and they can always do it!

If the original dickhead answers, I hang up, wait some more, and call again.

I have yet to not get a late checkout time when I wanted one. Those original dickheads could do it . . . but they just, for whatever reason, choose not to.

My advice to companies everywhere: If you’re going to hire dickheads, get them out of the customer service positions. Put them in IT, or HR, where they belong.

Do you have any expressions that make your skin crawl?

I’m sure you do. We all do. I know people who, when they hear someone say, “At the end of the day . . .” it’s all they can do to not ram their fist down the speaker’s throat.

There are a million irritating expressions, but the one that drives me nuts is: “Allow me to play devil’s advocate.”

Why? Because it’s bullshit! People only use that expression when they disagree with someone, but they don’t have the guts to say it. When they are trying to avoid any kind of conflict at all costs.

“Let me play devil’s advocate” is nothing more than a code phrase for: “My God, you’re a freaking idiot, and that may be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, but I can’t say that without getting in an argument with you, so I’ll pull out the old ‘devil’s advocate’ chestnut.”

Here’s a typical example of how it works.

Scene: A typical corporate meeting at a company that puts on conferences for corporate communicators. Sitting around the table is the CEO of the company, a marketer, a designer, and the conference planner.

Marketer: We still haven’t decided on the keynote speaker for next year’s conference, but I had a brainstorm in the shower last night . . . what about Dr. Phil? Everybody loves him, and I think he has a lot to say about communications, right?

CEO (thinking to himself: if that fat gas bag Dr. Phil walks into my conference, I’m going to take one of those little half knives people use to spread cheese onto their horrible bagels and plunge it right into his fat neck): Great idea, Lucy . . . but allow me to play devil’s advocate here. There are some people who actually think Dr. Phil is a useless waste of human blood and tissue, and we could turn those people off if he’s the keynote. It's just something to consider.

Designer: Oh, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t adore Dr. Phil. He’s so down to earth! And if we get him to speak, I think we should forget about doing any text on the cover of the brochure. Instead, we could just run a big picture of Phil, and maybe one big headline that says, oh, I don't know . . . I’m not really a writer . . . but how about: “Let Dr. Phil Show You How to Really Communicate!”

Marketer: I love it! We could even have him pointing at the audience in the picture, so it looks like he’s really talking to them!

Designer: I’ll get started right away!

CEO (Thinking of ways he can fire both the designer and the marketer without hurting morale): Jen, that is really great, and really creative! Someone get Jen a towel, because she’s leaking creative juices all over the floor, heh heh. But allow me to play devil’s advocate here. It’s pretty much common knowledge that the cover of the brochure is what sells a conference. If we use the whole cover on one picture and a headline—as great as that headline is, Jen—aren’t we taking a big risk? What do you think, Rebecca?

Conference planner: If we get that fat son of a bitch to speak, I quit.

CEO: Geez . . . I certainly don’t want any conflict. Maybe we should explore some other options.

If you disagree with someone, say it! You’ll save yourself countless hours of miscommunication if you do.

Anybody else? Anybody got an expression that you’d like to see wiped out of the language?