This Pharma Life: Ruined.

I listen to every "This American Life" podcast and I've recently started watching the TV version on Showtime. As I was thinking about writing this blog, I thought it might be fun to structure it in the T.A.L. tradition. Call it a tip of the hat to Ira Glass and all the fantastic people at Chicago Public Radio.

So, today on This Pharmaceutical Life, stories about things that are ruined.

My blog today is in three acts. Act 1: A mother misses the point of her own lesson. Act 2: The death of cool. Act 3: Mondays really are that bad.


Act 1

This morning I found myself standing by an elevator with my rolling file cart, waiting. There was nobody else around until another drug rep came up with another rolling cart. We nodded a casual greeting and looked at our phones. A mother pushed a stroller up and started fixing her young daughter's hair as the baby in the carriage started crying. Five other people walked up.

Ding!

One of the elevators opened and the last five people piled into it, blocking the rest of us out. The doors closed, leaving us all to wait for another round. The young girl said, "That's not fair, Mommy, we were here first." The mother said, "That's just how people are. They have no consideration for others."

Ding!

Another elevator opened and the mother raced over to it, jamming her stroller in, blocking me and the other drug rep out for yet another elevator. The door closed, leaving both of us, the two people who had been waiting the longest, standing in the corridor together. We smirked at each other. Good life lesson.


Act 2

I was standing in the back office of a prominent medical practice today when a famous Rocker was admitted to a patient room. I can't tell you who it was for legal reasons, but if you imagine any of the Hair Band guys from the eighties, you'll be pretty close. He still had the teased out hair, the crazy tattoos and the low-slung leather pants. I always wondered what those guys would look like when they got older... they look pretty much how you would expect.

As a rule, I try very hard not to listen to what people are talking about with their doctors. I'll go so far as to walk away from a room if I hear anything. Mr. Rocker was in the room for twenty minutes or so when he came out, still talking to his doctor, "...so my slipped disk is feeling a lot better but my sinuses are, like, impacted. It feels like there's a mountain of snot in my face."

The saggy skin, the trying-too-hard hair, the absurdly commonplace medical ailments... rock stars will never be the same for me.


Act 3

Last Thursday, I forgot to do laundry. This resulted in me having to reschedule Bow Tie Friday for the following Monday. Today. I was all excited about wearing the bow tie because, as a rule, Mondays suck. I figured everybody could use a little Bow Tie Monday, right?

On your average Bow Tie Friday, I get a dozen comments about the bow tie. People have shaken my hand, high-fived me, hugged me and dragged me around for other people to see. It's an event, and it makes everybody happy. Except, it turns out, if you do it on a Monday.

I was on my third call before anybody really even looked at me. People were locked into their Monday misery and refused to come out. No comments, no jokes and no breakthroughs with tough offices. It's possible that the bow tie has run its course, but I don't believe it. I last wore the bow tie on a Tuesday and got fantastic results. There is still power in that wacky little twist of silk, but nothing can overcome a bad case of the Mondays.


I'm Jeff Drongowski and I'll be back soon, with more stories of This Pharmaceutical Life.

Bow Tie Friday

This all started because, after three years of being a drug rep, I still had doctors that didn't know my name. This bugged the hell out of me because "Relationship Building" has always been one of my strengths. I know their spouses, their dirty jokes and their taste in movies. I have a little file in my head for every doctor and I'm not afraid to use it. I'm good at this, damn it! Some of my doctors, it turns out, thought of me as just another drug rep. A nameless, faceless automaton who dropped off samples and brought lunch for the office. They didn't know who I was, what I sold and had no idea I had a secret life as a screenwriter.

I set out to raise my profile.

Step One: Grow a beard.

I went home to Michigan for Christmas. It was cold. I refuse to shave on vacation and when I got back to Los Angeles, I had a halfway respectable beard. I had never seen another rep with a beard, so I figured, what the hell, right?

EVERYBODY had to tell me how they felt about my fresh scruff. Admins, nurses, echo techs and, most importantly, doctors. My Russian doctors embraced me as one of their own. Love it or hate it, doctors talked to me and remembered me the next time I saw them. It became a thing.

Step Two: Bow Tie Friday.

Now I was the Beard Guy and doctors that never talked to me before were going out of their way to ask me how everybody liked it and talk about how it was growing in. I used this time to get my message out and burrow into their brains, kicking out competitors as I went. I started to wonder how I could take it up a notch. Then, like a jolt of serotonin, it came to me. Bow ties!

NOBODY wears bow ties anymore. Sales people looked at me funny when I asked for them. They'd pull out a dusty box and try to talk me out of it. Men's Wearhouse had formal bows but nothing you could wear with a suit. Nordstrom's finally came through at the low, low price of $45. Sold, to the man in the boring neck tie! I took my prize home and prepared to take over the world.

Do you have ANY idea how hard it is to tie a bow tie? I had to look it up on YouTube and there were a hundred excellent examples of how to royally mess up a bow tie. Then I found Lucky Levinson.



Done and done. Thanks, Lucky.

Now, when should I debut the thing? I settled on Friday because there's a more casual atmosphere in most offices and doctors are in a better mood. I wore it to Cedars Sinai on the next one that rolled around. Guess what I found out? Bow ties make people happy.

Two doctors paraded me through their waiting rooms to show their patients. Another doctor came right up to me and started adjusting the thing, breathing in my face. I could feel eyes on me everywhere I went. Some nurses laughed at me, lots of people chatted me up in the elevator and I had one doctor holding back tears as he told me about how his father always wore one. Bow ties, it turns out, are connected to some very emotional memories. That's a very good thing.

When I came back through those offices, this time in a regular tie, those doctors not only remembered my name but went out of their way to spend time with me. I had broken through the wall and become a bearded, unique face.

At this point you probably think I'm over selling the idea. I don't blame you. I wouldn't believe it either if I hadn't just worn it out into the world for the second time with the same results. I'm not saying that bow ties are magical or anything, just that they command attention. So, go ahead, shake up your life a little and make a statement:

I AM HERE AND I WILL NOT BE IGNORED!