Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman (26 page)

Unfortunately, the female physicians of the world did not mimic their male colleagues’ behavior toward reps of the opposite sex. Aside from trying to set me up
with their friends, very few women allowed me more time to talk about my products than they would have given a female rep; it was as though the women were fearful of appearing swayed by industry salespeople and, as a result, held themselves to a more professional standard. This was disappointing, as I needed some assistance in offsetting the impact of Christmastime elf costumes. Admittedly, though, being the center of flirty attention in an exclusively female practice was a total rush. Crazy things occasionally transpired in such conditions.

On Valentine’s Day, it became my practice to send a dozen red roses to “my favorite girls”; the florist always looked at me suspiciously as I filled out seven identical cards for seven different addresses. I liked to schedule a Valentine’s Day lunch with my truly favorite office, though, a three-specialist group with a staff of six—all women. Toward the end of lunch, the topic of conversation switched from my love life to that of the only unmarried doctor. After taking some ribbing, she asked me a question.

“Jamie, what would a guy rather get for Valentine’s Day: candy or clothes?” As I took my time chewing, I reviewed my options: I could play it safe by picking clothes, or I could jeopardize my career by telling the truth. I paused for a moment longer. All nine women stared intently at me.

“Blow-job coupons.”

As the single doctor silently turned redder than the sweater she’d worn in honor of February 14, the room erupted in noise.

“I knew it!”

“That’s all they care about.”

“They should reciprocate once in a while!”

The receptionist nodded knowingly. “I’m not surprised. Pete is always asking me to
swallow,”
she said with an expression signifying her lack of enthusiasm for that pastime. “And I’m just like, ‘How’d you like me to blow my nose in
your
mouth?’” Things had gotten a bit out of control.

I sat back in my chair as they laughed themselves silly, laughing, undoubtedly, at the knowledge that I’d be fired the next day, possibly even that day. How would I explain to my mother that Pfizer terminated her eldest son’s employment after he instructed female medical professionals to provide their significant others with paperwork redeemable for fellatio? A voice snapped me out of my fatalistic daydreaming, but I had no idea what had been said or asked. Recognizing my clueless expression, the speaker repeated her question.

“How many coupons would he get?” the unmarried doctor asked sincerely.

“Excuse me?” My voice cracked with surprise.

“Well, how many coupons would I give him, like, three or twenty?” I could not believe my luck. The women ignored my stunned silence and began a roundtable discussion as to what the proper number of blow-job
coupons would be. They settled on five, but the questioning was not yet complete.

“What do the coupons
entail?”
a nurse in her mid-twenties inquired. “I mean, she doesn’t have to do it whenever he wants, does she?” Emboldened, I laid down the rules for a deal I had never even tried to implement for myself.

“Listen, ladies, these are a
gift;
you can’t put strings on them. These coupons are for a blow job whenever
he
wants. Period. It doesn’t matter if you come home from a lousy day at work and the last thing you want to do is
that;
the coupons are redeemable anytime, anyplace.”

Lunchtime ended shortly after, and the gift-giving doctor assured me she would follow through with my suggestion. Later reports indicated it had been her beau’s best Valentine’s Day ever. At the beginning of April, Bruce rode with me the day after my birthday. Again. Having somehow forgotten the conversation from February 14, I strolled into the all-female office, ready to unleash a peerless sales call on one of the physicians (not the single one!) who was always accommodating. Nine women smiling with anticipation greeted us.

They handed me a sealed blue envelope with my name on it, prompting me to turn to Bruce with a cocky look.
How many other reps get birthday cards from offices?
I opened it and two pieces of colored construction paper fell out. Bruce, my Mormon manager, reached down, picked them up, and read one aloud.

“One BJ coupon, redeemable anytime.” His head snapped in my direction with a sound like a Michael Jackson video. I held my breath while staring in horror at the staff members, whose giggles indicated they did not know my employment was once again in jeopardy.

“Well, you know,” Bruce began after solemnly collecting his thoughts, “Jamie is an up and
coming
rep. He’s a really
hard
worker.” The women squealed with laughter, and we left shortly thereafter without mentioning any of our drugs, both of us delirious over the conversation that had just taken place. As we walked to the car, Bruce grabbed my arm. “Guy, I have never seen
anybody
who has rapport like you do with the ladies in these offices!”

Alas, establishing such relationships with female physicians did little to help my sales. Despite her willingness to discuss oral sex with me, the single doctor never gave me any time to discuss medications, continuing instead to prescribe Claritin instead of Zyrtec for patients with itchy skin. Conversely, had the Cefzil girls suggested a new cunnilingus technique to a male physician, that guy would single-handedly have written more prescriptions than the rest of Indiana combined.

Not even the Cefzil girls, though, could have successfully sold Muse. Guys were lining up to get their little blue pill rather than a pellet tube. Literally.

Two weeks after Viagra’s launch, I pushed open the door to a urology office, only to find it partially blocked. “No room,” a man said. The waiting area was jammed
with patients. Fortunately, two left shortly, allowing me entrance. Twenty pairs of anxious eyes looked me over as I made my way toward the receptionist. Twenty pairs of anxious
male
eyes. The waiting area was filled entirely with men eager to get help for their ED, yet worried that Viagra might not work for them.

The urologist happened to be standing behind the counter, and he smiled upon seeing me. Instead of waving me back, he opened the door and walked into the crowded room. I was the center of attention as he pointed to me for a moment without saying anything, prompting all of the men to wonder who the hell I was. Finally, he announced with great dramatic flair, “
This
… is the Viagra guy.” In unison, the patients stood up and began clapping. My first standing ovation, and to think it came as the result of helping strangers get hard-ons.

My parents hoped I’d grow up to be a doctor or lawyer; boner maker never made the list. On paper, it may not have appeared to be an important or dignified job, but I’ll bet the men for whom Viagra worked would argue differently. Even the Pope validated what we were doing.

In a brilliant marketing move, Pfizer contacted the Vatican to get its approval—its blessing, if you will—of Viagra. There had been concern within Pfizer that the Catholic Church might oppose Viagra because it would undoubtedly be used by unmarried couples and masturbating men, two church no-nos. Fortunately, the
Pope chose to focus on the benefits Viagra would provide married couples. Declaring that Viagra would restore vitality to many marriages, he enthusiastically supported the introduction of the little blue pill.

Viagra may not have resulted in an increase in church attendance, but it certainly caused many parishioners to scream out the Lord’s name for the first time in years. I was stunned to see how many older people—older than my parents, even!—still desired sex. On several occasions, I thought I had mistakenly walked into a World War II reunion rather than a urology office.

Not everyone was a fan, however. Often, one half of an older couple wanted to climb back in the saddle, while the other person was perfectly happy to continue walking, not riding. This was a side of the story seldom presented by the media. For many people, Viagra was an unwelcome visitor, knocking on the door to an attic that had long been sealed shut. Suddenly, urologists were forced into the role of marriage counselor and sex therapist, an unexpected development.

“What are we here for today?” a urologist asked the patient and his wife sitting across the desk from him, even though he already knew the answer. Both in their late sixties, the effects of his diabetes had prevented them from having sex for fifteen years. Responding to the question, the woman shrugged and looked away nervously. The husband sat up forcefully and said, “We’re here for the Viagra.” The physician looked from one to
the other. “And this is something you both want?” he asked. Simultaneously, the man said yes and the woman said no.
Commence counseling.

Doctors couldn’t always assume they knew what to expect. The same urologist walked into his office to find a couple in their early fifties waiting for him. Although he had never examined the man or the woman, he knew from the nurse’s notes that they were there to discuss Viagra. “What are we here for today?” the physician began.

Predictably, the husband spoke first. “Beats the hell out of me,” he said with annoyance.

Smacking her husband in the arm, his wife said forcibly, “We need Viagra, Doctor.” Stunned, the urologist watched the husband shake his head.

“No we don’t, Doc,” he insisted, though he was unable to make eye contact with his wife. He didn’t know it, but he was outvoted.

“Oh, yes we do!” the little missus exclaimed. They left with a prescription.
You go, girl.

Of course, then you had the standard couple in which both partners wanted to have sex. Both
seventy-five
-year-old partners. “Saw a delightful couple today,” a physician told me. “Been married fifty-six years!” He paused. “They thought they might want to try Viagra.” Friends at the nursing home had encouraged them. It had been ten years since they had last made love, and both husband and wife were a bit hesitant. The man was worried that the drug might not work and that he would seem less
manly to his wife. From her perspective, she was worried, after all the time that had passed, that certain parts would not work properly or that the act itself would simply hurt too much.

“What did you tell them?” I asked, trying not to picture my grandparents sitting across the desk from him discussing erections and vaginal lubrication.

“I just reminded them to be patient with themselves and each other, and to be very gentle because I didn’t want the orthopedic surgeon calling me two days later!” The couple laughed and left his office holding hands.

The urologist did receive a phone call two days later, but it wasn’t from the hip doctor. The husband—the
irate
husband—was on the line. “It didn’t work!” he screamed. “I’ve taken it twice in two days, and nothing happened. Nothing!” With an idea of what went wrong, the physician asked the man how he had taken it. The answer confirmed the doctor’s guess.

An hour before bedtime, the seventy-five-year-old man popped a Viagra and climbed into bed beside his naked wife. And there they remained for the next two hours, waiting for an erection. Since the doctor had warned them that Viagra often doesn’t work the first time (thanks to nerves or a poorly timed dose, many patients saw no results with Viagra initially, but succeeded in subsequent attempts), they simply decided to get some sleep and try again the next night. After two fruitless attempts, however, the patient called the doctor.

“Did you engage in any foreplay?” the urologist asked, well aware that this part of the dosing instructions often got overlooked by men who thought they would get an erection immediately after taking the pill. “Remember I said there has to be some
stimulation
in order for the Viagra to work?” (This was a common misconception—that simply swallowing the tablet would cause an erection. After the TV show
Mad About You aired
an episode in which Paul Reiser—coincidentally, a perfect name for a guy on Viagra—ran around New York City with a rod poking out of his pants all day, Pfizer sent a letter to NBC protesting the incorrect portrayal.) Following the urologist’s reminder, the gentleman said he recalled the proper advice, thanked the doc, and hung up.

“Can you imagine?” the physician asked me incredulously. “They were probably more nervous last night than they were on their wedding night!” He didn’t hear from that patient again.

Until the guy called to get his Viagra prescription renewed.
Giddy up.

Not everyone could be bothered with such an old-fashioned approach to obtaining a drug. Pesky prescriptions? Pshaw. Some guys decided to remove the middleman—in this case, a physician—from the process of getting their horny little hands on vitamin V. One entrepreneur in Crown Point, Indiana, stole thirty-five hundred
tablets from two storage units at the self-storage facility where he worked. (The majority of drug reps rented lockers to hold the hundreds of boxes of samples, pens, and the like we had.) Twice the thief used his master keys to break in and help himself to cases of Viagra, which were never recovered. Fortunately, this particular Pfizer rep paid close attention to his inventory and immediately noticed when his count was off; as a LIFO (Last In, First Out) guy, I never would have detected the loss. We received reports of other attempted thefts in which bad guys tailed Viagra reps from a doctor’s office to their storage facility, after which the would-be-robbers were denied entry—probably by facility managers who then got the bright idea to steal the samples themselves.

I would be remiss, however, if I only cast stones at criminals, for pharmaceutical pilferers were plentiful. This should have come as no surprise to Pfizer personnel, most of whom had granted themselves several “five-fingered discounts” on competitive products over the years, like my suddenly-a-dermatology-rep colleague. Office staff members, however, were going through Viagra samples at a faster burn rate than a dot-com through start-up cash.