lars bildman memories!

Discussion in 'AstraZeneca' started by Anonymous, Mar 3, 2007 at 11:05 AM.

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  1. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Anyone still with AZ from old Astra days. Westboro, MA and sales meetings in Ft. Lauderdale? Those were the days.

    Nothing better than watching some drunk Swede running down the hall after a hottie.

    Any memories?
     

  2. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Ah - the Bonaventure Hotel. I can remember everyone jumping in the pool with their bonus checks, which in 1989 AVERAGED $65000. Meg D in Dallas made $110k. The blue plaid suit with shorts was my favorite.
     
  3. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Lars did dress like he was slightly mental, but I did like his work motto...8 hours of work, 8 hours of sleep and 8 hours of play. He always had a tableful of talent at those meetings.

    Nothing like giving a bunch of young reps their bonus checks in Ft. Lauderdale. Next stop...Doll House with upper management, a handful of hotties and a couple of guys who thought outloud....'this situation is making me uncomfortable...'

    M. Lacey still around? How about F. Salopek?
     
  4. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    All but a tiny few of the best pharma selling team ever are gone!!! OR the new AZ ran them off because they cant compete. Sure, lars had his issues with the ladies and he paid the price, but selling is selling and that's not what AZ does anymore. Sad
     
  5. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Too bad....we did some good selling and great partying. Sewed many a wild oat at the Westboro Marriott. I really loved the 'finishing school' class that we had there. All about table manners, etc. Actually, very valuable in this industry. I wish they would offer it to the doctors that we call on. They are a bunch of social misfits.

    But 2 words I will never miss.....'unannounced coaching.'
     
  6. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    how about when lars came into a meeting in a rain coat and a goofy hat just off a plane, looked even more like a clown

    I liked the orange suits which he wore before he was issued a MA state issued orange suit

    how about having to watch him play tennis and the way the linemen were just praying there would be no close calls

    remember when we thought he was a great leader w/ a great business mind..marketing warfare and SPIN

    but somebody tell me, where is he now? please
     
  7. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    1st is better than BEST. Practice does not make perfect.....PERFECT practice makes perfect.
     
  8. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Ohhhh, the M. Lacey days. He was my DM. Could be fun to work with, but he definitely had a nasty side. F. Salopek? How about G. Hess? I'll never forget when M. Nagle hit the car in front of him at the airport, while waving goodbye to Lacey. So happy to drop him off, that he totally didn't pay attention, from what I understand. That story still makes me laugh to this day.
     
  9. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Here's one for you. I had a feeling that my DM was going to ride with me, so I called the local hotels (I was on an overnight, and there weren't many hotels in the area), and asked for M. Lacey. First place I called, the desk clerk connected me to his room. Totally busted him! I hung up, of course, but at least I was mentally prepared for himi when I walked into my hospital the following morning.
     
  10. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    holy god. i'm was old astra and was looking at the boards and saw the lars name pop up this morning. are any of those boneheads like salopek or lacey still around ? Salpoek used to brag abut making sales calls in hosp while his wife was in same hosp having baby or somethng. What a tool.

    Fricken SPIN this muthuh F. funny thng is that spin actually works in real life too...never forget that...problem was that they made it a stiff script instead of framework. Loved that place.

    how many astra usa folks still around there ? Any astra usa folks still in field roles?

    wow.
     
  11. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    I'm no longer with the company, and am not in touch with anyone there any more. I was peeking around and found Bildman's name and couldn't help but post. I was in Salopek's initial training class. He was in the first office-based group of reps (I got a hospital position). Gained 40 lbs in training. Believe it or not, he was really funny in training. Kind of a goof off. Sorry to hear he turned out to be a Lacey clone. I ran into a couple of old ASTRA reps w/other pharma companies, in upper manangement positions. I also ran into Paul Dimattia at the Phoenix AZ airport of all places. He's still with the company.

    How about the canned sales presentations. Were you there then, before SPIN training? We used to get these 10 page scripts we were supposed to memorize and present at the sales meetings. Awful.
     
  12. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    No doubt that so many of you had so much fun in "the good old days"...right!The good old days when your pack of trained monkeys played and did little else, while Prilosec made a ton of money in spite of your in-ability to sell, or do anything beyond harrassing females and going to strip clubs. Oh yeah, you also loved people who dressed funny and screwed their female employees so they could keep their jobs.

    Meanwhile, Zeneca was driving virtually every product they marketed into the number one position in its' class...including beta blockers, anti-estrogens, ace's, etc,. and was considered (even by the president of Merck) as the finest sales force in the business.

    It was only after the purchase of Astra by Zeneca (it was not a merger), that Zeneca for some strange reason gave the U.S. sales management over to Astra, that everything that was good about the company began to fall apart, and eventually become the disaster of a company that AstraZeneca is today. Thanks to all of you guys for all the crap that you bequested to us. Thanks a lot!
     
  13. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest


    Holy cow, where did that come from? Why do you have to be so angry? This was back before there was any hint of a merger w/Zeneca. This was when Zeneca was still Stuart, sellilng Diprivan. Yeesh.
     
  14. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest


    Angry...yes, because Zeneca (Stuart -ICI) was once a great place to work - until Astra showed its' ugly face...
    and statements like the one above - by idiots who don't even know that Diprovan was an Abbott product, not ours, and that shortly after Diprivan was pulled, our company picked up and resurrected Cipro and made it number one again after Bayer had virtually given up on it. Proving again that we were still the best sales team in the industry. Becoming "partners" with Astra was the ruination of a great company...that's why we're angry!
     
  15. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Old Astra here.........

    Yes, I do not miss the 'unannounced coaching', but damn we were a great selling force. Well trained, well compensated, and computer reporting kept to a minimum.

    Lars, what funny memories....Does anyone remember when at a meeting in Boston, at the annual tennis match, someone , made a career altering move by beating Lars? lol Or, when in Ft. Lauderdale , the dance contest between Lars and a 'woman', and two new reps, who won, left Lars very upset???

    I remeber walking through the lobby of the Westborough Marriott ( otherwise known as Astra US Training Brothel lol ) and there sitting in a purple suit, and orange loafers, was Lars, who I had never met. He just smiled and stared ( yes ,I am female), and I commented to my walking partner, " That damn European must be color blind'!
    Later that afternoon, who walks in session, and sits down next to me? Lars!

    How about the white Ice Cream dinner suit???

    Fun days..............
     
  16. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    I was hoping that after Astra had its legal troubles in the mid 90's that they would relax some of their neurosis. Everything I read from Cafepharma speaks otherwise. I see your point. I'd be bitter too. Heck. I was bitter as hell after I left that company, and still to this day have flashbacks of the bullsh%t. On to the bigger and better. Too bad you can't drop that lead weight and find a company who treats you right. Your whole life will change as a result.
     
  17. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    I was hoping that Astra would straighten up after their legal issues in the mid 90's, but I guess they haven't. I read the Cafepharma board posts and see a lot of unhappy reps. It's a shame, that's for sure. That's no way to run a company. I don't know why they continue to treat their employees like expendable commodities. Hang in. There are better companies out there. Perhaps you should shop around. You seem to have a TON of tenure w/AZ, but perhaps at this point quality of life outweighs other things??
     
  18. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest


    I'll say we were a good selling force. I think we were better trained than most of the other reps.

    More stuff:
    I remember Lars wearing knee-high long-haired fur boots and a fur coat into the office one time when I was there for sales training.

    OH! Remember the big water feature in the bottom floor of the pyramid? He had clear plastic boxes placed in the water so that they couldn't be seen, and walked out in them and stood in the center of the water as if he was "walking on water". Kinda says it all. Amazing.

    Also, I was president's club one year, and all of the winners sat at his table at the sales meeting. He was hanging on the chair of one of the other winners, commenting on her rhinestone barrette saying that he could put "real diamonds in her hair" if they were "together". True story.
     
  19. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Ah, living in the past that you can never reclaim.
    Must be some way to live the present.
     
  20. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Marriott Harbor Beach Hotel; February 1996, roughly three months before the Business Week article blew the lid off the whole sordid mess. Thursday night banquet. We had been hearing rumors since November 1995 about ex-USAers getting calls and being asked specific detailed questions.

    About 9:30 LB takes the podium and delivers perhaps his finest drunken ramble of all time. "THey are out to get us". Best speech I ever heard. Remember how no one dared get up to pee while he spoke? I did not get a chance to rid my water before the speech and I'm pretty sure I tinkled myself laughing during that speech. Simply the best.