Whats nice about 1 week per year, its an industry low. Less than 10 weeks.
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The "Sin" of trying to be an older sales rep at Merck
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Whats nice about 1 week per year, its an industry low. Less than 10 weeks.
Fine. Then quit deceiving reps by offering a "career advancement" program that allows them to remain in the field as a rep with some bogus advanced level rep title(eg S1,S2,S3). The company is to blame for encouraging reps to stay in the field by offering these supposed promotions. Get rid of the whiners, gimmes and slackers indeed. According to your philosophy, all middle-aged employees should move up the career ladder or else they are whiner, gimmes and slackers....that's a very nice, simplistic point of view but in reality, it's full of holes and without "merit"!
Go work in a soup kitchen. Or a homeless shelter. Then start spewing the word, "entitlement" so readily.
There are many reps that see this job as a job, not a career. They want to do the best but do not want to relocate nor move up the ladder. They know it means less potential for more money. They know someone like you will see them as not trying hard enough, not ambitious enough, do not have the abilities, etc. They want to be part of the community, raise their children, worship at churches, be themselves as people, not as "successful" Merck whatever. They appreciate the paychecks. There are real people that chose to live this way. You are not God and should not judge a person's worthiness.
What a generic and negative statement and I am replying as a stockholder. I probably hold more Merck stocks than you unless you have been around for decades.
A rep can improve by learning all about, say, the laptop. The applications. How to do stuff more efficiently. Learn more about the diseases beyond the Merck training so you can converse better with customers. Learn more about the local medical community, its dynamics, the movers and shakers. Learn more about how to access an office, improve your selling skills, etc. Learn more about the managed care situation. A good rep will never cease to improve and learn about his/her territory.
When I am done, I am a parent. I am a member of a fellowship. I am this and that. When I am off I don't put a Merck sticker on my forehead. I have a firewall between my Merck job and my personal life.
Sorry, not true. The company is 'not to blame.' If you don't like the paradigm go somewhere else. But, look across the country. What is being cut? Social programs and benefits. Very similar for industry, cut costs (benefits, salaries, positions) to improve margins. True, all across job descriptions. Well, except for the top tier positions. So, again, if you aren't moving up the responsibility ladder then you're losing.
Simple business, don't take it personally.
Now that we know you don't like that-how will you deal with it? Insist that it isn't fair? Too bad but, it is neither fair or unfair. It just is. Now you can either join the 'game' to climb to the upper tier position or stand there whining about how unfair it is and that you want more.
If you owned your own business-could you run it at the same gross income year after year? No, as cost go up (cost of supplies, salaries, fuel, etc). So, how does your business compete? Cut costs (become more efficient), raise prices or expand market share. But, guess what-all the other business are doing the same thing. Some win, some lose. That's all it is. Free market capitalism. The painful fact is; free market capitalism is painful to the loser.
And the climate of the country, right now, is that we don't want to pay for losers. Whether that be 'entrenched' workers in the gov't, unions or industry and we don't want to pay for social programs for people out of work.
Free market capitalism-it is the way to go for profits. As Christie, Walker and Ryan have made it very clear: too bad for the losers.
Wish I had your firewall. I can't separate my personal life, who I am, from what I am asked to do for Merck. I always feel like I'm not being true to myself when at work. The need to have a firewall seems an admission of the problem of the job and a potential toxic effect on your personal life. There is a time and place for games, but I like to play mine during leisure and not work. I see my work at Merck mostly as a game with few redeeming qualities to make up for the job's farcical nature. The essence of the job can't support what I'm being paid to do it. I understand that and only wish we didn't try to pretend that it does. I know I have to get out of this business.
The firewall does not always work. When I run into a, say, refusal physician at Home Depot, I am not going to talk business with him. I am not going to alter my shopping trip so I can hang with him up and down the aisles. Same if I run into a difficult to see doc at a restaurant. A simple hello and goodbye. I am having dinner, not working. I need my own sanity too. I don't talk business with some that go to the same church I worship at. No way. Last week one of my top cardiologists was right behind me at the U-Scan in Kroger. I would not start talking business with him. May be kind of deliberate and extreme way of a firewall. But I was off and we were two people in a hurry with grocery in carts.
good points...the very fact you need a "firewall" shows that there are psychological compensatory changes your brain is making to deal with the toxicity and dysfunction of this drug rep job...
Face it, any job that is based on so much "made up" work is unsustainable in the long term...THe first thing that any intelligent person should ask themselves when being assigned work from their manager is "Is it really necessary?" The answer at Merck would be "NO" most of the time...Merck sales reps pretty much exist at this point to justify their manager's bloated, overpaid position. Lord knows, without new products, the customers have little, if any need for drug reps...
Plus the constant lying that is required to do this job, should be an ominous signal to anyone with integrity. The Pharmaceutical sales industry is dead for all but management and marketing...
Such a tragedy. Some a**holes said I must make 8 calls a day. I can't. My manager said yes you can. So I have to get creative. Why can't they let me make 5 or 6 honest high quality calls?
They figure they have to demand 8 to honestly get your 5 or 6, that's why. I'm so old I can remember the days we all used our "magic" pencils....
If you think anyone in this industry believes you make 5 or 6 high quality calls per day, then you are sorely underestimating our collective intelligence. You see a couple of docs---if you're lucky---at lunch and that's about it, Mr. UPS Man. Spare us your B.S.
The real problem with being an older sales rep...say one with 20+ years of experience is that you can still remember when you had district and regional directors that you could respect and had support staff at the home office who were there to support your efforts rather than dictate some plan (which rarely works, so someone else can present a new mo better plan) that you must adhere to! Now we have so many anal compulsive MBA's, most of which have never worked a territory long enough to understand the average reps plight and everything is dictated from the top down without any experience to guide them! Once upon a time (I know sounds like a fairy tale) when you saw a program come down from westpoint it was something generated in the field with tenured reps and was already working, and was rolled out to everyone! Now some vendor or an idiot at the home office with a spreadsheet rolls out the best tracker or sales planning device utilizing data that we already have in some other spot and thats promotion city! Most of this shit is impractical, requires too much maintenance and fails routinely! In the early 90's the great managers and directors took their toys, parachutes, and went home when they saw what was happening to their company! As a Peter, Paul & Mary song once almost said "Where have all the stock price gone".
Yes you can in a rural area with three decades of relationship. I know it is impossible in many city/urban territories. It was getting more difficult as everyone added more reps even in rural areas like mine. But now they are letting everyone go...the situation is improving again.
One, my spouse (who is in another industry) thinks that we, here on CP, have caused some of our own problems, as everyone has always run around saying how little they work, etc etc etc, and no surprise that higher ups in the company read also, and just keep adding more and more busywork bs b/c they think we aren't busy enough, and make too much money doing nothing. Makes sense I think. Other industries stay quiet, and don't have this forum to put it all out there. We do shoot ourselves in the foot, don't you think?
Also, yes, the know-nothings who have come in with their MBAs thinking they know what to do to improve "us" out here in the field remind me of the movie 'Up in the Air'. The new young MBA thinking she knows how to do things better and smarter than the veterans, and finding out she knows nothing about the real world, and how things really work. Exactly the case here. It's very sad.
The industry is a disaster.
Also, yes, the know-nothings who have come in with their MBAs thinking they know what to do to improve "us" out here in the field remind me of the movie 'Up in the Air'. The new young MBA thinking she knows how to do things better and smarter than the veterans, and finding out she knows nothing about the real world, and how things really work. Exactly the case here. It's very sad.
The industry is a disaster.
the industry is a total disaster...(For everyone but management and the executives) But I don't think it is Cafe Pharma that is resposible for all the busy work...It is lack of productive R&D. In other words, not enough new products...Without new products, this job has absolutely no value whatsoever, aside from a tasty lunch delivery.
Amen to that. Since the early 90's this company has been rudderless and the performance of Merck has revealed our sorry plight. I also remember when we reported to a DM who, if good, ran corporate interference for their reps to support their optimal productivity and insulate them from all the corporate BS. I fondly recall those days when the DM would present some new initiative from WP, we'd discuss it as a district, and then decide whether or not it had any merit for use in our own unique and individual markets, or was more coporate BS. How we could be America's Most Admired Corporation for 7 years in a row with district management like that going on must befuddle our current sales management. More trackers, more spreadsheets....can't you just hear those bozos now. Common sense has been lost at Merck, similar to our government I believe.
The trash talk about reps is probably non-employees and managers....I work a lot more than any of the outside friends I have in different industries. Run around all day and do emails, tests and data sheeets nights and weekend. Too much personal time for this job. Sometimes you can never get away from it.
Yes, you are correct there. But still, a lot of people come on here and discuss their own days and how they work p/t, go home at 2, it's a mommy job, etc. I agree though that a lot of us (I left the industry recently) worked/work far more than reps in different industries. I know I did a lot of the time. Almost ruined my marriage actually b/c of how much friggin time I had to spend on my computer at night. My spouse couldn't understand why we couldn't get our shit done during the day, but we couldn't take tests, watch bs videos, and do a lot of things during the day or else we get our asses chewed out for uh, "not working 8-5". When my dipass younger, female manager said something once to the whole district that our "hours are 8-5, and we need to be working 8-5", I piped up and said well if it's 8-5 then why can't we do all our admin (shit) and all the other stuff during the day then? Umm, because if our hours are actually 8-5 then I'm working far too much overtime, and need to stop. lol. That stupid (bleep) had to then start talking out of both sides of her mouth.
She is the main reason I left the industry. Me-43 and female also, her 34, and a huge know-it-all, know nothing. It's tough being a tenured, older rep and getting dipshits for bosses. I couldn't take it any longer, and left. No missy the job! Much happier.
The old Merck DM was the filter and buffer for the reps. As you said, we decided if a new decree from West Point was applicable to our local business environment or not. Now it is indeed mandate from heaven. Then we decided if this new initiative would help or hinder. Now we don't have a say.