Madam, your husband is dead.

[Foxglove8778]

Under HIPAA it's more difficult to release a deceased individual's records that it is for a living person.

Focus such a call on what you can do instead of what can't be done and why it can't be done.

"Oh dear. You have my sympathy ma'am. I know how difficult it can be to take care of this kind of thing after a loved one passes. Please hold while I determine what documentation you'll need and where to send it or who you need to call and the phone number. "

[Reyneth]

Oh my god, it's bad enough when you ask about someone to a family that you haven't seen in awhile and they flatly tell you that they passed on, and then you feel like a total heel for the rest of the night.

I was online on a chat after not signing in for a while, and an occasional friend and former coworker IMed me something along the lines of "Hey, I thought you had died or something."
Me: My dad did.
Him:
I felt bad, he had no idea and in most cases it would be totally innocent. I can look back on it being a little funny in a dark humor kind of way.

I think the worst one lately was a little girl who we'd been filling a lot of stuff for, including anti-rejection meds, who passed away recently at the age of 6. Anyone after that really doesn't get my sympathy if they whine about a bad day, because all I see is that poor dad's face.

Ohhhhh man, that is so sad.

[alphaboi]

We're still getting mail for my grandfather.....who died in '89! Even though my grandmother had everything changed after his death, some companies just don't keep updated records...or they bought a list of names before he died, and just never updated things.

A couple months after my grandfather died (he'd been in a home, comatose, for about a year) my grandmother got a call from some company claiming he'd order information about timeshares. The woman on the line actually said "Oh, I just spoke to Mr X last week." I was ten and that was the only time I can remember my grandmother cursing. She was PISSED. She did keep her phone number in his name until she died because she was afraid to have her name listed alone in a phone book, being a woman and all (yes, that was her reasoning).

[InverseHellion]

Is it bad that the first thing that entered my mind when I saw this title was this?

'This husband is dead! He has ceased to be! He is an ex-husband!!!
He's not dead, he's just Pining for the Fjords.
Pining for the Fjords????'

[RogueThinker]

I called dead people

Man, dealing with death is, I think, the worst part of any CSR job. I (briefly) worked as a telemarketer for a theatre ticket company that never, ever updated their call lists. I called six dead people in two days, once. One had been dead for years and his son was furious with me because the company I worked for called him evry year. One had died, literally, three weeks before my call and his widow burst into tears on the phone with me. What did my supervisor say when I apologized profusely and hung up? "Why didn't you ask for a referral to a friend who might need theatre tickets?"

And that's why I will never do telesales ever again.

Death and customer service do not mix well. Like acid and water, if you add customer service to death, okay, but adding death into customer service gets you facial scarring.

[Foxglove8778]

'This husband is dead! He has ceased to be! He is an ex-husband!!!

Yes. Yes it is bad, however you are my hero. How bad is it to now wonder if he had beautiful plumage?

[F**kYouForCalling]

What was really strange is that deceased member records weren't ALWAYS deleted. In fact, we had plenty of deceased members who had been dead years who still showed up as alive and active. This is kind of sidetracking, but the worst job ever was in research, having to call people who had put in some sort of request. I actually had to call someone to verify that their husband was in fact, dead.

I actually had someone call once wanting to know the balance on her checking account and her accounts were all closed because it said she was deceased! That was one of my first calls I had to take when I started working here. That was fun.

[MystyGlyttyr]

Death is my business, heh. And I can tell you there are usually three things to keep in mind when dealing with grieving relatives.

1. The relationship of a person to the deceased is inversely proportional to how much of an ass they're going to be to you. (The son will be an angel, the second cousin twice removed on the mother's side by marriage will tempt you severely to play percussion on their nose.)

2. Female relatives will be more hateful than comparable male relatives (sisters worse than brothers, mothers worse than fathers, etc.)

3. Widows are going to be overwhelmed and they're going to snap at odd times. You just just ride through it, and within ten minutes, the mood will change and they will usually apologize.

I was going to call these rules, but I don't believe rules have exceptions, and there are the occaisional odd exceptions. These are more like guidelines.

That being said, sometimes a person will just be irrational, and something as small as a repeated word will send them off the deep end. My uncle died a few weeks back and my aunt still has these really bizarre mood swings that have no apparent cause other than the fact that someone sneezes at the wrong moment.

[Foxglove8778]

I was going to call these rules, but I don't believe rules have exceptions, and there are the occaisional odd exceptions. These are more like guidelines.

Curse of the Black Pearl "Hang the code and hang the rules. they're more like guidelines anyway." ...... "Bloody Pirates".

[reformedwaitress]

She did keep her phone number in his name until she died because she was afraid to have her name listed alone in a phone book, being a woman and all (yes, that was her reasoning).

My grandma still does that. For that reason and also because it makes it easy to stop telemarketers. If someone's asking for "Mr. Reformedwaitress' grandfather" (obviously not his name) she knows good and well it's a telemarketer or some kind of sales or donation call. She tells them he passed away over 30 years ago but she'll see what she can do about getting them the number to the cemetary.

One guy refused to believe her and wanted to mail something to him. So she gave him the address at the cemetary.

It doesn't make her cry anymore, but apparently it did for awhile after he passed on. We still get calls for Daddy at Momma's house and that's hard. (I miss my Daddy )c: ) But we all tried really hard to be nice and patient when calling people about him passing on and getting everything changed.