6 Reasons I Quit My Job as a Medical Device Sales Rep | My Real Experience

After graduating from university, I got a job right after graduation and worked at the same company for over 10 years.
My job is at a specialized trading company for medical equipment.
If you're interested in learning more about the job, I've written about it in another article.

I have decided to leave my current job and change careers to another company.
I've tried to change jobs before, but ultimately I never ended up changing jobs.
This happened when I was in my sixth year at the company, but since it was something that could be resolved without changing jobs, I decided to try to resolve it within the company first.

I'd like to write down my thoughts on why I decided to change jobs this time, in order to organize my own understanding.
This is based solely on my own experience, so it doesn't necessarily mean that this applies to everything in this industry.
I do believe that there are some decent companies out there.

Six reasons why I decided to quit my sales job at a medical equipment trading company

The nature of the work is heavily dependent on the individual salesperson.

The first problem is that there are significant differences in how salespeople approach and carry out their work.
Depending on how you look at it, this might be seen as a positive point.
As you get used to the job, you'll be able to do things more freely and in a way that suits you.

However, this carries the risk of becoming unable to delegate tasks to anyone other than yourself.
It might be safer if there was a system in place where the company regularly collected information on the sales methods of each individual employee.
If such a system doesn't exist, it becomes difficult to delegate tasks to others, and it also becomes difficult to take time off using paid leave.
If you proactively create and update handover documents like that, you might encounter fewer problems.
However, with a heavy workload, I find it difficult to create such documents regularly.

Overtime hours are extremely long.

I think this is a problem that the vast majority of companies face.
When I really thought about why I was working so much overtime, I came to understand several reasons.

First and foremost, it's the mindset of individual employees.
Because I start with the mindset that "there's no way I'll be able to leave on time," I tend to create a stretched-out work schedule.
Furthermore, managers and other senior staff members are also reluctant to leave work, creating an atmosphere where it's difficult to go home.
There were times when I wanted to talk to him, but he would only come home late, so I had no choice but to wait until late if I wanted to talk to him.

Next, I had the feeling that I wanted to finish up any work I could do right now.
I end up staying late because I'm worried that if something urgent comes up tomorrow, I won't be able to finish the work, even though it's actually a task I could do tomorrow morning.
This might be a mindset unique to the medical industry, where there are many urgent tasks.

Another reason is that there are many study groups.
As a trading company (wholesaler) that purchases goods from manufacturers, when a new product is released, the manufacturer often wants to hold a training session.
The company can't just ignore them, so more and more study sessions are being scheduled.
These usually start late, around 7 PM, which means overtime work tends to be longer.
Furthermore, the thought that "I'll be late anyway because I have a study session today" makes people less inclined to go home early.

Finally, there's the issue of meeting times with clients.
Managers and doctors at medical institutions work their regular duties during the day.
Therefore, I feel that the time slots available for visits tend to be concentrated around 5 PM (although this may vary depending on the facility).
As a result, I often have appointments starting at 5 PM, which sometimes leaves me with free time during the day.
I think this can be mitigated to some extent if the company implements a flexible working hours system.

There are many reasons for excessive overtime, but there are also many cases where overtime is unavoidable.
However, I believe that a large part of it can be changed through the company's attitude and systems.

The high volume of work required on holidays

The medical industry operates on a daily basis, with no distinction between weekends or public holidays.
Even when wholesalers are closed, emergencies can still occur.
This is something that should be obvious, so companies should have an emergency response system in place, but I felt that my company's system was inadequate.
Strictly speaking, there is an emergency phone number, but the primary purpose of that number is to connect you to a sales representative.
Furthermore, sales representatives are forced to keep their cell phones with them at all times, even on their days off, and if they are unable to answer a call, they are severely reprimanded by their superiors.
Ultimately, the emergency response at that facility will still be handled by the sales representative in charge there.
This is also a drawback related to the issue mentioned in the previous section, that "the nature of the work is dependent on individual salespeople."

There is no mechanism for sharing important information.

For trading companies, information on which products they sell to which facilities and at what price is extremely important.
When supplying new products, it's standard practice to offer them at roughly the same price as nearby facilities of similar size.
However, my company doesn't typically have a way to check the delivery prices for each facility.
You can only obtain the data after requesting it from an office worker.
This makes it impossible to quickly generate a fair price, especially when there's an urgent request for a quote.

It's a shame that a company with so many clients has difficulty utilizing the pricing data they have.
If we had been able to use this kind of data, we could have potentially paid more for some items, and we could have won out in bidding wars.
I believe this is something the company should have taken the time to address, but no improvement was seen.

There are a lot of documents and submissions.

This might be a trend unique to my workplace, butThere are a huge number of internal submissions and documents, and I don't know what purpose many of them serve.
I understand that some businesses have ISO certification, which means there's a lot of paperwork involved, but it's only increasing the burden on employees.
Frankly speaking, I don't think that simply having ISO certification increases external credibility in this day and age (this is just my personal opinion).
Even if it increases trust, it's questionable whether the benefits outweigh the effort involved in things like document storage.
It would be great if these documents were being put to good use, but from the perspective of an ordinary employee, that wasn't the case.

I can't respect my immediate supervisor.

This is probably a common experience, but I couldn't respect my boss.
This is a matter of interpersonal relationships, so I don't intend to make it the main reason for changing jobs.
Interpersonal problems can occur in any workplace, so if you keep changing jobs for this reason, you'll end up constantly changing jobs.

Nevertheless, I would like to say that this reason also accounts for a certain percentage of the reason.
I won't go into detail here about the specific reasons why I couldn't respect them.
It's not that I rejected them from the start; until a few years ago, I would take the initiative to reach out to them and cover for my superiors' shortcomings.
However, when you work alongside a boss who shows no signs of improvement,"Do I really have to take care of this person forever?"This raised some suspicions.
Through those experiences, I grew to feel more resignation than anger.
My serious doubts stemmed not so much from my superior, but from the company itself for continuing to keep that superior in a management position.

In conclusion

This time, I've summarized the six reasons why I decided to quit my job as a salesperson at a medical equipment trading company.
I don't think this applies to this industry in general, but I felt it would be difficult for me to continue in this field going forward.