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By Root 1275 0

the same job as any other salesperson, except his or her main clients are doctors and they are trying to get these doctors to prescribe their products rather than purchase them. Still, it’s probably more illustrative to think of reps as the professional equivalents of those well-meaning Christians who knock on your door, only with much better clothes and grooming. They are virtually never welcome, although occasionally tolerated, and lots of people are outright rude to them. Some doctors have actually been known to toy with our reps by saying they are too busy to see them, only to leave them sitting idle in the waiting room whilst they themselves hide in their consulting rooms playing Sudoku or watching videos on YouTube. And the doctors are usually the nice ones; first the reps have to get past the fearsome ogres at the front door, masquerading as doctors’ receptionists.

One way to get a foot in the establishment is by offering to do a presentation about your product over lunch, which means providing free food for all the medical practice staff. Even this is not without its pitfalls. Usually the staff is more interested in the type of food on offer rather than in the topic of the presentation and heaven help you if you make the wrong choice. ‘The guy last week brought sushi, not greasy pizza,’ they will complain. That might just be enough to drop your sales figures for the month. Anyway, Edward thought I needed to know all this so that I wouldn’t think up any hare-brained, impractical promotional ideas and also to understand why our reps had such generous sales incentives. I certainly do now.

When it came to the marketing side, I had natural ability. With no false modesty, I feel I can say that I am a good strategic thinker and understand the psychology of persuasion better than most. I was also lucky to have a very generous and patient mentor who was ready to acknowledge my talents.

You know, I love the cut and thrust of my profession, but my idealist days in science labs have left an impression and ultimately I would like to follow a higher calling: working in marketing for a charitable foundation is my long-range plan. That doesn’t mean, of course, that I’m not appreciative of my former employers, and at the time I was pleased to be promoting a medicine that could prevent heart attacks and strokes - I don’t know if I could be as enthusiastic selling the benefits of ‘new wings’ on a sanitary pad or a cereal to keep you regular. Don’t tell that to my sister Emma, however; in her eyes I’ve been a long-term operative of an evil faceless corporation, trying its best to poison the unsuspecting masses.

Oh, I almost forgot the best thing about my new job: my secretary Melanie. She’d already established a reputation throughout the company because of her legendary buxomness and possession of a personality as in-your-face as her cleavage usually is. Melanie has a crop of dark curls (the bane of her existence - how she envies my dead-straight locks), permanently mascaraed blue eyes and a turned up nose. Her favourite form of self expression is through her fingernails: always talon-long and painted in an ever changing kaleidoscope of colours, complete with glitter and rhinestones when she’s in an adventurous mood. Until I started working with her I’d often wondered why the company put up with her, as she didn’t quite fit their sophisticated image. The reason, I discovered, was that she is the most efficient and intelligent secretary in the whole organisation, as well as being fun on a stick. She has a keen eye for the ridiculous and can spot a phoney at twenty paces, so I feel very honoured to be liked by her.

Anyway, I had been working happily in this position for two years, and Lo-prez was gaining good market share, when I detected a new itch developing - the baby itch. Edward kept bringing all his kiddies into the office, now joined by a bonny, fat little fellow called Callum. Melanie had her own little rascals at preschool. Then it appeared that everyone I knew in the world started breeding: my brother and Amrita added a