Shadow play

This week I 'shadowed' a pharma rep around London for a day. We wandered in and out of various hospitals and doctors' private rooms, discussing a pretty important product that isn't doing as well as it should. As such, the experience was a string of frustrating discussions interspersed with lots of waiting room time.

I've known the rep in question for about ten years. He's knowledgeable, personable and tenacious. These are the qualities you look for in a salesperson.  He's had a very successful career but on a year-by-year basis that success depends almost entirely on the actual drug he's selling (a career representative will work on as many as ten products over his or her working life).  I've never believed that even the most exemplary rep can compensate for a second-rate drug; in medicine there's simply too much at stake for salesmanship to be an integral factor.

As good as this guy is at his job every day he fails more than he succeeds.

If he was younger he'd jump to a company with a newer, more promising pipeline but as he's in sight of a very generous final salary pension no one can afford him. Instead he spends his working days chasing down doctors he's known for years, trying to sell a drug that's underwhelmed the market since launch and planning his retirement. He does an unremarkable job incredibly well.

I know many 'creative' people who would adjudge this as all too depressing to contemplate. With all that potential how come he never Produced Something of Genuine Importance?  In the follow-your-dreams-and-the-money-will-follow-you industries such life choices are tantamount to a betrayal.

Instead he's a well paid and enthusiastic consumer of the creative output of others. His is the money that follows you following your dreams. If you play it right he's one of your Thousand True Fans

If he wasn't happy to have his job then I certainly wouldn't have mine.