Boomer Down: From Fast Lane to Crashed Lane

The good life didn’t come to a screeching halt.

It came to a grinding, slow-motion, train wreck halt.

Quintessential Boomer Steve Meltzer was living the limo-licious life of a Mad Men-style ad agency Creative Director and Internet guru in Hong Kong. Great money at $250,000/year. Eye-popping, soul-enlightening travel—a regular business-class client circuit, Hong Kong-Bangkok-Tokyo-Beijing-Hong Kong, and far-flung tourism—China, Tibet, India, Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines.

It was rosewood- and teak-paneled suites, top-shelf martinis and big-time clients all the way. It was a regular column in Asia’s leading marketing magazine, speaking gigs in Singapore, Taiwan, Manila, New Zealand.

At his peak, he was Vice President, Brand-Building Partner, for marchFIRST (sic) Greater China, a rocket-hot, NASDAQ-dandy Internet professional services firm. His promised fast-lane next move—to London as Creative Director for Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

When the firm’s U.S. network succumbed to self-inflicted hubris wounds, taking the thriving Asia network with it, Meltzer returned, jobless but with irons in the fire, to his D.C. hometown with wife and two kids, healthy savings, jobless but with irons in the fire and the requisite Boomer optimism.

The optimism didn’t pan out.

The fire with the irons in it burned out.

And the money ran out.

Meltzer tells his before, during and after story with wit, candor, brutal honesty and emails documenting his futile efforts to get back on the road, even if only in the slow lane.

He ends up condemning The Way of the Boomer, capitalism and himself in equal measure.

What happens when every family in your posh neighborhood (except yours) is going to ski in the Alps over Christmas, and then going to soak up some Caribbean sun?

See the piece called Nevis Envy.

What happens when a disappointed wife finally has had enough?

Not My Scotch That’s on the Rocks looks into that.

With email-bites, demographic data, essays, press clips, and guts-on-the-table soul searching, Meltzer gives us life in the crashed lane.

Millions of Boomers are having to get used to it.

1115835641
Boomer Down: From Fast Lane to Crashed Lane

The good life didn’t come to a screeching halt.

It came to a grinding, slow-motion, train wreck halt.

Quintessential Boomer Steve Meltzer was living the limo-licious life of a Mad Men-style ad agency Creative Director and Internet guru in Hong Kong. Great money at $250,000/year. Eye-popping, soul-enlightening travel—a regular business-class client circuit, Hong Kong-Bangkok-Tokyo-Beijing-Hong Kong, and far-flung tourism—China, Tibet, India, Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines.

It was rosewood- and teak-paneled suites, top-shelf martinis and big-time clients all the way. It was a regular column in Asia’s leading marketing magazine, speaking gigs in Singapore, Taiwan, Manila, New Zealand.

At his peak, he was Vice President, Brand-Building Partner, for marchFIRST (sic) Greater China, a rocket-hot, NASDAQ-dandy Internet professional services firm. His promised fast-lane next move—to London as Creative Director for Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

When the firm’s U.S. network succumbed to self-inflicted hubris wounds, taking the thriving Asia network with it, Meltzer returned, jobless but with irons in the fire, to his D.C. hometown with wife and two kids, healthy savings, jobless but with irons in the fire and the requisite Boomer optimism.

The optimism didn’t pan out.

The fire with the irons in it burned out.

And the money ran out.

Meltzer tells his before, during and after story with wit, candor, brutal honesty and emails documenting his futile efforts to get back on the road, even if only in the slow lane.

He ends up condemning The Way of the Boomer, capitalism and himself in equal measure.

What happens when every family in your posh neighborhood (except yours) is going to ski in the Alps over Christmas, and then going to soak up some Caribbean sun?

See the piece called Nevis Envy.

What happens when a disappointed wife finally has had enough?

Not My Scotch That’s on the Rocks looks into that.

With email-bites, demographic data, essays, press clips, and guts-on-the-table soul searching, Meltzer gives us life in the crashed lane.

Millions of Boomers are having to get used to it.

4.99 In Stock
Boomer Down: From Fast Lane to Crashed Lane

Boomer Down: From Fast Lane to Crashed Lane

by Steven M. Meltzer
Boomer Down: From Fast Lane to Crashed Lane

Boomer Down: From Fast Lane to Crashed Lane

by Steven M. Meltzer

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Overview

The good life didn’t come to a screeching halt.

It came to a grinding, slow-motion, train wreck halt.

Quintessential Boomer Steve Meltzer was living the limo-licious life of a Mad Men-style ad agency Creative Director and Internet guru in Hong Kong. Great money at $250,000/year. Eye-popping, soul-enlightening travel—a regular business-class client circuit, Hong Kong-Bangkok-Tokyo-Beijing-Hong Kong, and far-flung tourism—China, Tibet, India, Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines.

It was rosewood- and teak-paneled suites, top-shelf martinis and big-time clients all the way. It was a regular column in Asia’s leading marketing magazine, speaking gigs in Singapore, Taiwan, Manila, New Zealand.

At his peak, he was Vice President, Brand-Building Partner, for marchFIRST (sic) Greater China, a rocket-hot, NASDAQ-dandy Internet professional services firm. His promised fast-lane next move—to London as Creative Director for Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

When the firm’s U.S. network succumbed to self-inflicted hubris wounds, taking the thriving Asia network with it, Meltzer returned, jobless but with irons in the fire, to his D.C. hometown with wife and two kids, healthy savings, jobless but with irons in the fire and the requisite Boomer optimism.

The optimism didn’t pan out.

The fire with the irons in it burned out.

And the money ran out.

Meltzer tells his before, during and after story with wit, candor, brutal honesty and emails documenting his futile efforts to get back on the road, even if only in the slow lane.

He ends up condemning The Way of the Boomer, capitalism and himself in equal measure.

What happens when every family in your posh neighborhood (except yours) is going to ski in the Alps over Christmas, and then going to soak up some Caribbean sun?

See the piece called Nevis Envy.

What happens when a disappointed wife finally has had enough?

Not My Scotch That’s on the Rocks looks into that.

With email-bites, demographic data, essays, press clips, and guts-on-the-table soul searching, Meltzer gives us life in the crashed lane.

Millions of Boomers are having to get used to it.


Product Details

BN ID: 2940044597914
Publisher: Steven M. Meltzer
Publication date: 06/10/2013
Sold by: Smashwords
Format: eBook
File size: 172 KB
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Steve is a multifaceted communicator with extensive US and international experience guiding and creating compelling messaging in all media. His recent client engagements range from marketing communications campaigns for Fortune 100 companies to editorial and creative consultation for major World Bank, USAID, UNDP and other development initiatives. Throughout the 1990s, Steve held Regional Creative Director positions in Hong Kong and Australia with Rapp Collins, J. Walter Thompson and Leo Burnett, and was a driving force in launching integrated and interactive marketing practices throughout the agencies’ Asia-Pacific networks. In 2000, he was recruited to help launch the Greater China headquarters of the $2.5 billion professional services firm, marchFIRST (sic), as Vice President, Brand Building Partner, where he managed teams responsible for branding, integrated media support, marketing strategy and all user experience elements for complex transactional web sites for clients, including the People‘s Republic of China Ministry of Rail, United Broadcasting Company (Thailand), Dentsu Communications (Tokyo), eNETVision (Hong Kong), and Morgan Stanley Asia. Working independently in the US after returning from Asia in 2001, Steve's client engagements have included The Center for American Progress (research for and formulation of new brand platform); MAP International (branding and online content for provider of financial services to off-grid rural communities in Africa); the American Nurses Association (synthesis of two-day roundtable discussion on economics of nursing); OHSA (Practice Framework for Occupational Therapy); Centers for Disease Control (various editorial); Boscobel Communications (white papers "Stakeholder Communications in Merger & Acquisition Environments" "Building a Reporter-Friendly Web Site"); Management Systems International (Government of Iraq Five-Year Development Plan); White and Partners (communications strategy for Military OneSource, Dept. of Defense unified family services provider) and scores more. Steve lives in downtown Washington, DC. with his partner, Mary Ellen (Mellen) and makes a beloved North Carolina-style barbecue.

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