The funniest thing happened to me at work long ago.

I got yelled at for being unprofessional.

So let’s look at that sentence. I got yelled at for being unprofessional.

According to my pal, dictionary.com,

The essential feature of irony is the indirect presentation of a contradiction between an action or expression and the context in which it occurs.

Let’s call him Pedro, the fella who did the yelling. Pedro didn’t seem to be that interested in hearing what I had to say, discovering if there was additional context, or (I’m guessing) in me breathing.  I think it even made him madder that I stayed calm.

Question: If that’s how he shared this kind of criticism, how was I supposed to take him seriously? Anyone?

Pedro told me, among other things, that I talk down to people. In my defense it’s generally not on purpose. I think I was feeling the backlash of what is called anti-intellectualism.

Then I was told to not use “those 10 dollar words”.

Which is kinda funny, because I grew up in a house where discovering new words, words that were more specific and descriptive, more accurate, was encouraged. Why would someone be so afraid of something they didn’t know but is easily learn-able? (Side-bar: is cogent really that fancy of a word?)

And then he called me arrogant. I didn’t really respond to him when he said that except in my head.  And it went something like this, “No, it’s not arrogant if I am actually able to do or backup what I say.”

But I figured that wouldn’t really help push him towards calm-landia.

Anyway, underneath all this criticism I actually don’t want people to feel dumb around me.  What kernels of complaint are valid and should be examined?