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I use to peddle pharmaceuticals. I sold a boat load of haloperidol to a psychiatric hospital my first week on the job. The lady sounded fat and annoyed when I asked her if she needed to restock. Hoping to woo her I skipped the Freudian / Jungian trivia and went straight to the crazy cousin. She told me how to sort him out and then bought five thousand doses of anti-psychotic.
(Later that same cousin, who really isn’t crazy at all just very clever in the ways of making you think he is, would mock me: “You spent four years in school just to sell drugs? Sheeeeet, I can do that without a degree”.)
My big break came with Pfizer. I was working through lunch when I took the call. A European distributor wanted a quote on Viagra. “One million please.” I crossed my legs as I figured up 5% of one million $7 tablets, gave him the info in a super sexy voice (Momma didn’t raise no fool) and then chatted to him about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and how “yes, of course I look EXACTLY like Sarah Michelle Gellar“.
My manager shot me down “No way can we supply that.” So I went straight to the VP – on temporary relocation from San Fran. “Do it,” he said. So I did it. I sold $7 million dollars worth of Viagra to a Swedish dude named Magnus.
Too bad for me, and really awful for Magnus, he was killed in a plane crash a week later. While his office was busy reassigning his accounts I had to catch my own jet plane to London and a postgrad program. I could have hung around and waited on Magnus’s successor. Took the money and danced like Cuba Gooding all the way to the bank. I didn’t. To this day I couldn’t tell you why. Honest to goodness.
I know I made the right decision. No doubt about it. A gorgeous set of brown eyes tells me this every day. But I’d be lying if I said I never think about a Swede named Magnus……….and a whole lotta Viagra.
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“I sold $7 million dollars worth of Viagra to a Swedish dude named Magnus.”
This is a sentence I’ve never expected to read in my life. I am thrilled that you not only typed it, but LIVED it.
Comment by Jess R 06.16.06 @ 21:56Hi Buffy
So very likely someone else sold his successor a boatload of viagra…and danced like Cuba Gooding all the way to the bank…
Comment by Dagoth 06.17.06 @ 1:27Oh my goodness! That’s a healthy commission! I could do some damage (and some good) with that check.
Comment by Steph 06.17.06 @ 3:14Dagoth, I imagine the VP was the one doing the dancing ….because he didn’t have to pay commission at all.
Comment by Buffy 06.17.06 @ 8:05Hi Buffy
I guess I’m missing the point of why you feel good about yourself looking in the mirror. You gave up on a sale because Magnus died? If I die, I’m sure my co-workers will feel bad, but continue to fill orders. Was the price or the commission you were charging excessive? Wasn’t their companies plans to double the price and turn around and sell it. I owned a bar and one of my regulars died. We all felt bad and went to the funeral, closing the bar for a couple hours. Afterwards many of the people came to my bar and drank in his honor. I didn’t give the beer away, and nobody expected me to.
Comment by Dagoth 06.17.06 @ 13:54Dagoth – I had no qualms about taking the money. But if I waited for it to come through I would have missed out on other things….like the “gorgeous brown eyes” – they belong to someone else you see. 
So there is some boy running around Europe with $7 million worth of Viagra?
Hmmmm…..
xoxo
silly
Comment by silly 06.18.06 @ 4:22Okay, this story is nearly like 4d’s stories, so unbelievable they need to be on TV!!!! You are definitely with the right man, however the path went that lead you to him.
Happy Father’s Day. . . thinking of your grandfather. . .
wow, the amazing paths that criss cross our lives and the choices we make to take them…what a story!
Pity we can’t write stories like this into our books, sadder still to think that if we did, no one would believe us.
Comment by Elizabeth 06.19.06 @ 6:07did you see the story on cnn, or maybe dateline nbc, on fake viagra being sold by chinese distributers to companies in the states? a bit funny, but scary to think that they can counterfiet medicines like that.
anyway, i work for a health charity so am always begging pharma companies for money … it’s like an endless well and makes me happy!
Lovely story, loved the leanness, the economy.
And the payoff.
Comment by overnighteditor 06.20.06 @ 1:05[...] Buffy of Plain Simple English, on one of her more interesting jobs. And we only included it here because we thought she said something about a Swedish duck. [...]
Pingback by Ballpoint Wren » Super Sabado: La, la, la… 07.03.06 @ 14:25Great story!
Happy for you that the payoff for those brown eyes was worth that commission check, hehe
Comment by hanulf 02.16.07 @ 4:36Truly hilarious. Poor you. Poor Magnus.
I agree you made the right decision.
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