Drug Reps, part Duex

** I got this information sorta second hand, so it might be wrong **
(But if it is wrong, who cares! Its about dumbass drug reps!)
So I heard today via the pharmacy grapevine about how this Rep for a reputable blood glucose monitoring machine gave another pharmacist both barrels. You can probably guess from the story below who this person works for and exactly what i’m talking about.
“But why!” you may ask. “Why would a drug rep give a pharmacist both barrels about something!”
Its because they were primarily dispensing a competitors machine, thats why. Heres the backstory.
STORY TIME! STORY TIME! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
It was a typical day in pharmacyland. The soma was flowing, valium were chirping (uhh, more like sleeping), and the patients demanded their Vicodin ES a week early because they “lost them”.
You see, this blood glucose monitor started out as a very small company. The reps were very nice, and stopped by at a somewhat regular basis to see how we were doing, etc. They would give us free machines, and pamphets, and would be in contact with our local wholesaler to make sure strip supplies were up to specs. I had his work and cell number, and whenever someone had a problem with a machine he would make sure it was right. He even paid for a huge window painting in our front window as advertisement to bring people into the store. In fact, I didnt know if he was just really really nice, or wanted to get into my angry pharmacist pants. Disturbing, but hey, cant blame him!
Anyhoo, Grade A guy from a grade A company. Small company, good service.
Then a larger company bought this small company. This company wanted to get in on the big boom of blood glucose machine. Obviously this company wasn’t happy with making products such as Depakote (heh) and making all their pills smell like jordan almonds with their tasty candy coating. This company was greedy because they already had their own brand of meter.
So our friendly rep came in, and said that he wasnt going to be our friendly rep any longer because his company was being bought out. I said goodbye to the friendly rep, and wished him well. I was sad, because I liked this small company’s machines, and they had this nifty deal called a “Value Pack” where a free machine was packaged in with 100 test strips! No more diddlying around trying to get the machine /and/ the strips to go through some douches insurance. You can just run through the 100 strips and give them the meter! I was also sad because I knew that it was a big mistake giving a ton of these machines out, and I just dropped the proverbial soap in front of this big company. My pooter was right there plum ripe for the screwing I was about to receive.
Time passes, and things don’t seem that bad. We can still get the “Value Packs”, and although we don’t have the friendly rep bringing is donuts and the foreign concept of ‘personal service’ we haven’t got screwed over (yet). We can get the strips, and our diabetic patients are happy.
(for some reason I switch into 3rd person here, i have no idea why)
Then tragity strikes. The ‘Value Packs’ get harder and harder to get. “Oh no!” said the angry pharmacist (actually it was more like “aww fuck!”) “I cant get the value packs! What if a new diabetic needs a new machine! I cant put them through calling the damn 800 number, talking with a drone and having one shipped out for me to get zero profit on but have to show how to use!”
The angry pharmacist was.. well.. angry (duh). Although he was angry, he had a plan. “I shall continue to support the patients who have this machine, but I shall find a /new/ machine to give out to the new diabetic patients!!!” and so he did. A nice rep from a small division of a larger nicer company (herein referred to as ‘small company’) came bearing gifts, a whole big box of free machines! “Hooray!” said the angry pharmacist “Where am I going to find the space to store this big box full of free machines!!”. The rep was nice, very nice, and didn’t dress like a damn skank like some other drug reps that I see once in a blue moon. Although they werent ‘value packs’, she was from a small company, and free machines were just a phone call and a UPS package away.
So fast forward a few months to the present. It turns out that the big company didn’t like us pharmacies dispensing a competitors product so they yelled at us bad pharmacists. “BAD PHARMACIST” said the angry big-company drug rep. “Here are some coupons so you can give away OUR machines for free too! Because we’re a big company and we’re SMRT like that”. The angry pharmacist was not amused. He didnt want to have to add /another/ insurance to a patients record to make 5 bucks. He was lazy, and lazy means grabbing a free machine and not having to turn it into an Rx.
Then the angry pharmacist makes another discovery. “These strips are 2/3’s the cost of the big company strips! Huzzah! Now cash paying customers wont have to take out a second mortgage to afford test strips! Free machine s, low cost test strips, AND personal service from the company? I must be in angry pharmacist heaven!” the big bad drug company didnt like that, and yelled at the poor pharmacists “BAD PHARMACIST USE OUR STRIPS THEY ARE BETTER. HAW HAW HAW”.
The End (actually I need to find out how this resolves tomorrow).
And thats pretty much it. Yeah, anticlimactic i know. However after reading this story back I cant stop laughing. Remember! This is second hand information! Well, except the big bad company, they just suck ass for stopping the value packs, thats first hand information. Actually everything is first hand except for the actual yelling by the drug rep.