A Serious Appeal to Sr. Management

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Anonymous said:
I'd say some of the posters can speak to the real issues here. While not with the company since its inception, many reps have seen the change in the type of management recruited by the company. Rather than promote the small pharma culture Astellas was known for, big pharma recruits began implementing the only type of management style they knew: big pharma. Even after the inception of the company, only successful, experienced reps were wanted.

Now they only seem to hire whichever empty-headed cheerleader will do and say exactly what their big pharma manager asks, and that includes rude, pushy sales tactics. If a rep finds that disrespectful to the doctors and the doctors' time, then the rep is pushed out. Management now doesn't understand how to adapt to different personalities, on the part of reps or on the part of customers. How many people have had a manager kicked out of an office, or have been told later by doctors not to bring their managers? How many have seen offices change policies because of a manager? Managers cannot even accept that personalities other than pushy cheerleaders can be successful, even when the numbers say otherwise. The quality of manager at Astellas has changed drastically. People are motivated by fear.
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As I hear you speak about managers getting kicked out of offices and/or being asked NOT to come to an office with a rep, this brings to mind a VERY REAL scenario that played out in the Maryland area (Big Uro practice). The manager had a bad reputation when she "repped" in these offices while at another company. This put the Astellas Rep calling on these offices in a very precarious place. The physicians made it clear that the manager was not welcome. Not very easy to avoid going to one of the largest Uro practices in the company when the manager did a field ride.

Once the Rep was FORCED to inform the manager about her "unwanted" status in that office, so began the "paper trail" for the Rep. This behavior was repeated over and over by this manager. I trained with some of the reps on that team, served on committees with them, went to Summit Club trips with them.....They are now all gone. Strange coincidence? Doubtful!!!

Why does Sr. Management give these kinds of managers unlimited harrassment power?
 






Anonymous said:
I am not saying that you have to be a suck up to succeed. My point is that no matter how talented you are, if you are not a team player or are disruptive then you are not welcome in a district. Think Dennis Rodman or Terrell Owens..... both were highly talented but nobody wanted them on their team
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Shut up you incompetent idiot.

There is no hope for this shity little pharma company. This is an example of what is in charge at the highest levels.
 






Anonymous said:
I am not saying that you have to be a suck up to succeed. My point is that no matter how talented you are, if you are not a team player or are disruptive then you are not welcome in a district. Think Dennis Rodman or Terrell Owens..... both were highly talented but nobody wanted them on their team
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Dennis Rodman FUTURE HALL OF FAMER.

Terrel Owens FUTURE HALL OF FAMER.

Talented people are not common. Untalented people and mediocre people are common. To be genuinely talented makes one uncommon.

Quite posting on this site honey. You are a perfect example of the incompetent yes men and women that run this ugly company at the highest level. And you don't belong working in this company as a custodian let alone a manager.
 






"Why does Sr. Management give these kinds of managers unlimited harrassment power?"

Because senior management is as incompetent and integrityless as middle and lower level managment.

I have been watching these posting on astellas for 5 years now. There hasn't been any hope for this company since it was formed into astellas. Yamanuchi management in Japan was and is clearly integrityless corrupt incompetent idiots. Yamanuchi managers came in with the BIG LIE as a managment system. The big lie never works for long; ask Hitler, Tojo, Pol Pot etc. But incompetent corrupt idiots never get this reality.

Hey, maybe by next year astellas will fall to being the fourth largest pharma company in Japan. It is a good bet. The deepest valley is the limit.
 






Anonymous said:
Shut up you incompetent idiot.

There is no hope for this shity little pharma company. This is an example of what is in charge at the highest levels.
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I agree. I have seen first hand how these manipulation tactics work. I have been with 3 companies over the past 6 years and each time I was forced out. I am a top performer and have access in accounts where NOBODY else has access. My teammates loved me at each of the companies. Each time my manager was jealous of my talent and felt threatened by me and found a way to have me put on a PIP and then forced out. Now stuck with Vibativ and it's happening all over again....
 






You are in pharmaceuticals. I could train a high school drop out to do any "sales" reps job in this company or any pharma,bio,device. The industry is a farce. This is not sales and never has been. You make a few calls, go shopping at Trader Joe's, meet up with a partner for "coffeee" to discuss what you are doing or did during the week. If your boss is your friend, like so many at this company, you love this job. Most of the pharma peoples background is in some ridiculous major like communications, philosophy,literature,business admin,etc. Enjoy pretending to work eight hours a day and inflating your expense report by taking friends,I meant physicians, out for dinner. Everyone does this,ok maybe 80% of sales reps and mangers.
 






Anonymous said:
You are in pharmaceuticals. I could train a high school drop out to do any "sales" reps job in this company or any pharma,bio,device. The industry is a farce. This is not sales and never has been. You make a few calls, go shopping at Trader Joe's, meet up with a partner for "coffeee" to discuss what you are doing or did during the week. If your boss is your friend, like so many at this company, you love this job. Most of the pharma peoples background is in some ridiculous major like communications, philosophy,literature,business admin,etc. Enjoy pretending to work eight hours a day and inflating your expense report by taking friends,I meant physicians, out for dinner. Everyone does this,ok maybe 80% of sales reps and mangers.
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You are a self hating idiot.

And since when is Business Administration or an MBA like many have here a "ridiculous major."

Your a ridiculous clown yourself.
 






This is an interesting thread. I can see from reading through this thread that many things have not changed at Astellas U.S. Pharma. Not shocking. No surprise here. The company continues to be restructured, reorganized or as the senior management executives at Astellas like to say "a new company plan" is taking place -- call it whatever they want to call it -- the bottom line is that more lay-offs will take place moving forward. Will they lay-off before the next new quarter? Who knows. A few months ago, long-time employees were "let go" because of their so-called "new company plan." Even individuals who worked at Astellas for 4 to 10 years were given the "pink" ax. Senior management is not going to touch this thread. Instead, be direct. Go into your senior manager's office and discuss these concerns or issues with your Boss. Happy Holidays....Happy New Year!
 






Someone stated the following:

"Why does Sr. Management give these kinds of managers unlimited harrassment power?"

Because senior management is as incompetent and integrityless as middle and lower level management."

It is called the Peter Principle, which happens in so many companies. One has to wonder how some individuals receive a promotion, obtaining a top leadership position, and not possess the skills or experience to "lead" people -- let alone motivate employees -- sadly, this is an on-going issue in the corporate world. Most managers are not cut out to be in a leadership role.
 






Anonymous said:
As a reminder, this thread was started to address the treatment of reps recruited back in 2003 to form the original company and the subsequent treatment of them once the company expanded and began being less "selective" in the caliber of managers they hired.

This recent group of managers began to surface in 2006. They completely changed the landscape of this company and the changes were NOT positive. Many of these managers had little (if any prior experience) - one in particular had been a "manager" (I use this loosely!), at a Biotech "start up" company which was unsuccessful in getting their flagship drug approved. That company laid everyone off. This manager was then able to say that she was a "specialty manager" (a little bit of a stretch), and was hired by Astellas, managing a highly successful, highly seasoned sales team. She was in over her head and couldn't offer this group much in the way of increasing sales. Analytics was her pride and joy!

The result was a pure disaster. She lacked the experience and skills to manage such a group of high performers. Suddenly these high achievers lacked what it took to be successful. She had NO CLUE how to manage this team.

So again, it is this scenario that was referenced by the OP and NOT the "activity based" mentality of the "newer generation" managers hired beginning in year 2006.

It is evident that some of the Posters here were not around during the genesis of this company and cannot speak to the real issues here!
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I know precisely the manager you speak about. Her best talents/skills: getting rid of anyone who disagrees with her; talking to team members about each other, showing favoritism to those in her "inner circle"; creating paper trails on anyone who makes her feel threatened; analyzing, analyzing and analyzing data;....Shall I go on? Too much to write here!
 












This is among the best of the Threads yet. I am happy to see some candid comments written with professional language.
It is obvious from the number of responses here that people want to be heard.
 






Anonymous said:
This is among the best of the Threads yet. I am happy to see some candid comments written with professional language.
It is obvious from the number of responses here that people want to be heard.
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Who is going to hear you? Sorry but yes the comments may be professional, but people have been posting the truth of the deep corruption here for over five years.

Astellas is run as a authoritarian dictatorship. Individual employees have no rights under US law here. Moreover, there is no union to stand up for employees rights. HR and Compliance are completely corrupted. No compliants to these groups will even be handled in any remotely confidential or legal manner.

Could people make compliants to Hitler or Mussolinni or Tojo or Pol Pot without retaliation? There is absolutely no regard for US laws, the rights of individual employees, or in a larger sense Judao Western ethical constructs (the underpinnings of our society).

I am sorry but over the last five years I have seen friends (very high quality employees) threatened behind closed doors (repeatedly) harrassed (repeatedly) and eventually driven out the door while being denied severence and even unemployment benefits in some cases. HR and Compliance have done nothing to help anyone. Others have had to take leaves of absences because of the effects of threats and harrassment on their health (all subsequently left).

Again who are you going to appeal to? The President of astellas? He is responsilke for all this. The corruption is going on at his orders, under his leadership. Sorry but put your resumes out as soon as possible and move on. Your health and well being are not worth the paycheck.
 






Correct in general.

However, the site postings are here to warn others of the corruption so that they can avoid the mistake of accepting a position here.

Warnings others before they make a mistake and accept a position here (giving a damn about others) is one of the things that separates employees from the management trash that run this company.

Hoping that things are going to change because of this thread seems like wishful thinking.

I would rather deal with the truth as it is even if that truth is unpaletable.

Everyone that is a good person have a great Christmas. If your an astellas manager, you belong in prison.
 






It occurred to me that APUS leadership has been telling us all since 2005 (via the plan for 2015) that they intended to be big pharma. I guess I like so many others just didn't believe them.
 


















Has anyone considered that this tactic of outing reps is completely purposeful and happens so often in pharma that managers probably have specific training on how to do this? It's so unbelievably common, yet those who are targeted feel embarrassed & ashamed so they rarely share their stories. When companies find ways to squeeze out reps, who are probably getting paid more than newbies, and are too smart to act like trained monkeys, they can avoid having to pay severance for "laying off" reps.

I think the practice of targeting reps to get them to quit or get fired is extremely evil and very harmful and stressful to people's self esteem, trust, and mental health. For the victims, try not to take it personally, it's been going on for years among multiple pharma companies and if someone could get this investigated and revealed for what it is, I think there may be some orange jumpsuits worn by those who direct these tactics & those who carry out their orders.
 






What do you expect when you have an HR and Legal Department headed by ego-manical, cat fighting, empire building individuals who are incompetent and should not be in their current positions?

The demise of this once fun and profitable company started with the merger when the weird pervert HR VP was discovered and walked out of the building and and then was replaced with an little lisping power hungry person who also should have been walked out of the building.

We have had at least 4 Sr. VP's of Sales each of which was annoited as the next saviour only to be walked out of the building.

There are good, honest hardworking dedicated people working here. Unfortunately none are in positions of leadership in this hell hole.
 






Anonymous said:
Has anyone considered that this tactic of outing reps is completely purposeful and happens so often in pharma that managers probably have specific training on how to do this? It's so unbelievably common, yet those who are targeted feel embarrassed & ashamed so they rarely share their stories. When companies find ways to squeeze out reps, who are probably getting paid more than newbies, and are too smart to act like trained monkeys, they can avoid having to pay severance for "laying off" reps.

I think the practice of targeting reps to get them to quit or get fired is extremely evil and very harmful and stressful to people's self esteem, trust, and mental health. For the victims, try not to take it personally, it's been going on for years among multiple pharma companies and if someone could get this investigated and revealed for what it is, I think there may be some orange jumpsuits worn by those who direct these tactics & those who carry out their orders.
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You are so correct about what you've written. But why is it that these companies can do this legally? Some of the most powerful people in America have been brought to their knees for their wrongdoings (ie Bernie Madoff, Senator John Edwards, Tiger Woods etc...), so why are the Pharma companies able to continue these tactics? What does it take to blow the whistle?
Somehow, these companies "walk the line" enough to remain legal. I know of numerous instances whereby reps have been CLEARLY mistreated, harrassed, retaliated against etc.. and they've attempted to bring charges against the company (filing EEOC charges, harrassment lawsuits) and the company comes out on top EVERYTIME. It is pathetic. What's the answer?
 






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