tompeters

The Ed Tompeter Collection Part 1, February 25,1992
$24.95
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Reinventing Work: The Work Matters
$29.95
Tom Peters' ideas are often a little strange, or arbitrary, but they can also be creative, avant garde, or edgy. Wading through his long lists of hot-off-the-press Notions of Success for whatever book he's publishing this year can be tedious, especially with his penchant for CAPITALIZATION and lots of exclamation points!!!!! Sometimes there are interesting ideas that are worth thinking about.

ReInventing Work was loaned to me by a friend, so I didn't even have to pony up my own bucks for it. However I knew halfway into the first CD that I would listen no more. Why?

Sam Tsoutsouvas is DREADFUL!!!!!! I don't even know who this guy is, but a look at IMDb shows he's a third-string actor/voice actor with a very short filmography of very minor parts. I don't hold that against him. What I do hold against him is that HE IS ACTING!!!!!! (See how annoying the CAPS and !!!! can be? Peters does that all the time. Okay, I'll stop now ... I PROMISE!!!!)

I noticed another reviewer said that he returned his immediately upon discovering that it wasn't Tom Peters narrating. Yes, Tom Peters can himself be annoying sometimes as he is so highly strung that he's practically shouting or pleading much of the time. But he can get away with it. Why? Because the material is his ... the ideas are his ... you can at least forgive him for being excited about sharing his ideas and passion.

Tsoutsouvas is an ACTOR. He was hired to voice act the narration for this. Is Peters getting lazy? Can't he spend a few days in a studio recording the thing himself? Tsoutsouvas was obviously instructed to be like Tom Peters, to key it up, to pump energy INTO EVERY SENTENCE!!! (Ooops, sorry.)

Motivational / self-improvement / personal achievement works such as this shouldn't be narrated by an actor. They should be delivered, with passion, by the author or at least by a success/motivation speaker who has closely studied the work in question and feels a passion for it. All I could hear in Tsoutsouvas false energy delivery while he's busy exhorting the listener in every sentence, was ACTING, ACTING, ACTING.

Motivational/success works don't do well as audio books unless the person delivering it is 100% genuine, speaking from the heart and the mind, and not just voice acting. Even a conventional narrator (more conservative performance) would have been a major improvement over Tsoutsouvas. And there is still NO EXCUSE that Peters couldn't just record the thing himself. At least he can get away with his hyped-up delivery since it's his content. You can't contract true passion from voice actor.

Tsoutsouvas is dreadful, absolutely dreadful. I stopped at 25 minutes. I did sample the other CDs to hear if it changed, it didn't. The same phony, pumped up, voice acted, melodramatic delivery throughout. What a complete waste of an audio book. Save your money. (If you doubt this appraisal, try to get a copy of ReInventing Work at your local library, and listen there before you bother to check it out and take it home.)

TOM PETERS IS REINVENTING WORK: HE'S DISCOVERED HOW TO PHONE IT IN. Message to Tom: try showing up next time and doing it yourself.