Tom Peters told me not to come.

Business guru Tom Peters is in town and boy, I knew it. The flood of mails and invitations on my desk grew day by day, each last one with even more exclamation points than the one before. So what started with "we kindly invite you to pay a quadzillion euros to attend Tom Peters" ended with "Sign in NOW or we let a wild herd of gnus stampede through your garden". Considering the fact that my broccoli's and carrots are at they finest I even thought about attending this event. After all, Mister Peters' visit was the number one topic at cocktail-parties and business chit chat: "What? You're not going to see Tom Peters? Oh boy, I feel pity for your broccoli's".

The problem with these events is not the lack of sympathy or admiration for business gurus like Tom Peters, Jim Collins, Steven D. Levitt or Christiane Northrup. OK, not exactly Christiane Northrup, since she's the author of "The Wisdom of Menopause: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing During the Change, 2nd Edition", but hey, what an intriguing title: we can only guess what was wrong with the 1st Edition. The reason that you won't see me at these kind of symposia is that the scenario is always the same. You start in a traffic jam from hell because urbanists have decided that convention centers in my country are located at the less accessible part of town and you always end up in a fight till death for the last free parking spot. After you step over your defeated opponent you're in for something that looks like tasteless brown water but the girl at the counter ensures me that it was once coffee. No time to waste, into the auditorium where a never-ending horror starts: the local speakers. Last year I went to see Mister Gates, little did I knew that almost everyone of the local Microsoft management felt the urge to take the stage. First we saw movie-clips with a lot of people who definitely were on drugs considering the way they gazed at their computer-screens with a stupid grin on their face. Then a local Pointy-Haired Boss started to speak some kind of English but don't ask me the subject since I was solving world problems like how to keep herds of gnus out of my garden. The state secretary for economic affairs, who happened to sit on my row, felt asleep, which was good for us because his snoring kept us all awake. So after we had seen even more movie-clips of people on drugs, pointing at excel sheets with the winning lotto-numbers of next Saturday, Mister Gates took the stage and I left. Really, I left. Trust me, listening to Bill Gates after that your brains have evacuated your body was one step to far. And it gave me the change to wake up the state secretary so that he didn't missed Bill's speech.

But how about Mister Tom Peters? At least he didn't gave me an operation system which forces me to click on start to stop something. And who can resist a quote like: "Wouldn't you like to think that a quiet leader will lead you to the promised land? I think it's total utter bull, because I consider this to be a time of chaos." The Peters Principles have great value and I'm glad to see that at least the "Women roar" manifesto is taken by heart by my company, but no, I'm not going to see the man himself. I'm excused, really, by Mister Peters himself since he talked to me and said: "my best part is my enthusiasm, all my theories have a restricted value." OK, he didn't talked to me directly, I read his words in a newspaper interview but it sounded as he assured me:"your broccoli's are safe with me."

This week I received a final mail: "Dear Mister Bogaert, the Tom Peters event is sold out, but you can still order his book HERE". I would have clicked on the link but unfortunately I was not in the office, I was sitting in front of a police officer who looked at me with a puzzled face: "...what stampeded through your garden?". Damn Tom Peters, never trust an angry old man.