Most Outrageous Stories (c-Stories) (TM):  Pharmaceuticals/Biotech

I worked with a sales Rep. in Pennsylvania many years ago. We had a contest going on at the time so there was alot of buzz in the field. We were out making calls together and it started raining. When we pulled in the parking lot to make our next call. We reviewed our data and I was prepared to step out of the car to make the call. When I opened the car door, he said; "Sorry, I don't work in the rain!". It was funny the first four times he said it. After that, it was not funny! he was never that successful, and I understood why after that day.

 Rate It |Post Comment | 1 Comments | Story Date:2008-07-23 | Share Story

I actually worked for a mid- size pharma company where the president was making decisions on the amount of money a rep was allowed to spend on lunches. The sales force was only 75 people, but the president controlled every detail down to the sales message. Talk about de-motivating!!

 Rate It |Post Comment | 2 Comments | Story Date:2008-08-01 | Share Story

I dearly love sales and especially pharma sales. To me, each call is an adventure. Every customer is unique. My mouth waters as I drive into the doctor’s parking lot. I see nothing, hear nothing, except the vision in my mind of what the next sales call will be like. I get a great big…ahhh…smile on my face just thinking about it! But often my mouth waters because I’ve worked right through breakfast, lunch, and dinner, running only on coffee. Such was the case one evening as I left Monroe Louisiana headed home to New Orleans. I’d been on a roll all day and made twice the number of good sales calls as usual, but I was now weak with a headache and shivering with hunger because I hadn’t eaten in over twenty four hours. Luckily I saw this little country market/deli and slid my sales vehicle sideways into the parking lot. As I walked in I was hit with the aroma of spicy Cajun rotisserie chickens warming in pans right in front of my eyes. I almost fainted with need. I was so frantic to eat, that I grabbed the biggest chicken, pan and all, threw a $20 bill on the counter, and jumped in my sales vehicle. Here I am headed south on a four lane highway, steering the car with my knees, and eating this enormous rotisserie chicken like I’d eat an apple. I mean I was slinging scrapes all over the dashboard and windows in my lust! As people in other cars would pass me, they’d do double takes, staring with bug-eyes and open mouths at the sight of a 200lb man in suit and tie, holding a 5lb chicken in front of his face with both hands, and tearing it apart like a shark. I’d gnash my teeth and snarl like a lion at these gapers and they’d instantly yank their gazes forward. I was in la-la land until about half-way through my feast, the car drifted off the road and hit the curb hard. The impact caused me to drop the chicken and pan right in my lap in order to grab the steering wheel and avoid a headlong flight into the swamp. That chicken must have been cooking all day because a entire quart of warm greasy chicken gravy dumped into my lap. I could actually feel the liquid pour through my suit and wash down my……well…..you get the idea. So now I’m looking at a three hour night drive home while sitting in this stinking slippery puddle. I was so mad that I yanked the window down and spiked that bird as hard as I could onto the highway. My last view of that meal was the explosion of chicken parts as it hit the pavement at seventy mph. And this was one of my easier trips! Stay tuned for more. “The Mighty Sultan” – former GSK rep.

 Rate It |Post Comment | 2 Comments | Story Date:2008-08-01 | Share Story

Surprise! Surprise! I am the king of putting both feet in my mouth and learned a good lesson one day. I was a top rep for one of the three largest pharma companies in the US. I had come to home office to do a three month special project which included leading our division’s Sales Training Classes. The classes went great and we took the graduating reps to a celebration dinner at an upscale local restaurant. We had an entire room to ourselves. There were also a few guests who I thought were from Sales Training that I didn’t know. I noticed one gentleman sitting at a table all by himself. No one was talking to him and I felt kind of sorry for him. Thinking he was one of our new reps, I went over, sat down, and we started talking. We traded sales stories for over an hour. He had a lot of good ones. Now when I was a rep, I worked hard but also did a lot of wild blowing-off-steam such as: using an elevated railroad crossing as a progessive jumping ramp for my sales vehicle once a week (my last jump carried me so far that I almost went thru the side of a warehouse), driving with only my knees on the steering wheel for 100 miles, eating cans of beef stew that I’d warmed on the car engine while making sales calls, trying Ozium air freshener as a desperation breath-spray (that cost me my voice for the rest of the day), making a sales call in full fly-fishing outfit, waders, rod, vest, creel, etc…..plus the other SMB stories you see on this website. These were all included in our conversation that night. Luckily, I’d caveated all these stories with emphasis on good sales skills used in the field that had earned me multiple national awards and what I was doing to help all our reps. A week later, I received a copy of our company newsletter. Who should be on the cover? It was the Vice-Chairman of the ENTIRE company and the same person I’d foolishly traded sales stories with. I had to tell my wife what an idiot I’d been because we were about to leave on another national sales award trip I’d won. On each of these trips, there’s a VIP Day where the high command of the company comes to congratulate everyone. On that day I tried to make my wife and I scarce by hanging around the back parking lot of the resort all day. Well here comes this tour bus into the parking lot and before we could run, it stops right in front of us, the door opens, and the first person to step out is this same Vice-Chairman. His face immediately lit up with a great big smile. I turned to my wife and said “Career over!!” Even years later, when I’d pass this guy in the hall, he’d get a big grin and say “Hello Steve” and walk away chuckling. I’m glad he got some pleasure out of my stupidity. Now I always ask more about new people I meet…but I still manage to put both feet in my cake-hole. Stay tuned for more. “The Mighty Sultan” – former pharma rep.

 Rate It |Post Comment | 2 Comments | Story Date:2008-09-11 | Share Story

My boss and a number of my colleagues went on a horseback riding "teambuilding" one afternoon. Following the ride, I made a quick stop to pee in the "bathroom" in the barn. My boss had the same idea, and walked in on me sitting on the commode. I'm a 35 year old female and he is a 60 year old man. I don't know which one of us was more embarrassed!

 Rate It |Post Comment | 2 Comments | Story Date:2008-11-19 | Share Story

We were interviewing a candidate for large Pharmaceutical Company. In the beginning of the interview, the gentlemen gave us a synopsis of the strengths he brought to the table. The fifth strength was that he was “very good looking”. After the announcement, my peer kicked me under the table, I am glad he did, because I thought I misunderstood the statement. At the end of the interview I gave him an "out" and asked…. So why should we hire you over some very strong candidates? His list increased to about eight reasons, and you guessed it, the last strength was, "I am also a good looking guy". After the interview I said to my co-worker, I should have said, “So and So”, you are a great candidate, but you are just too good looking, we are afraid you will be a distraction to your co-workers and the doctors and nurses. By the way, he was an average looking guy....

 Rate It |Post Comment | 0 Comments | Story Date:2009-03-03 | Share Story

A physician I was having lunch with one afternoon takes a phone call in the lunch area and I could only hear his side of the conversation (obviously); here's how it went..."Yes, hello Jeff, we got your test results back, you have Herpes"....then a rather long pause... "OH, I AM SO SORRY, wrong Jeff, you have diabetes!"

 Rate It |Post Comment | 2 Comments | Story Date:2008-07-30 | Share Story

Bear with me. This next paragraph will make sense in the ones that follow...... I grew up in a happy home but one without a lot of perks (IE: got an allowance of 50 cents a week for mowing a one acre lawn using a reel-blade push mower). I did a lot of hunting and fishing for days at a time and so to me, a can of chili or beef-jerky is considered a feast. When I was hired by a Dermatology Company, this was the first job I ever had that was not straight commission. I couldn�t believe my good fortune. I had a salary, bonus, and a per-diem travel allowance and I got to travel every other week to covering a 300x300 mile territory. I�d rather sell than eat and never stop in restaurants for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. So on the first morning of my out of town week, I�d make a single stop at a local Wal-Mart and use my entire week�s meal allowance to buy bags of food to enjoy in the car and in hotel rooms; chips, dip, cans of soup, tuna, and other miscellaneous crap. One day, Wal-Mart had these giant Pixie-Stix (big tubes of flavored sugar) on sale in packages of six. Now these were the big ones, two feet long and as thick as your thumb. My eyes were bugging out. I loved Pixie-Stix as a kid but never had money to buy them. I figured �Now, we�re gunna play catch-up!� Wednesday afternoon, I was on a call to the home office when the person I was speaking with asked me if I was sick. I had to admit that I hadn�t eaten single thing since Sunday night except thirty-six giant Pixie-Stix, and that I was in a phone booth holding myself up with my arms pressed against the glass. For the last three days, I�d pull into a doctor�s parking lot, take a big hit from a Pixie-Stix, run in and sell, then run back to the car and sit there while my whole body quivered! The Domino�s pizza across the street from me that day saved my life. I still eat Domino�s pizza three times each month. I�ve lost my desire for Pixie-Stix though. Stay tuned for more. �The Mighty Sultan� � former rep.

 Rate It |Post Comment | 2 Comments | Story Date:2008-08-13 | Share Story

I was in a division of a large company. It was so inwarding dysfunctional that if you attempted to switch from one division to another to enhance your skills or possibly reduce travel. You would be black listed. I had a good friend who was a sales manager. She switched to another division. I back filled her job. So of course I would be discussing on the phone with her strategies and the sales reps in the district. My Regional called me one day and said you need to stop calling ****. If the Sales VP reviews your phone bill, or hears you are still talking to her. We will both be dead or out of a job. She was updating me on the working of the district and the people. He replied; doesn't matter. Stop talking. We both are very successful but were never treated well by the VP again. Interesting people can reach status titles.

 Rate It |Post Comment | 0 Comments | Story Date:2008-08-22 | Share Story

First day on the job with a new manager. Guy was really intense. Grilled me before the call and after. While we were sitting in the car doing post call notes, he demanded we move on to the next call. I was so flustered I forgot I had left my comuter and sample bag next to the trunk. Sure enough, I thought I was fired as I ran over the bag and ruined the computer.

 Rate It |Post Comment | 1 Comments | Story Date:2008-09-10 | Share Story