Sour Surveyors

Many of us are on a survey list and enjoy giving our opinions on products and practices. The survey companies who provide their clients with the information collected, tempt their prospective pollees with little contests offering cash or prizes of some kind. But merely giving judgements about experiences in the market place is enough to make it interesting and fun. I suppose, like the grocery chain receipts that are really more useful for the store's information bank than ours, these pollsters owe us something. We are the ones who shop. I don't know if contests are the way to go. Frankly, I prefer airmiles points. I'd rather have a sure thing than an outside chance. I do have a gripe with the survey folk, however pleasant their idea of fun might be. Being of a certain age, meaning beyond forty-five and working, one notes that survey companies seem to show little interest in older age groups. At the start of any survey, you are asked statistics: age, gender, location. And presumably, the poll will begin. If the polling people are aiming at a certain age group or status, they simply switch you ahead to the contest portion, saying that their poll has enough responders, thank you very much and then they enter you in the contest. Who is kidding who? This happens to all of us who are pollees"of an age", meaning we have joyously retired from the working world. Having approached the poll company about the matter, they patted me on the head and said that it had nothing to do with age, but that their clents were aiming at a certain age group. In short, it wasn't their fault. Yes, it is, in part. They advise their clients. My point is, that while I am not jarred much by this kind of stupidity, I am astounded that the client is ignorant about consumerism. Those working people today are so burdened with credit: cars, mortgages, monthly bills, that they do not spend as much time in the market place as the retired. Most of the money they spend is likely to be slammed onto the plastic loan card they poke or swipe. Retired people worked hard in their day and saved and invested and now it is time for them to spend it. The old idea that they will scrimp so they can pass it on to the kids is over. Most of the "kids" live in the basement anyway or are cared for by their parents. The retired are the people who have leisure time to shop. They are the folk who sold the family home and wisely moved into condos and apartments and without mortgages, are going cruising and RVing and flying off to exotic places on vacation. They are the ones who eat out frequently, sometimes daily, and want to look fashionable. They take the latest electronics for their entertainment and the best appliances for their new homes. They drive cars they actually paid for and drive them carefully during the daytime when all the other workers are plying their desks or conveyor belts or bossing others around. They are the consumers who count. They are not toothless old lions who know nothing and can't rub two thoughts together. They are retired doctors, nurses, teachers, professors,  business administrators and labourers all mixed into a crowd of people who don't believe that one has to look old to be old. The women are not all grey haired frizzballs in floral jersey house dresses (although that fashion has re-emerged) and the men are not all shuffling along in pocketed cardigans and droopy drawers ( and that fashion, too, is back or was). No, fashion for the older person has all the dash and pizzaz but with good taste. The retired have time to romance and dance and enjoy sport in a way they never did before. They buy, they use services, they travel, they dine, they spectate. Polling companies need to address the people who have the funds and who spend their money, if they want fully  to understand the marketplace.