Merck Cuts increase Sales

[Guest guest]

Merck Cuts 7,000 Jobs

To Help Boost Anti-Depressant Sales

 

by Scott Borchert and Josh Righter

 

With shares and profits plummeting, Merck has announced that it will cut

7,000 jobs in an attempt to boost waffling anti-depressant sales.

Executives of the pharmaceutical company said that with antidepressant

sales lagging, especially after losing $2 billion in the Vioxx recall, a

large-scale layoff would help populate the fledgling market of depressed

people.

 

" With most of the country already on Prozac or Zoloft, it's time to

introduce some fresh, undrugged and recently depressed people into the

market, " said Richard Clark, company chief executive offices. " Our

employees are well aware of Merck products like Tryptanol and other

great remedies to those inevitable rainy days, and we hope that they'll

use them as faithfully as they served their posts until we laid them off. "

 

Clark says that Merck employees are exceptionally faithful, and he does

not expect them to cease buying Merck’s effective products, even as

Merck prepares to cease paying them.

 

" This will ultimately be a good thing for everyone involved, and we

would like to remind all employees, past and present, that employee

discounts on all Merck products are good up to 30 days after getting

canned, which is sure to be a very – ahem – depressing time, " said Clark

in a separate statement.

 

Analysts expect that anti-depressant sales will increase over the next

two years as Merck plots to reduce its workforce by 11 percent by 2008.

Other companies like Nissin Foods (which produces Top Ramen Noodles),

Faygo Soda, the Goodwill, and Aldi Supermarkets are also anticipating an

increase in business as 7,000 Merck employees face joblessness and

necessary budget cutbacks.

 

" Now is time for ramen, " beamed a smiling noodle robot serving as a

spokesman for Nissin Foods. " You eat pills, eat ramen, be happy! "

 

Indeed, as the robot instructed, many of the employees who lost their

jobs appeared buoyant and upbeat about their situation.

 

" You can't let a good firing keep you down, that's what I always say! "

chirped Ben Jonston, who was let go from a New Jersey plant, busily

cutting out pictures of food that he might someday like to eat. " The

early moss captures a bird! "

 

" I'm going to try and see how long I can maintain my normal, pre-firing

lifestyle, " said ex-employee Rita Creal, charging a new laptop computer

to her credit card. " It's important that I help the economy as well as

my company's image. Oops -- former company! "

 

As well as it appears to be working, it is interesting to note that this

anti-depressant sale increase tactic was Merck's back-up plan; the firm

initially hoped that the announcement of the firings would trigger heart

attacks in patients who had previously taken the heart attack-enhancing

Merck drug Vioxx, causing massive fatalities and encouraging friends and

family to take up anti-depressants in their hour of need.

 

" Unfortunately, Vioxx was pulled from the market too soon to allow that

particular scenario to come to fruition, " said one market analyst. " It's

too bad, because Merck could've recouped some stock when dangerous

criminals and psychopaths realized that Vioxx can be a very useful drug

in the right circumstances. "

 

Merck plans to terminate almost all of the rest of its jobs by 2008, say

company officials, when the company will be run by " two guys who think

of pills " that are assembled by teams in Uzbekistan.

 

 

Copyright 2000-2005, The Enduring Vision. All rights reserved. If you

steal anything from this site, we'll hunt you down like the animal that

you are.