A friend emailed me recently asking if I knew anyone who is retiring this year.  A producer friend of hers is working on TV videos for Prudential that feature FOF women—and men—telling their real-life stories on “Day One” of their retirement and she was looking for subjects.  I don’t know a soul who is retiring, but I was curious to see what Prudential was doing.

Before I tell you my reaction, here’s how Prudential explains its campaign, which it’s calling Bring Your Challenges: “Connecting emotionally with consumers is an important step in driving brand preference and motivating action,” says Colin McConnell, head of Prudential Advertising. “These real-life stories make Bring Your Challenges hit home on the number one financial challenge—retirement.  We hope the ads leave people wanting to hear more from Prudential,” Colin explains.

“YICK!” is the only emotional reaction these “real-life stories” elicited from me. The videos are depressing. Think AARP LAND TO THE NTH POWER. I didn’t relate to a single person. The “retirees” act like they don’t have an ounce of energy.  Even when one of them is talking about his grandchildren, he seems depressed. The music is lethargic, too. The message is off the mark. The photography, however, is nice and artsy.

“The campaign completely misses. First, it talks about ‘retirement,’ but nobody is retiring,” said Brent Bouchez, founder of Agency five/o, the only ad agency in the United States that focuses exclusively on marketing to the FOF generation.

Brent Bouchez understands the FOF generation. He really understands us!

If Prudential wants to get pre-retirement FOFs into using its financial planning services, why does it resort to portraying those who are newly retired in such a sad light?  ”Take a look at the video about a man named Mujahid. It makes you want to just put a bullet in your head instead of retiring,” Brent said. “It’s almost like he’s serving his first day of prison.” Is the campaign designed to scare 45 and 55-year-olds into thinking, ‘I don’t want to be like that when I’m 65!’

Mujahid, presumably on the first day of his retirement

If Prudential and its ad agency really understood the FOF generation (instead of thinking they do),  they would have produced videos of upbeat, energetic, passionate “retirees” who were clients of Prudential before they retired. The message would be: “Prudential’s financial planning expertise gave me the security I wanted and deserved when I retired. So now I can spend the winter on Turks & Caicos.”

One car company featured an FOF couple sneaking a ride in their son’s luxury car when he returned home for the holidays. Now, that’s the spirit!

We ARE an energetic, passionate, upbeat generation, whether we’re 45 or 65. And we’re not retiring. Even if we’re leaving our long-time jobs, we’re becoming entrepreneurs and finding creative and profitable ways to use our passions. There are certainly people in every generation who don’t fit the prevailing attitude and profile of their peers. They’ve lost their jobs and maybe their homes. But those folks certainly are not retiring, which makes the Prudential campaign even more idiotic.

The only thing Prudential’s campaign will succeed in doing is steering FOFs to its competition.

P.S.  Please tell me your reaction to the campaign by commenting on this post.

When I was in tenth grade (14-15) I needed my father’s help with geometry. He was a math genius, but the last thing he wanted to do was teach me anything at 11 pm, when he would generally finish with the last patient in his dental practice. His satellite office was in our basement. When he walked upstairs after a 14-hour work day, there I’d be, as bleary eyed as he.

At that late hour, dad had no patience for slow learners (he actually had no patience for slow learners at any hour), so as the minutes ticked away towards midnight, he would get more and more heated up as he tried to penetrate my thick skull with knowledge. I’d often wind up crying, but somehow he succeeded in getting me to understand geometry. I became an A math student. I got 97 on the New York geometry Regents exam.

Dad and I did this dance for other subjects, lest you think geometry was the only subject I didn’t quite grasp.

I graduated high school with a B+ average, but my dad taught me more than how to solve problems involving isosceles triangles. He passed on his lack of patience.  Whenever I needed to explain something to someone in my adult life, I’d get exasperated if they didn’t  ”get it” right away. Fortunately, I learned how to control my frustration as the years went on (but I’m still far from perfect.)

I know this hasn’t been one of my most desirable traits. Terror drove my education. Terror that my father would continue screaming at me if I didn’t understand what he was saying; terror he wouldn’t love me if I didn’t do well in school.

I had a longtime boss named Don (I’ve changed his name to protect the guilty) who took over where my father left off. He terrorized the whole editorial and sales staff when he wanted us to accomplish something, but while employees left in droves, year after year, I stayed on and on. I spent decades wanting to please my dad and Don.

My father died 23 years ago, long before I understood the dynamics of our relationship. I finally realized that while Don taught me a great deal, he was a screwed up and unhappy man.

Don will be turning 76 this year. If he’s still with us, I hope he’s either retired or finally got therapy. I’m glad I did.

PS  The moment both my kids were born, I started worrying that they’d ask me to help them with their high school math homework.  Thank heavens, they were both excellent math students and didn’t need my help. Thank you, Colby and Simone!

It took FOF Theresa and me four hours to catch each other up on the last 30 years of our lives. We last saw one another in 1980, when I left Norelco as publicity director to become a writer for the Daily News. Seven years younger, Theresa had been my (very able) assistant until she couldn’t stand working for me anymore and went to work for a colleague at Norelco.

I had forgotten our set-to, but when Theresa refreshed my memory at lunch a few days ago, I again realized what a beaut of a boss I was in my thirties (and forties.) Theresa continued to work for Norelco until the company moved from New York to Connecticut. Although we didn’t stay in touch, some force brought us back together last week.

Theresa and Victor have been married for 31 years and have three grown sons and a daughter, who range in age from 19 to 30.  A mighty fine looking family, I’d say.

Theresa

Theresa's daughter, Alyssa, with her brothers (l to r) Victor, Vincent and Vance

“I stopped working and devoted myself to being the best mother I could,” Theresa told me. She wanted to give her kids what her mom, Helen, couldn’t give her and her sister: her undivided attention. “My father verbally and emotionally abused my mother.  He gave her a tiny allowance while he lavished everything on his girlfriend. Mom worked as a seamstress day and night to raise, clothe and feed us. She was obsessed with providing for us. She’d work on a factory machine in her room and listen to the radio. I had no patience for her then because I wanted her to throw out my father,” Theresa said.

Theresa and her mom, Helen

When Theresa was 21, her dad walked out on the family and it was as if “mom had been cured of cancer. She got a great job at Chase, moved into the apartment Victor and I were renting and gave us her dilapidated house to fix up and live in. She blossomed and started enjoying her life.”

Eventually, Helen lived half the week with Theresa and her family and the other half with Theresa’s sister and her family. “No matter how much we begged her, she never indulged herself. She was happiest just being with us. My kids learned so much from her,” Theresa said.

Helen died suddenly, in late 2010, and Theresa is still trying to make peace with the loss.”She was such a good person. She gave us her wisdom, her values and her virtues,” Theresa wrote in her mother’s eulogy.

Theresa and I reminisced about everything from the sexual dalliances of Norelco executives to the time she accidentally squirted Crazy Glue into her face, sealing one eyelid shut. Fortunately, her eye wasn’t damaged. We talked about diets (she lost 18 pounds during the last month on The Dukan Diet); the men in our lives; her rewarding five-year stint working for the rabbi of the temple in her town and my career since leaving Norelco, not to mention Botox, eyelifts and, of course, our kids.

Besides her energy and enthusiasm, work ethic, practicality and great sense of self, Theresa is beautiful, inside and out. I would love to work with her again and have vowed that she will be the first person I’ll hire as soon as I can. She is one of a kind!

When favorite son Colby (I have only one son) suggested yesterday that I sign up to play Scrabble with him online, I immediately reacted.  I love Scrabble and thought it would be fun to play with him since he’s a guy who likes words.

Well, here we are, 24 hours later, and we’ve yet to finish one game. I’ve never had so little fun playing Scrabble since I started playing almost 50 years ago.  Imagine sitting at a table playing with someone who got up after every move he made and left the room for hours. You could take your turn, but you’d have to wait for him to return to continue the game. Today, people play multiple games of Scrabble online, with multiple partners, and they take their turns when they’re good and ready.

I don't miss the cigarettes, just the Scrabble a deux

Marie Claire suggested in an article that playing Scrabble would make a great second date. Today, the boy and girl can sit facing each other with their iPhones and can even have their second date in separate apartments.

The fun of Scrabble, as far as I’m concerned, is being in the same room as your opponent, socializing between turns and actually playing. What joy is there in taking one turn every hour or two? Technology has greatly reduced face-to-face or voice-to-voice socialization. Now it’s turning board games into BORED games.

I have one letter left in this marathon game I’m playing with Colby and I’m 49 points ahead, so I guess I’m going to win. To make matters worse, technology also is taking away the fun of gloating.

P.S. Colby takes issue with this blog and calls me a Luddite. “Would you have played Scrabble today if you didn’t play online?” he asked me. “No,” I answered.  His premise is that more of us have more opportunity to play, in more places, now that we don’t have to be on the same planet as our opponent or carry around a board and a bag of tiles. That may literally be true, but this isn’t chess.  On or offline, Scrabble is more fun when you don’t have to wait two hours to take your turn. I don’t like taking forever to play a game, especially when I’m being deprived of the socialization aspect. I can play with the computer.

One of Colby’s friends, a writer for TV sitcoms, likes using a typewriter to create her scripts. She says it helps her focus. I wonder if Colby thinks she’s a Luddite, too!