Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman (31 page)

Work for Lilly? The lying sacks of shit who pushed Prozac for acne? (I made that up. Maybe.) Puh-lease. I’d rather be the head fry guy at Mickey D’s. I told Terry as much.

He gushed to me about how different selling chemotherapy drugs was compared to selling Viagra. “We only have to make three calls a day.” Instantly, he had my full attention. “The docs don’t look at us as shady sales guys, but as
consultants.
Pretty much everything is off label, because who is going to follow the FDA rules when they’re trying to save a patient with cancer?” Wow. Consultant? I’d never felt like a physician’s peer before. “Best of all? No samples!” This, I did not understand. “Chemotherapy is
poison,
dude. Reps can’t be schlepping that stuff around.”

Three calls a day as a consultant with no samples. I sent him my résumé that afternoon.

Two weeks later, I had a series of interviews in Los Angeles. None of the three managers could believe I just up and walked away from Pfizer. I shrugged and smiled, confident in my well-rehearsed answer. “I’m a
specialty
rep. That’s what I do. But by the end of my time with Pfizer, I was a specialty rep in name only; we had so many reps calling on urologists that I had nothing unique to offer. I wasn’t willing to continue working like that.”

The interviewers looked at me like I’d just admitted that my retirement plan hinged on my winning the lottery. I expected that reaction. I leaned back and crossed my hands behind my head.

“Besides, what’s keeping me in Modesto? I just turned thirty, and I’m financially set for at least a few months. I don’t have a wife or kids… when in my life am I going to be able to just drop everything and drive cross country again?”

One of the interviewers was a married father in his midthirties. Another was a single guy in his midthirties who admitted later that he had never driven cross country and, listening to me, realized he might never drive cross country.

I finished up. “So I was having fun visiting friends all over the place when my friend Terry called and told me about this incredible opportunity to be a
specialty rep
again. And here I am.”

I got the job. But not the one for which I interviewed, which was known as L.A. West; I mean, how cool does that sound? But my district manager assured me I wanted L.A. Metro.
That
did not sound cool. That sounded dangerous.

And it was. Watts and Compton both fell within the territory. But then he mentioned that L.A. Metro also covers Hawaii. I’d be required to spend one week out of every five or six in the Aloha State. “You seem like the kind of guy who’d be OK with that.” Yes, sir, yes I am. Mahalo.

I moved to Manhattan Beach in October 2000. I will not bore you with details of how great it was to live at the beach. My address read “The Strand,” which is the California word for boardwalk. Jackpot.

Work proved less fun. There were considerably fewer jokes in chemotherapy sales than in Viagra sales. But I found oncology infinitely more rewarding than my previous sales role. I sold Gemzar, a drug primarily used for first-line treatment of pancreatic and non–small cell lung cancers, and third- or fourth-line treatment in late-stage breast cancer.

We weren’t curing anybody. Instead, Gemzar treatment was intended to extend the patient’s life while palliating the symptoms. Victories were achieved when a lifelong smoker lived long enough to see his granddaughter born. I gained an everlasting respect and appreciation for the jobs medical oncologists and their nurses and staff members do every day.

My sales momentum with Pfizer carried over to Eli Lilly. My partner Jennifer and I finished my first year ranked number one in the country. The pharmaceutical future glowed bright on the horizon.

But I wasn’t happy.

I’m supposed to be a writer, damn it!

So I started writing. Kinda. I wrote in fits and starts, putting in several long sessions followed by months of inactivity. How I was ever gonna finish the book, I did not know.

I never could have guessed that my writing salvation would be delivered not by an angel from above but by one from Indianapolis: Lilly HQ. Turned out that my trips to Hawaii every five or six weeks didn’t just provide me with an enviable job; they gave me twelve hours of uninterrupted writing time. It took several visits for me to realize I was trapped on a plane. No one else determined what I did during those flights. I was the lone person deciding to nap, watch shitty movies… or write.

Finally, after years of talking a big game, I started typing.

I completed
Hard Sell
within six months, but I couldn’t find a literary agent to show interest in the manuscript. Months went by and the rejection notices piled up. I didn’t keep every letter from the start, so I only have twenty-six sit-ting in my desk as motivation. But there were plenty more.

Then on September 6, 2003, I attended the Notre Dame–Washington State game in South Bend. That date is not etched in my brain because of the Irish’s historic comeback from a nineteen-point deficit, or due to the fact that my cousin Mike got me thrown—literally, tossed “like a slab of meat”—out of the Linebacker Lounge, the most famous bar in South Bend. No, that first Saturday in September holds a place of permanent prominence because a friend started me on the path to publishing.

It had been two years since Ed Trifone (he of the dog allergy that I cured with a Zyrtec sample) and I last spoke when I joined him standing at the bar in the Backer. As
we caught up on things, he asked about the book. I just shook my head. “Can’t get an agent—can’t get published. Not looking good.”

Ed begged me to give him the manuscript so he could send it to Kathy Andrews, co-owner of Andrews McMeel Publishing in Kansas City. She was on the Notre Dame board of directors, and Ed knew her from his stint in the alumni office. I thanked him for the offer and explained that if everybody who knew somebody at a publisher sent that employee an unsolicited manuscript, then every publisher would require an extra warehouse to store all the pages that would never get read.

But Ed insisted. He wouldn’t let it go. Finally, I relented. It was easier to send him the manuscript than it was to discourage him. As expected, he got no response from the publisher.

Two weeks later, Eli Lilly made the same fateful mistake Pfizer had made back in 1998; they promoted me. But this time, I became a field-based sales trainer. The irony was not lost on me: The slacker who once spent three days in London when Pfizer thought he was selling in Fort Wayne, Indiana, was now a shaper of young pharmaceutical minds.

My training territory ran from Los Angeles to Cleveland. Working with two reps per week, I spent nearly as much time in the air as I did on the ground. I flew out at six a.m. on Monday morning and returned late Tuesday night, and then I flew out at six a.m.
Thursday morning and returned on Friday evening. This crazy schedule—most field trainers stay out for four days in a row—enabled me to be home on Wednesday nights for my coed flag football league. My mother commented, “No wonder you’re single! Who wants to marry someone who sets up his calendar around flag football?”

I loved being a trainer. Best job I ever had. I still miss it.

In January 2004, I got a call from Andrews McMeel. Christine “Chris” Schillig, the editor, told me they wanted to publish my book. My mom called it “another Notre Dame miracle.”

I nearly quit my job immediately following the publication offer. Chris begged me not to. “Jamie, rarely do writers make enough money to be full-time authors. Please keep your good-paying day job and wait to see what happens.” I love that woman. You see, unless you’re Jessica Lynch just back from Iraq, it takes a year to publish a book.

For starters, I had a lot of revising to do. Chris Schillig is one patient woman. Fortunately, Eli Lilly once again helped me out, as my constant flying to sales-training gigs gave me ample time to complete my rewrites in the air.

Working on the book with the publisher made it seem real, but I couldn’t forget that I still had a day job. Every time I saw the Indianapolis 317 area code on caller ID, I panicked—I was certain that my secret was about
to blow up in my face. My parents begged me to use a pseudonym and remove any identifying specifics (Fresno, etc.) from the text, thus allowing me to continue living my comfortable lifestyle risk-free. But my egomania would never allow that; critically acclaimed or panned, I wanted the world to know Jamie Reidy authored
Hard Sell.
Frighteningly, everyone nearly found out way sooner than I wanted.

In November 2004, I went on a second date with a brunette bombshell named Amanda. She told me she’d read all about me and my book on the Internet. I nearly spit my drink all over her blouse. “H-h-how?!”

She explained that after our first date she went home and Googled me, an action that, at the time, was fairly new. But it convinced her I wasn’t a serial killer, so she agreed to go out with me again. At the conclusion of our second date, I raced home and Googled myself. Sure enough, the outside PR firm Andrews McMeel hired to promote the book had posted a “coming soon” page on its Web site. Sweat poured out of every pore in my body. I fired off a panicked e-mail to Chris. Fortunately, the PR firm took down the Web page before anyone at Lilly found it.

Soon after, my close friend and attorney Patrick Sweeney set up a meeting for me at the Gersh Agency, Hollywood’s second oldest firm. I met with Steve Kravit and Amy Schiffman, attorney and agent, respectively, to discuss their representing me to sell the movie rights to
my book. That seemed highly unlikely to me, but the three of us clicked, and I signed with Gersh.

When the first copy of
Hard Sell
arrived in the mail, I just sat there and stared at the book as I turned it over and over in my hands for ten minutes. I simply couldn’t help it. On the phone with my mother, I said, “This must be what newly engaged women feel like.”

Andrews McMeel shipped
Hard Sell
to bookstores at the beginning of March 2005. From my friends’ reactions, I immediately learned two important rules that every author should know: Anyone you mention in the book will complain about how she was portrayed, and anyone you fail to mention in the book will complain about how he was not portrayed at all.

With the book on shelves, the clock continued to tick down on my Eli Lilly career. I knew I was done. Either the company would pay me a lot of money to go away quietly, or it would fire me—and thus create publicity that would help push book sales. I just didn’t know which way Lilly would go.

I told my former sales partner about the publication because I liked him a lot and didn’t want him to get blindsided. He chuckled knowingly and said, “Reidy, did you just fuck it up for all of us?”

Amazingly, the company’s higher-ups didn’t learn about the book until I informed them of its existence in an FYI e-mail on Friday, March 4, 2005. I e-mailed my boss (West Area manager) and his boss (head of the
Oncology Division) and cc’ed the Oncology Division’s HR person the following message: “Wanted to let you know that I have published a book that will be coming out in the next week or so.
Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman
chronicles my five years at Pfizer and the craziness of selling Viagra.” Completely true, but admittedly not entirely forthcoming.

My boss did not write back.

The HR lady answered, “Wow—congratulations, Jamie! I will have to look for it.” My lawyer told me to print that out and keep it someplace safe.

The head of the Oncology Division responded, “I didn’t know you were writing a book. I better get a free copy!” Again, my lawyer advised printing the e-mail.

My boss, however, actually went to
Amazon.com
and did some research. He did not like what he read online. He
really
didn’t like what he read when the book arrived at his house. Word quickly spread from there.

A friend of mine who worked inside HQ in Indianapolis told me she had heard that executives at other pharmaceutical companies started phoning their Lilly counterparts, asking why they’d let “that asshole” publish a book. This prompted Lilly officials to start calling downhill asking, “That asshole works for us?” I have no idea whether that story is true, but I like to think it is.

On Monday, March 21, management pulled me out of the field. They flew me to HQ for a meeting to take place on Thursday, March 25.

Across the table from me sat a company attorney, an HR exec, and my boss. They spent the better part of two hours telling me that I was an unemployable scumbag who would never work again. The best thing I could do for everyone involved would be to take their piddling severance offer of four months’ salary in exchange for signing a nondisclosure agreement.

I refused. They told me I was crazy, but they didn’t know what I knew.

See, Lilly’s Scumbag Squad had no idea that the pharmaceutical beat reporters from the
New York Times,
the Associated Press, and CNBC were all waiting to hear from me. A guy I didn’t even know, Peter Rost, a former Pfizer VP and whistle-blower, tipped off those media members about my possible firing. The reporters could
not
believe I was ballsy enough—or stupid enough!—to actually publish the book while still employed by the pharma-ceutical industry, and they were intrigued by the idea that Lilly would axe me and risk the potential media attention.

All three of these savvy professionals felt sure the company would simply pay me to resign and go away quietly. To paraphrase: “They don’t want to give you any more publicity than you’d get normally. And who knows what you can reveal about the way Eli Lilly does business! But call me if they are dumb enough to fire you.”

Big-shot friends of mine at huge companies in other industries sought the opinions of their HR executives.
What would we do if we had to deal with a wild-card author like this?
The answers were universal: Pay the asshole to disappear. Now, the amounts each company would be willing to fork over in exchange for an airtight nondisclosure agreement varied from two years’ to five years’ salary.