but i'm a drug sales rep!

maybe i should have stuck out the cheerleading thing through high school and college. then i could also land a nice job in pharmaceuticals.
an article in the new york times takes a look at the hiring practices of drug companies, focusing on the drug reps. the morphotype, if you will, for a sales rep in these cases is a youngish, good looking peppy woman. so who better to hire than your right out of college cheerleader?
now i am not against these women getting nice jobs. a bit bitter that i will never have the kind of money they make despite my hard work and higher academic degree? you bet your ass. what bothers me is that these women are hired into these positions generally without respect to their degrees.

"They don't ask what the major is," Mr. Williamson said. Proven cheerleading skills suffice. "Exaggerated motions, exaggerated smiles, exaggerated enthusiasm - they learn those things, and they can get people to do what they want."

i'm sure the fact that they are toned and purdy don't hurt either.

"The cheerleaders now are the top people in universities; these are really capable and high-profile people," said Gregory C. Webb, who is also a principal in a company that runs cheerleading camps and employs former cheerleaders. He started Spirited Sales Leaders about 18 months ago because so many cheerleaders were going into drug sales. He said he knew several hundred former cheerleaders who had become drug representatives.

"There's a lot of sizzle in it," said Mr. Webb. "I've had people who are going right out, maybe they've been out of school for a year, and get a car and make up to $50,000, $60,000 with bonuses, if they do well." Compensation sometimes goes well into six figures.

Dr. Dan Foster, a West Virginia surgeon and lawmaker who said he was reacting to the attractive but sometimes ill-informed drug representatives who came to his office, introduced a bill to require them to have science degrees. Dr. Foster's legislation was not adopted, but it helped inspire a new state regulation to require disclosure of minimum hiring requirements.

Ms. Napier, the former Kentucky cheerleader, said she was so concerned about the cute-but-dumb stereotype when she got her job that she worked diligently to learn about her product, Prevacid. "It's no secret that the women, and the people in general, hired in this industry are attractive people," she said. "But there so much more to it."

well at least you have to admit that last bit has a funny typo.
as a testiment to the skeeziness of the patriarchy that encourages the hiring of attractive (and capable i am sure) women in male dominated professions- the article also makes a point to bring sexual harrassment up. when buffy makes a salespitch and bats her eyes a few too many times, dr. asshole decides she is after him and makes a pass. i am sure he will insist she was asking for it or leading him on.