Being forced to room with someone at meetings is so degrading and dehumanizing

Wow, how original. Just like a true detail rep of the new millennium, you can only regurgitate short, banal approved messages.

At least if I get cut, I have a 5 year head start on a business. Most of my peers will end up (IF THEYRE LUCKY) working for Publicis.

I await your witty and acerbic retort.

 

NO! I sleep bucknaked and my boxers were on a chair in the room, and he picked them up in the middle of the night after taking a noisy dump and sniffed them!

I once had a roomate at sales camp who jacked off on the bathroom mirror.

 

at least Masters do not have to share rooms. GetOld, GetTenure, GetYourOwnRoom!

 

GetaRealJob

 

low pay pharma dopes SHEESH!

 

I left at the age of 36 for a lot more money. You have defeated yourself before you started with that attitude. Glad I never thought about myself like you do about yourself.

Quite frankly, I'm ashamed as all hell that I was a pharma rep for 2 years. I do joke about it with people however.

 

Good point. If you are in NYC, LA, Chicago, then being a pharma. rep for Pfizer is an average to below average job.

Now, if you are in Ames, Iowa or Buffalo, NY, you hit the jackpot.

There are about 77 better sales jobs than being a pharma. sales rep for Pfizer, in LA. I know because I live in LA, and I see it all the time. These are jobs that are advertised. There are even more in the hidden market. Jobs like selling specialized medical tests that pay well over 100k with little to no micromanagment.

Learn about your world people. There is life beyond this cult. Yes, Pfizer is cult.

 

Sorry, but you don't count. Why? Because you apparently were only a rep for 2 years, from 34-36 years of age. Unless you did nothing (and lived in your parents' attic) from the time you graduated from college 'til you 34, you brought over a decade of doing something else to the table besides 'pharma rep'.

Most 36 year olds here have been doing this job for over a decade. They've been trained up to stick to the call cycle, stay with the "verbatims", get signatures, and spend their budgets on lunches.

I am not joking: it will be extremely hard for 10-18 year pharma rep vets to get a high level sales job that pays more than they make here. Everyone out there has an opinion about us thats based on our first wave of cuts in 2006. And it aint good.

 

There is a way to do it. Go back one or two step, with a strong B2B sales job (only need 1-2 years of success), and then go 3-4 step forward.

When you are in your 30s and 40s, you are in the prime of your sales career. 50s is tough, because most are too lazy at that age, because they have many assets. That is the age to move into management.

But, to say a person under 40 has missed the boat is stupid. Sure, the pharmaceutical experience may be limited a bit, but it is still a very professional job and very clinical. Not an easy sales, by any means.

 

How does this post address the issue of roommates?!? I spoon with my roommate when he is sleeping!

 

You make me laugh. I say that under 40 year olds have missed the boat because of experience. I guess I should have said it this way "Of the 30 or so ex-Pfizer, Merck, Lilly, and Sanofi (Marion, Merrill Dow, Hoescht) reps I have in my Contact list, 95% either went to another (smaller) pharma company, a CSO, are selling nutraceuticals, or launched a sales training consultancy agency. This is an EXTREMELY easy job, and its not selling. Its….a face to have version of a 30 second commercial. There is nothing clinical about reading a RC-approved detail off an iPad. Especially if doctors have heard that commercial since 1996 (Viagra), 1998 (Celebrex).

But don't believe me, go ahead to a contract company site and ask those people how many job offers they got other than smaller pharma companies. You want stress? Try selling a device thats competing against the device world's equivalent of Celebrex. Now, take away 50% of your salary, take away all counterparts (so now its only YOU in that territory), take away company car.

What we do is quite possibly the easiest six figure job out there. And most hiring managers know this, which is why they shun pharma reps UNLESS THEY'RE WILLING TO TAKE A BIG PAY CUT, AND START AT GROUND LEVEL. But don't believe me. Go to LinkedIn, FB, snoop around.

 

Stupid thread and stupid posters!

 

if you don't have a roommate, who's gonna blow ya? Yourself?

 

Once, at Sales Camp, I walked in on my roomie having a Bufu and getting a reacharound! I slept in my car for two days.

 

Ex Pfizer 15 year vet here, I left during FFO. Yes, I troll my old company's site from time to time! This poster is right. I won't agree that you'll never have it better, but I agree that you'll never have an easier job that pays so well. Stop complaining, enjoy the sweet ride while it lasts another year or two. What are you bitching about, sharing a room for 8 days a year, at most? I have some horror stories of whats waiting for you if you go the small company, TRUE salesman, or Contract route.

 

8 days a year???? More like 2-4 a year. Like you said-"you don't know how good you had it until it's gone!". Working in an office now with my boss looking over my shoulder all day long, stuck with coworkers- half of which are idiots (can't get away from them). I used to bitch about roommates and my boss riding with me once a month.....wish I had that today! Ahhhh the old days.

 

How about this one: my friend's wife is Ivy undergrad, top-tier law school grad with 15 years of experience under her belt. She works for one the largest banks in NYC. She and her colleagues work in a sea of cubes. They don't worry about their boss as much as the nosy butt-kissers that try to spy on conversations and work activity.

Another friend has a boss that installed spyware, and has access to their desktops with the click of his mouse. Their New Business people, and he wants to make sure that they're always working on sales when they're in the office. These guys make 80 grand in salary (but between 80 to 250 grand in commission, depending). They get treated like bad children.

Hey, I'll take my $130 total comp if I have the kind of freedom and easy lifestyle that we have. I'm almost done with my MBA, and have my next career ready to go as soon as I get my diploma. Until then I bust my ass for Uncle Charlie Pfizer and am grateful that life is so good.

 

AMEN brother

 

Congrats! What are your career plans? I have heard horror stories from those that left during FFO, ATS, and…I can't remember the other cuts' names. I want out of this industry, but can't afford to take a huge cut in pay.

 

Onne time, at sales camp, my roomate threw up in my shoes.