Am I Blue?

Jamie Reidy has been fired for writing a book. "Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman" is no ordinary book. It was a business memoir of sorts that depicts Reidy's experiences selling the little blue pill.

Theme wise it's very similar to a current  French best-seller   "Hello Laziness".  Both books share how to avoid work and still succeed.

"In Hello Laziness" Corine Maier provides advice on how people can get promoted by doing as little work as possible.

Reidy's book shares how little he worked, how he exaggerated the number of doctors he visited and how much money he made selling Viagra.

Maier didn't get fired. She claimed her book was supposed to be humorous. Her employer was not amused. She was threatened with disciplinary action but that was eventually dropped and according to an article in The Bookseller,Maier's book has sold over 215,000 copies in France -- that's second only to the "Da Vinci Code".

Given that France and the U.S. have very different work cultures, Reidy did not get off as easy as Maier. He was fired. Not by Pfizer, the company that sells Viagra, but by his new employer--Eli Lilly. who were about as amused with his confessions as the French were with Maier's advice for French workers.

In firing Reidy Eli Lilly stated that he isn't the kind of role model they want for their employees.

Now that he is out of a job, Reidy can only hope that American readers will be as enthusiastic about his book as the French are with Maier's. That would definitely be a cure for the blues.