UPDATE – this story gets ever more bizarrre; Business Insurance had a piece describing how employees at the party were snorting salt.
Right, that was my reaction as well; wha…SALT?? UP THEIR NOSE??
what the heck were they thinking? And is it somehow better that the folks in the pictures were inhaling salt and squeezing limes into their eyes rather than snorting coke?
Jeez, I thought I’d seen sales folks do some dumb things but we Americans can’t hold a candle to the Germans!
For those interested in photo documentation, click here. Note – the photos are from a German tabloid, and their standards for what is suitable for publication may be different from what you’d expect…
What made this so special was not only the setting; the Gellert Baths are one of the more historic sites in Budapest; or the cost, a reported 83,000 Euros; or the sponsor (an insurance company!!). No, what made this unique was the reward for those reps who consistently performed.
(photo credit to adventurouskate.com)
Twenty prostitutes were there to personally congratulate the top sales staff, conveniently positioned in four-poster beds located around the edge of the central pool.
I kid you not.
Here’s how one attendee remembered the soiree:
“Anyone could go to one of the beds with one of the ladies and do what he wanted. The ladies were marked with stamps on their forearms after each such meeting. So it was recorded how often each lady frequented.”
“The ladies wore red and yellow wrist bands. One group were there as hostesses, and the others were to fulfill any and every desire,” he added. “There were also ladies with white wrist bands. They were reserved for the board and the very best salesmen.”
So, not only were they idiots, they were misogynistic idiots.
What’s almost as amazing as the fact that this occurred at all is the somewhat blase’ way the company is addressing this now.
Then again, maybe that’s just brilliant PR.
May
24
Not much different than here in the US, with one exception. The top people here and in Germany receive much satisfaction (here in the form of stock options and bonuses) at the expense of money paid by employers and members. It appears that the cost of the German’s satisfaction was only 83,000 Euros, far less than the amounts paid for the US insurers’ top performers (executives, boards, etc.).
Gellert Hill is farous for the insurgent Pagans who sealed up Bishop Gellert in a barrel and sent him hurling him down a hill. Sounds like this is where these idiots’ careers are headed.
Bonfire of the Vanities, deja vu. Of course, all the US Pharma reps are cute young things – not exactly the same, but…