How to Spot a Psychopath

From: "John M. Lantier"
To: "Dan Brisebois"
Subject: Dan, are you available 11/13?
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2006 05:55:28 -0700

Dan, hope you are well. Because of your key position, I would like you to
join us at the Boston Leaders Forum. It will be Nov. 13 at the Boston
Harbor Hotel. Details are at www.bostonleaders.org

Speakers and honorees include the CEOs of Iron Mountain, iRobot and
Benchmark. Many of Boston's top executives will be attending. This year
we also welcome a former Top Gun pilot and one of America's top experts
on leadership who will be discussing visionary ideas on developing your
team and strategy.

The meeting will be held from 9 to 4, with lunch included, and we
encourage you to invite other managers. We expect to be completely
booked, so please take a moment to view the details on the site now.
Thanks and we hope to see you there.

Regards,
John Lantier
Boston Leaders Summit
31 St. James Ave., Suite 1
Reply if you wish no further emails
Boston, MA 02116
www.bostonleaders.org

My reply:

Wow, that's great! I'm so glad that the fact that I've lived my entire life seventeen thousand kilometres away from Boston has in no way affected your appreciation of my "key position"!

I'll be needing at least a Business Class ticket, of course, and a suite at some unpretentious four star place for the week will be fine.

Wire me the money, and I'll be happy to see you at what I'm sure will be a convention every bit as well organised as your mailing list.

No reply yet. Darn.

I don't know who the "Dan Brisebois" that John meant to send this to is. Maybe a Canadian music critic, but I hope that Dan will forgive this Dan for saying that he doesn't really sound like a "Leaders Forum" (or is it "Leaders Summit"? And shouldn't there be an apostrophe somewhere?) kind of dude, either.

Of course, he actually is. Anybody with enough money for a ticket is. The actual reason for the existence of these sorts of shindigs is the same one that explains the plethora of off-brand Who's Who books; people like to be flattered, and will give you money if you make them feel important.

Invite people to a conference where a fighter pilot will make them feel manly and "leadership experts" will make them feel all pumped up and energised and, with any luck, they'll come back next year. Especially if they're executive drones who can con their company into expensing the whole thing as invaluable training.