OK, OK, I give up. I have to post some of the stuff they post over at Pfizer's message board on Cafe Pharma. If this continues there will be some deep, deep soul searching over at Pfizer's PR department.
We now have another, very talented writer, rebutting the earlier anti-Rost posts (which I duly reported and quoted for you), and here that one is. And we appear to have quite a few of my dearest readers also posting on Cafe Pharma. I guess the Pfizer people truly don't know what they're in for . . .
Cafe Pharma is turning into a riot!
Jeff Kindler looked out from his rostrum overlooking the crowded auditorium that was hidden deep within the underground corporate security and counter-espionage bunker at Pfizer’s New York Headquarters.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, commanding the attention of the hundreds of assembled briefs and corporate security analysts. “Thanks for sparing the time to come along. I guess you all know why we’re here today”.
“Because we’d be fired if we didn’t turn up?” ventured a voice from the back of the auditorium, prompting a small ripple of laughter from the audience.
“Remove that asshole” snapped Kindler to the two burly uniformed Security guards at the front of the stage, pointing in the direction of the dissident so as to narrow down the options on the asshole front. “That’s the sort of wiseacre comment I’d expect from Rost”.
The mention of Pfizer’s arch-nemesis silenced the audience as the heckler was dragged away by the Guards.
“Now as you all know,” continued Kindler, “Peter Rost has been generating a considerable amount of adverse publicity for the company since my predecessor fired him last November for daring to publicly criticise his book “A Call To Action..”
Behind Kindler, an image of a handsome, tanned, silver haired, distinguished-looking man flashed onto the vast presentation screen. “Not only has Rost been slating us in his blog for the last two years, but he’s also….”
“Er, Jeff?” ventured a small voice near the front of the audience.
“What?”
“Rost’s only been blogging for about five months. The two year thing is only what we told the Court when we tried to block the book..”
“Ah. Right. Thanks Ron. Of course. I stand corrected. Anyway, on top of the blog, Rost has now written a book about the way we treated him, which shows every sign of being a best-seller. Hank’s particularly pissed about that, given the mediocre sales of his own book.”
“I thought Rost was fired for taking a non-corporate stance on drug re-importation issues and ratting us out to the FDA about our off-label selling of Genotropin…” continued
“No no. That’s just business. The book thing was personal”.
A murmur of understanding passed around the auditorium.
“Anyway, things have now got out of hand. Thanks to you idiots…” snarled Kindler, gesturing at the entire right-hand side of the auditorium where a shame-faced collection of corporate legal advisors and lawyers were seated, “…we have another Jamie Read situation on our hands. Why do you dorks have to issue writs and injunction every time an ex-employee makes a goddamn blog posting, or appears on some obscure radio chat show that no-one’s ever heard of until you guys give it publicity? Don’t you ever learn?”
“Er, we’ve just been following your lead, Jeff...” muttered one of the corporate ex-CIA spooks.
“Silence, asshole!” bellowed Kindler, waving to the uniformed Security Guards once more. “Pfizer doesn’t pay $300 an hour for sheep. I know blind obedience to senior management rather than innovation has been the way in the past, but I’m in charge now. Things are gonna change!”
Gasps and an occasional suppressed bleat arose from the audience.
“Great idea, Jeff,” said a small, anonymous-looking man seated on the stage next to Kindler.
“Thanks Dave. That’s the sort of inspirational feedback this company needs. Anyway, you’ve all been working on the Rost case,” he continued, looking across the serried ranks, “and all you’ve succeeded in doing is making a celebrity out of the guy. He’s taken every writ, every injunction, published them and made a laughing stock out of us. So I’ve decided that we need to take a fresh approach…”
“Great idea, Jeff,” said the small, anonymous-looking man seated next to Kindler.
“Thanks Dave. Good work. Have another Global Division to run. As I was saying, Rost has been running rings around you clowns. And it suddenly occurred to me that as you lot are clowns, what we should be developing and utilising is a sense of humor…”
Gasps arose from the audience. “Shame, shame,” said one or two of the braver members.
“Yes, yes, I know the concept of a sense of humor is anathema to you guys, but that’s the underlying weapon that Peter Rost has been using against us all along. He knows that, deep down, the one thing we really don’t like is being laughed at. So we’re going to turn the tables on him…”
Kindler paused and looked down at the small, anonymous-looking man seated next to him. “Hey, I didn’t get a “great idea” out of you”, he growled. “You’d better watch your ass, Dave. Remember what happened to Karen….”
“Great idea, Jeff,” said the small, anonymous-looking man hurriedly, swallowing nervously.
“Thanks for your support, Dave. Yes, what we are going to do to Peter Rost is exactly what he’s been doing to us. We’re going to satirise him. We’re going to flood every Pharma blog, every open opinion forum and every on-line book channel with anti-Rost propaganda. We’re going to depict him as a hopeless, lonely, pathetic, whiny dweeb. We’re also going to cut down on his Internet book sales and blog hits.”
“Er, Jeff…” said a legal type in the audience. “I know it doesn’t normally worry Pfizer as we can “leverage our scale”, but that kind of Internet Piracy thing is illegal…”
“Idiot! Moron!” thundered Kindler. “Ninety percent of Rost’s blog traffic and book sales are from Pfizer’s legal division or other Pfizer employees! I’ve already ordered our IT department to block access to Rost’s blog and to Amazon’s web site from Pfizer PCs. It’s perfectly legal. And that’ll hurt him…”
“But we’re lawyers” said another member of the flock. “What you’re suggesting in terms of satire seems to involve an element of thought and invention…”
“Which is why you lot won’t be involved,” retorted Kindler. “I’ve decided to approach our middle management in R & D instead. They’re used to making things up and putting positive slants and outright lies into their performance appraisals and clinical trials results and such-like. Finding a few ambitious sycophants to write a bit of anti-Rost copy and put it out on the Net should be a breeze.”
Spontaneous applause gradually broke out from those quicker on the uptake.
“Rost is Toast…” boasted Kindler to his cheering audience…
100% removed from the truth? You decide. And no, anonymous I may be, but Peter Rost I am not.
Ursa1Minor…
8 comments:
God, this is hilarious! Peter, I hope some of this makes it into you're NEXT book. Life really is wilder than fiction!
"Gasps and an occasional suppressed bleat arose from the audience...."
OMG that line made Chardonnay come out of my nose...
Whomever wrote this post is simply brilliant!
You know the Pfizer Pfolks could never keep up with this caliber of creativity, but it would be fun to watch them try!
Glad you folks liked it. I got kind of tired of the thread on Pharma Cafe (once was funny, twice smacked of corporate malice...), so I thought maybe the balance should be redressed.
When I do finally get my copy of Whistleblower, I'll put a review on Amazon was well. I hope it's a good as read as the blog has been, plus assorted links. If the big P do track me down though, I guess I'll have to use some of this in my own book to supplement my State benefits..
Anyway, seems like we're writing the Doc's blog for him these days!
C'mon Pete, keep us fans interested with your own stuff...
Actually, I can need all the help I get, so this was perfect, I'm working hard on some non blog related activities . . .
Could this be some of that non blog related activities" *wink*
Dr. Peter Rost to Head Wal-Mart's Healthcare Business - Cafepharma Message Boards
Or just another example of the creative jokes they have on CafePharma? I'm not sure if it would be a bad idea if it was true though
If it was a joke then someone else must be doing them since slapstick and low brow humor is what Pfizer has shown to be capable so far, maybe someone got smart and hired people a lot more creative to do it?
Moogirl: "OMG that line made Chardonnay come out of my nose..."
A picture of Moogirl with Chardonnay coming out her nose would be VERY popular!
Trust me, it's not pretty. :>
CafePharma is less of a riot, more of a trucker's bar brawl. But if you comb through the sawdust on the floor, there's the occasional item of value.
Like this nugget, #92 of the "What's the Craziest Thing Your Boss Ever Did to You?" thread under the Dealing with Your Manager section of the General discussion board...
"About 8 years ago I was outside an office with my manager at the time after a call and he was checking voicemail on his cell. As I stood there in the parking lot smoking a cigarette, he gave me a "hey", nodded me over and kicked something on the ground towards me. He turned around, I bent over and picked it up, and it was a packed pot pipe. I put it in my pocket and roasted it when I dropped him off at 3:30.
He was the best manager I ever had. Cheers to you Peter R."
Nothing wrong with blowing other stuff as well as whistles I guess.
It explains your reluctancee to tell us about your relaxation techniques "in a blog your sister reads" (your post "A Glorious Day", 9/15/2006). I guess if your sister is a neurologist like you say, then you know she'll only worry about what That Stuff is doing to your short term memory. As it can screw your short-term memory. Not only that, it ruins your short-term memory...
Best of luck with the Wal-Mart thing by the way. Or is that another CafePharma pipe dream?
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