They have doctors working for them in sales. They don't sound happy

Discussion in 'MediMedia' started by Anonymous, Apr 1, 2011 at 3:46 PM.

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  1. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Found this by googling. They put doctors on e-detailing. What will they think of next?? They call them physician advisors or something. Looks like they're screwing them over. Makes you feel lucky to be a field rep. I'd stay a mile away from this company!




    "Pros
    -Medical degree and an American accent is all you need to get hired.
    -Previous job experience is not necessary.
    -You can leave your job temporarily and get rehired easily, revolving door.
    -Flexible schedules.
    Cons
    - Job candidates are misled and not given a clear idea of what the job entails when hired.
    -Micromanagement on a microscopic level. Employees are watched, recorded, assessed and measured continually in an unfair manner.
    -Call center atmosphere, no cell-phones, no talking and you have to ask permission for a bathroom break.
    -Zero chance for job growth or opportunities, employees are treated as transients.
    - Extremely passive/aggressive and hostile work environment. Management acts fake and they freely lie.
    -Office gossip and unprofessional behavior is rampant.
    -Unhealthy competition, jealousy and backstabbing is the norm here. The walls have ears.
    -Physicians are expected to talk like pharmaceutical sales reps. Not allowed to speak like a real physician and speak off-label or off the script.
    -Company has questionable ethical practices, will do anything to make a buck.
    -Projects seem to not have no clear direction/plan.
    -Nature of the work is VERY monotonous and extremely illogical. Calling 100s of doctor's offices everyday??? They don't want to talk to you!!
    -Department specific strict rules are enforced like a prison environment. Other dept. do not follow the same rules.
    -The most strict dress code than anywhere else in the company.
    -It is a fear-driven machine. Submission is the only way an employee will survive here. This leads to perpetual cynicism towards management.
    -Management puts unreasonable expectations on the Physicians. Their goals for numbers are unreachable and unrealistic.
    -The only one motivation to do the work is for FEAR of losing your job.
    -Teamwork is clearly discouraged, employees are not even allowed to interact with one another. Thinking like an individual and feedback is also ignored.
    -Physicians are exploited according to their individual talents.
    -Physicians are not given opportunities for full time positions. That = no employee benefits as well. All other positions throughout the company are offered benefits and career promotions.
    -Extremely high turnover rate, employer takes full advantage of a bad job market and an overflowing pool of candidates desperate for a paycheck. They USE people with no mercy till they burnout and can’t take it anymore.
    -Management shows clear favoritism towards certain employees. Their requests are the only ones fulfilled.
    -A very select few are chosen for important projects like "video-detail" (inbound calls). The rest are relegated to "phone-detail" (outbound calls) with limited opportunity to advance. Very unfair.
    -Certain employees are overloaded with work but the low part-time salary still applies.
    -Job requires a medical degree but the pay as that of an associate degree salary. The salary is nowhere near fair competitive compensation for doctorate degree holders.
    -There is no such thing as bonuses or commission here, you are selling for free! The company reaps the profits.
    -Training is extremely inadequate, employees rely on educational background to train themselves. There is no one with any kind of science or pharmacy background. They are just salespeople.
    -Zero communication, information sharing and knowledge with management.
    -No warnings about important changes or updates in a timely manner. Many employees kept in the dark.
    -Individuals in management not looking to change methodology and real business growth. They seem more interested in keeping their jobs and getting a fat paycheck above all else.
    -Spontaneous massive layoffs can occur at anytime with no warning.
    -Projects are set up for failure by salespeople who deliver false promises. When things tank the blame game begins.
    -Other employees in this company with less qualifications make much more money.
    -Employees from other departments are extremely unfriendly.
    -ALL executive decisions are made to benefit the company at the expense of putting employees at a disadvantage.
    -Many people in management obtain position purely because of tenure and influence vs. real qualifications, ability, talent and experience. None of these people have done the job of physician advisor and know how to do the job.
    -Senior management looks down on the Physicians in a condescending manner.
    -Job offers no resume credibility for a future medical career.
    -Very limited recognition and praise.
    -Very incompetent management on various levels. Many managers are totally detached from the department and just read the numbers delivering ignorant criticism. Who is Steve Simcox?? I dare him to spend a day in this department.

    - The most relieving day is the day you leave this job. There is much, much more to list but this list is already exhaustive and meant to give disclosure to Physicians who may be considering a position here. You have been warned.
    Advice to Senior Management
    -The entire company needs to change management top to bottom. In terms of the Physician department it needs a total revamp in the way it approaches it's projects. Calling medical offices while physicians are attending to patients is a formula that Medimedia knows doesn't work and they are not willing to change. As a fellow physician you don't want to annoy a fellow physician, it's not right.

    -The work environment makes it a place that makes you daydream about where you actually want to be someday. And that place is not MediMedia"
     

  2. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Wow.... Spend hundreds of thousands on your MD degree and become a sales rep......What a joke! Are these guys that desperate?
     
  3. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Residency spots are competitive and if they miss a match for a particular year they have to wait till the next year. Yes they are desperate.
     
  4. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Yes residencies are competitive...BUT the better one's get placed. By the way, are you telling me the people handling the phones are those that just graduated med school? I thought they were actual MD's.....Now that gives me confidence that they can actually have a detailed conversation with an MD who has been practicing for a while. Even a practiving PA or NP would have more experience than the MD's you guys are hiring. Hmmmmmmmmm Must be another case of smoke and mirrors I guess.
     
  5. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Funny how when the truth comes out...people hide!
     
  6. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    I’m also a doctor that worked at this hell. Some of us needed some part-time money while we studied for board exams. I'm in internal medicine now. It's not about who is better/smarter. But it is true that recent med students may be book-smart but don't have the experience of a NP or PA.

    I have to say that whoever wrote that piece of literature up there has sheer genius! Hahaha! Hard to believe but it is entirely accurate. The place is run by totally unqualified moronic minions. They didn’t care about anything but watching numbers and keeping their own jobs. The whole place is a sham, we never did any real work. You call a doctor’s office ACTING like another doctor so you can get through. Then annoy them because they’re doing something important like….I dunno….treating a PATIENT maybe?? Lol. Then you give them a salespitch for some drug you wouldn’t give your dog. Then, the doctor yells back at you for interrupting their life-saving work, proceeds to insult you for using your medical degree to be a salesman and finally hangs up on you. Great way to build your self-esteem!! How is this good business?? If someone called my office like that I’d make SURE to barricade anything they’d offer in the future!

    It’s a wonder why a big drug company would ever sign a deal with them. Some of the doctors that are talked to are PAID to hear your salespitch!!! They get Amazon points or something. Anti-kickback anyone? Lol. Perhaps that’s just the pharma way, too much money to play with lol….Surely there is a conspiracy going on and one day they’ll be caught for sure, I’ll read about it in the papers sometime.

    But really, the workplace was like jail. They were all nice in the beginning, after awhile, I got it. They treated MDs like trash because they think that’s the best way to keep them in check. Just because the economy is bad and we couldn’t find jobs elsewhere, that’s no reason to disrespect people. Everyone was scared to complain. You couldn’t even GOT TO THE BATHROOM! The place was totally run like a sweat-shop. Just take a look at the obvious racial segregation. The department had 100% minorities. There’s were no minorities anywhere else above. Umm……nuff said!
     
  7. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Is it any wonder why IMS is failing big time and their days are truly numbered. In 2012 they will go the way of companies like Burroughs Wellcome, Parke-Davis, Ciba - Geigy....Yes, they way of the dinosaur!
     
  8. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Yep, I've worked here too. Everything said is spot on. One more word to describe the place....

    RACIST!!!

    If you are Indian or Pakistani, run for your life! The place is a sweat-shop. lol!
     
  9. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Whats the difference? I heard they are in BIG trouble and will soon be going under! They continue to have many layoffs and the door will soon be hitting everyone on the ass. End result, clients will get screwed again and the employees will be out of work.
     
  10. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    They are going down! I'm yelling timber!

    This company is cash strapped. They haven't paid their employees bonuses and there is no date set for when bonuses will be paid. But supposedly the bonuses are coming. They blame a coupon program that they ran that cost millions of dollars and the pharmaceutical company hasn't paid. Have these ding dongs heard of getting paid in milestones? Who is the genius that thought it would be a good idea to wait to get paid after the program was completed.

    Yesterday, they sent out a notice to employees that they will be suspending the company match portion of the 401(k) savings.

    Winner!
     
  11. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Hahaha! Wow! What a blast from the past to read this stuff. I'd like to give gold medal to this posting, it is so true about what went on here in this sham of a "company". I'm also one of the doctors that worked in this place years ago. It was more of a revolving door if anything.

    Somebody asked about why an MD would work here and why they are not working in a hospital. The reason is because if you graduated from a US school you get priority placement in a residency. If you graduated from a school outside the US (i.e. Carribean, India, etc.) you have to fight for the remaining leftover spots. Only 50% get in every year because these spots are limited. So it is not necessarily true that doctors who apply and don't get in are no good, it's just how it works. If you don't get in one year you have to wait a whole year till the next match. This leaves 1000s of people in limbo and unemployed trying to make ends meet in life, pay bills and loans. One thing that never gets attention is unemployed doctors, but there really is such thing. And being that there is a shortage of fully licensed board certified doctors is the saddest fact of all. But that is a different topic.

    Here is the ironic thing: NOBODY anywhere will hire people like us. You are always told you are overqualified and under-experienced and they don't want to hire on a temporary basis. The sad thing is that it is untapped potential that could be put to good use. That's where this company came into play. They are the only place that hired these types of people specifically. In that way, this concept was very smart. But that is where the smart part ended. It could have all been done a better way. But it wasn't.

    This company signs contracts with pharma companies to have these doctors call practicing doctors at their offices. So essentially they used doctors as telemarketters. By the way, in case you didn't know, doctors make lousy telemarketters if you could imagine, lol. So the basic idea is this: You call a targetted doctor's office. Tell whoever picks up the phone "Hi, this is Dr. XXX, can I talk to Dr. XXX?". The smart ones say they will take a message, this is where you say "No that's OK I'll call back". While you/your colleagues harass them 4x/day. Other unfortunate times the call gets put through and you wait on hold and clench your sphincters. Meanwhile the other doctor who is with a patient drops everything and runs to the phone for what he thinks is an emergency call. When he comes on you say "Hi Dr. XXX, this is Dr. XXX with XXX pharma company...." usually by the 2nd-3rd sentence you get BLASTED to the moon by the doctor (sometimes lectured) and hung up on. Then you fill in a checkbox in the computer saying mission complete. Hahaha. Yes, this really how it happened, this is how it worked.

    So why would the pharma companies pay stupid money for this??? Beats me. HAHAHA. Wow. This is sales and marketting? The end result ended up exactly REVERSE from what they expected. This did not increase scripts being written by doctors, they hated and rejected the companies we claimed to be calling from. How stupid can people be to be fooled to think this might work? This whole place was a building full of people BSing to keep a job and a paycheck. There was no real kind of work going on. One department with project managers fooled the pharma companies to sign contracts with goals that were a lie and obviously unreachable. Then a separate department was expected to do the work and deliver. And everyone was fooling each other. Obviously this was a recipe for failure.

    Of course they didn't need to use doctors to do this kind of work, but they HAD to use them because this is the only way they could get the pharma companies on board. They were the only ones offering this kind of "service" to use doctors to talk to doctors. If they could have lied about that too they would have and paid people less. (Not to say they really paid well at all.) Once a doctor seemed burned out and used or not good enough to them they would replace them. There was a reason why the job was always listed as available on their website. They would always have a ready pool of desperate and willing people to fill seats at their whim. They hire only kids who grew up in the US with perfect English, but they don't say that out loud. Managers would do rounds of group interviews every couple months. Pretty much gave them work to do to in order to show their bosses that they were acting busy.

    I can't end this without mentioning the 2 geniuses that ran this department. I won't be so mean to mention their names even though it would be only fair to do so for all the people they have USED and crap they have put people through. The lady who was manager here was the queen of all micromanagers. She would come up out of nowhere randomly and get up in your business 24/7. The whole place was always on the lookout for her. She'd investigate the bathroom and break rooms. She was more of a babysitter than a manager. She tried to act friendly but it is nothing but passive aggression. She was actually quite a merciless dragon and expected only obedient scared robots to work for her. All she ended up with is people that despised her. She always seemed to be anxious and stressed out. Not a good way to get productivity and motivate people. Because of this people always looked for a way to do the minimum out of spite.

    Then the other person who was a so called "trainer" was the biggest joke of all. She did no kind of training. How she ever landed this job, I'll never know. She was the definition of "unqualified". She would just read xeroxed stuff from the company out loud because that's about all she knew how to do. She had no idea about any of the products at all in any way. She pretty much has never had nothing to do with any kind of science in her life. So nobody was ever prepared for any product and you would pretty much learn everything the hard way. She hardly knows how to work a computer. So that part you're on your own to figure out. People pretty much ended training themselves. That lady's only goal was to find a way to keep her job the whole time she was there. It was the only thing she worried about. Funny thing is that there was nobody keeping her in check. The end result is that people ended up being "trained", but duh, you are working with doctors. So this is really a cakewalk compared to the complexity they are used to, so they figure it out. So basically the doctors would carry her lazy ass to make her look good. And lazy she was, like wow. The only positive thing I can say about her is that she was the slightly more "good cop" than the other "bad cop". Nothing more than the lesser of 2 evils.

    Who is mentioning bonuses, 401k, etc.? lol. Yea, no. That's the way the rest of the company works, not in this department. Everyone was part-time. ZERO benefits, no bonuses, no awards, no recognition, no promotions. Nothing. They were not there to help us for anything. You did it for a PT temporary job, for a paycheck. Not a career.

    So is it any mystery at all that this place in NJ has imploded last year? I hear everyone lost their job and the office has shut down. Everyone knew it was inevitable running around like chickens all day. How it lasted 10yrs is the biggest mystery. Any employee looking to work with this company in any other office (Yardley) is making a mistake. Any pharma company wanting to do business with MediMedia is looking to throw money in the trash. Why it has any kind of reputation is beyond me. It should be exposed for the fraud it is. I am so glad to be working in a different more ethical field now. Back then it was hell but at least now I can look back and have a good laugh.
     
  12. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    ^^cont.

    Oh yea one last funny detail.

    There was this old grandpa guy who had an office next to the manager. No one quite had an idea why or what he was doing there including himself. He would come in on random days like once a week at random times and leave when he felt like. He seemed like he owned the place or he was a manager there but he really wasn't. He had no official position/title and I don't think he was even paid as a real employee there. He had nothing to do with anything and did no kind of real work. I think he would monitor our calls, do job interviews, or sit in silently at our meetings but I don't know why. It was of no benefit. Maybe he was a salesman back in the day but he knew nothing about our work. Perhaps he was a retired guy that wanted to still feel like he was doing something productive. Funny how he is allowed into a secure building around "confidential" materials then. Maybe he was undercover FBI.

    If you are a guy he would totally ignore you. If you were a somewhat attractive girl he would troll/creep around your cube every time he walked past and have a mundane convo about nothing. Somehow these disruptions were deemed OK because they were very important. lol. Even though anything we did (like use a bathroom) was ever "allowed". So this flirting seems the only reason this guy came to "work". Those were the only names this guy knew in the department. I don't think he knew anyone else there or cared to.

    Just another weird quirk about this place. Mystery "employees".