This job is basically a glorified garbage man that counts drugs. Instead of residential garbage you are handling medical garbage, which actually can be just as gross or grosser depending on the place you are servicing and a bigger health hazard. To write the job description in simpler terms, you will be going to locations in your territory to put medical garbage in trash bags, put those bags in boxes, and ship them to be disposed of… sounds great, am I right?.... although you might get more of a sales pitch when getting the job about selling and servicing, don’t believe, my description is the deduced form of anything they will tell you. After a few months you will think the exact same thing. After reading you will see why people do not stay at Pharma Logistics that long. Reference LinkedIn for the past employees or just straight out ask how long management has been there, but it is not like it matters that much, whoever is there will probably be leaving soon. You will see that many account executives and even upper management stay less than 1.5 years, 2 years if you are lucky. Here are some of my reasons as to why people don’t stay that long.
1. You will be a mobile employee. This just isn't for some people, or maybe only for a person for a very short period of time. Perhaps if the travel wasn’t so terribly underestimated they would find people who would be okay with this and settle in for a much longer period of time. Till then I guess they will keep duping people into working way more than what they should for the pay.
2. You might burn out quick, you will, from the trend of past employees, you definitely will burn out quick. The turnover is a high. It seems like there is always a new guy in a meeting or sending me emails from my or another territory all the time. Again, travel is very underestimated, then you get stuck traveling ALL THE TIME. I am talking about driving 20 hours some weeks. There are times that you will have to drive late when you are ready to sleep, so you think you will hit the coffee or a redbull, then you can't go to sleep a be ready for the next location, but i guess its better than dying in a car wreck. Your days will be LONG. Sometimes having to stop to answer emails, calls, and then getting back on the road only to still arrive at your hotel at 11:30 pm so you can pass out and start all over at 6:30am, it can get pretty ridiculous after you do this every 5 days. You will yearn for the days you had an office and colleagues.
3. You will be carrying around boxes everywhere you go, about 5 pound or more of boxes. It can be tedious to carry around. You will also be carrying around a mobile printer and any other shipping supplies needed to box and ship medical supplies. All of this will be in a business rolling box, (except the boxes of course) but at least it rolls... It is not the most efficient way to travel. Basically it kind of feels like what you would pack if someone said you were going camping in the woods and instead of setting up a camp ground you set up a very small office and with trash cans everywhere (Again, medical garbage man). Also, you have to stay stocked up with materials, it can be a pain because you have to have enough to do your work but having extra means it takes up space in your place, and this salary isn’t buying anything big enough to store all this crap. You have to order it in advance and estimate how much you will need. I always have extra so I don’t get stuck with nothing so it takes up space at my place, and is annoying.
4. As I mentioned, the office you will set up and your work space will be extremely small. Many times I setup my workspace in a back closet area inside of the pharmacy. This job is not for the claustrophobic. The space you use will cramped and the hospital/pharmacy people are not the most pleasant people, it might be because they already work in a small space too, and you are just taking up more space by being there. I always feel like I am being watched or asked to move so they can get to something too. Doesn’t make for a pleasant day.
5. The job in general can be tedious, talking about the drug counting. Very small numbers that are on labels of drugs have to be read, typed, recorded, and checked to make sure they are the right codes. You have to search these codes in the database and find the right ones that match. Then type them in the system. Then they are counted, this is the worst part. Imagine counting hundreds of pills, iv bags, syringes, and small boxes everyday… every.. single.. day. Then they are bagged, sealed, and boxed. Then you take it to the shipping area. You do this process over and over and over… imagine that for a second. It can really take a toll on you after hours of doing it. I can only imagine this is probably what smart phone builders in china feel like after hours of fidgeting with tiny phone computer parts (that’s why they have the nets surrounding the building) get my drift?
6. Selling in this business is extremely hard. Your competitors are selling the exact same thing (no matter what the pitch the company gives you, it is true), which means you have to become the guy to do anything to make the sell, which usually means lowering the price (and lower commission of course) and be when and where they want and need you (this is the worse part). You will also be selling while servicing the sells. Furthermore, you will inherent accounts that need to be serviced. This will take up a majority of your time. The more you sell the more you service and the less time you have to sell….It's like the snake eating its tail, you just don't have enough time to service and make sells. It gets exhausting. Not to mention, you will also be sent to service the sells of your managers. Remember to think about how the commission is structured. These commissions will retire to a lower percentage after a year, and each sell usually gets about 2-4 services. So you work your butt off to make a sell that at the most pays out 4 times at what I can only say is a ridiculously low amount of money. The time it takes to close the sell and service it 4 times just isn’t worth the money. Again, add the time a sale cycle takes, with the servicing and traveling, and then the commissions getting cut down 70% after a year, and then still having to service after they are retired down 70%...what? so now you have even less time to sell the next year bc you are servicing old accounts… the old accounts that you don’t get paid as much on are now taking up your time to close more sales you could get paid the full commission on..? how does that make sense again? It doesn’t and it’s not fair.
7. Remember all of the traveling I talked about? It will take hours every week to plan out all the logistics involved and make sure you have all the hotels and rental cars ready for the multiple locations you will be traveling to. This all has to be coordinated with the customers. It is very time consuming, especially if a customer decides to reschedule or that they can only have you come on a specific day, which is what everyone will say. Imagine spending hours planning out your trip then having one client reschedule which screws up the rest of your plan.. that means you have to redo everything, yay. Remember, you’re the guy that has to underprice and be when and where they want.
8. Now let’s get to the health hazards. You will be handling all of the drugs that have been throughout the entire hospital. Yeah, that’s right, every room where a nurse waste something, uses half a drug and throws it away, EVERYTHING will go through your hands. Yeah, you can wear gloves, but do you really want to be around that? Just saying. I have had drugs break open and splash on me, I have found broken glass, a syringe that wasn’t supposed to be there, and mystery liquids in the bottom of waste bins that I prefer to just forget.
