Surely these are just seven cliches, trite, or unhelpful phases. I didn't get the impression the list suggests anything that would be a major red flag or an automatic disqualification with anyone except to author.

It just reads like a list of personal pet-peeves. Like if I wrote "things you can't do on the tube/subway", they would be some pretty great rules.

Upvoted, because I would read that "things you can't do on the subway" article.

(NYC rules)

- Mention aloud that you see a rat

- Stare at or talk with the homeless guy/conspiracy theorist

- Make eye contact with other passengers for more than 500ms

- Hold or read something that has Arabic lettering on it

- Urinate

- Smile

According to you, urinating and reading something in Arabic bring on similar amounts of shame?

No, but they probably put you in an equivalent amount of danger.

"If you see something, say something!"

I upvoted because I thought this was funny, rather than serious :-/

Yes, you seem to be one of the few who isn't offended by joking at how people behave on the NYC subway. The Arabic thing was a dig at the people who irrationally fear Muslims, not Muslims themselves (as if that wasn't obvious.)

Of course, it's always easier to twist and contort statements involving racial stereotypes to paint the person posting them as a racist, than try to actually get the joke, so I expected that to happen.

So, article is titled "Seven Words You Can't Say in Business Development", and the first word you can't use is "You", used in exactly the same context they used it in the title of their own article.

I hope this is just their own sense of irony.

This is very cynical. So saying "thank you" implies that a meeting was one-sided?

I thought it was just being polite.