The New Reality of (what's left of) Merck Employees

anonymous · Jul 21, 2022 at 5:58 PM

I was let go in 2010. This is probably one of the best posts ever on this forum that explains the demise of a once great company. Who could forget the "burning" platform at the end of the 2000s? That was a signal for things to come. You are right about the protected classes and the people that were underhandedly pushed out of the company for made up reasons. And shame on the people that put their head up their asses acting nothing odd was happening.

anonymous · Jul 22, 2022 at 2:37 AM

anonymous said: ↑

I was let go in 2010. This is probably one of the best posts ever on this forum that explains the demise of a once great company. Who could forget the "burning" platform at the end of the 2000s? That was a signal for things to come. You are right about the protected classes and the people that were underhandedly pushed out of the company for made up reasons. And shame on the people that put their head up their asses acting nothing odd was happening.
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anonymous · Aug 10, 2022 at 9:09 AM

anonymous said: ↑

The Vioxx debacle, as stated earlier, was Merck's jugular. They knew 'tis drug was poison from the get go. Yet proceeded to sell and kill people up until the day ot was pulled. Merck was never the same after that. Drs.lost all trust and reps lost all respect for this once great company. I was ashamed to leave my home.
I took this situation as an opportunity to get the hell out of
this despicable company and negotiated a fat severance to keep me from becoming a whistleblower. I was 60 and ready to retire, and didn't want all the pressure of a legal battle and got a tidy sum. Certainly not the millions I probably would have received, but with my pension, 401k, and the severance, I and my family are set for generations of financial security,
I simply screwed them before they screwed me.
I feel bad for you and hope you find happiness someday. Merck isn't worth it. It's a shitty company run by shitty people, and I hope it meets its demise soon.
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It did meet irs demise, but was then bought out by schering

anonymous · Nov 20, 2022 at 7:28 AM

I've been watching CafePharma for many years. This is the best post I've read yet.

anonymous · Apr 23, 2023 at 7:19 PM

anonymous said: ↑

Reading the posts about Merck's retirement musings led me to write this. It's time to acknowledge the reality…and Ken Frazieris not going to like what I have to say.

Over the last 12-13 years, Merck has actively minimized it's long-term costs by directly laying off tens of thousands of employees and also "encouraging" the departure of tens of thousands more. At the start of this mess, those in "protected groups" (an actual legal term) technically included employees over 40, but the white males had very little chance of successful age discrimination claims unless they were over 50 when they were pressured out. Hence, Merck was hesitant to target for removal those employees over fifty, in general, as those law suits would have made getting rid of those employees very expensive. Thus, we now have a much older sales force (average age is 51), with a smattering of contract reps and some very young reps that make very little and have virtually no impact on long-term costs (no pension for you!). So, those that were older back then are now retiring employees who are reaching that coveted goal, but it is indeed a shrinking group.

As a former senior manager, I can assure you that this is all true and accurate. Merck's demise began with the fall of Vioxx and was accelerated with the greatest series of R&D failures in pharmaceutical history. In short, Merck is where it is by its own accord. It's sad that more than half of the company's employees have been separated since then, with only a fraction having been replaced at a much smaller cost to the company, all because this company was so horribly managed.

As others have indicated, it is truly tragic that Merck's "leadership" has profited mightily since this all began.The billions of dollars (literally) paid to those executives who conceived and implemented the plan to sever the financial ---and often mental---health of our own fellow employees could have been used to soften the blow to those former employees and their families considerably. Instead, Merck's "leaders" have quietly enriched themselves while destroying countless lives with reckless abandon. It is truly shameful.

The anonymous nature of this forum affords me the opportunity to share this with you. Most of us with legal exposure to sharing information like this simply take their cash and drift away. I simply can't fail to acknowledge that thousands of very good people were made to look guilty as they were dismissed or, more often, pressured to quit by very underhanded means. It is a disgraceful organization.
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anonymous · Apr 23, 2023 at 7:23 PM

"Disgraceful" is the best description of our esteemed employer I've seen yet. A history of deception and---literally---murder (Yes, two of the Vioxx fatalities were patients of my physician customers. And I was the one responsible for encouraging them to trust our product in their patients). And they've gotten away with it.

The New Reality of (what's left of) Merck Employees

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