Shpeshul Shnowflake Funeral Home (epic)

[bainsidhe]

Not sure if you could do that, but if the Obits are generally faxed in, could you set up a form that they "Must" send them in on, which includes the Deadlines listed at the top of the form to make 'sure' they can't say they don't know them?

Hmm, that's a good thought. Do you send confirmation pages? Because you could have a simple form/confirmation page with cutoff times listed clearly. Difficult to claim you didn't know if every single obit receives this confirmation page and information.

[MystyGlyttyr]

I'm feeling pretty good about life at the moment.

I didn't do much in dealing with this. I went to my immediate boss, a normally sweet lady but with a Mama Bear streak a mile wide, and laid out everything that had happened from start to finish in this incident. Then I returned to my desk and covered my head.

Long version short, it was quickly agreed by the higher-ups that they were going to take full responsibility for everything that happened, and wouldn't be going behind us on stuff like this anymore, etc., so forth, so on. (Nice guys and I didn't feel any real threat from them, but it's still nice to have it said.) So I returned to my work none the worse for the wear, really.

Good thing since fifteen minutes later, the funeral home called and refused to pay for the paid ad that was put in Sunday. (I'm not exactly sure why, other than that they just weren't happy with what was run.)

I don't know the resolution of that yet (after all, that's all out of my hands and being handled by the higher-ups who permitted all this) but, while I do genuinely like my bosses and I know they're realizing real fast they messed up bad, I am somewhat enjoying watching them twist in the wind on this one.

[Bradester]

Wow. Manipulating a grieving widow to cover up their own mistake. That's low. That's Mariana Trench low.

It's tempting to tell others never to patronize businesses like this, but that whole 'professionalism' thing gets in the way.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

If that Funeral Home gets away with NOT paying for that ad, I would seriously quit. That'd be one too many for me.

[Akasa]

"If you don't pay, we don't run any more of your obits."

[earl colby pottinger]

Using customer suckyness

When the funeral home tries that again, maybe you could tell the person who calls that the funeral home did not do thier job right, that you were more than willing to supply your fax logs to the customer so they can demand a partial refund from the home.

Do that a couple of times and you know that sooner or later that a really sucky person will come along who will see it as a chance to get a *FREE* funeral (they are expensive) and make life for them a living hell for a change.

[auntiem]

"If you don't pay, we don't run any more of your obits."

As much as I like this idea - and then secretly hope that the are stubborn enough to not pay... Wouldn't this hurt the poor unsupecting people who chose this funeral home?

[Sunflash]

As much as I like this idea - and then secretly hope that the are stubborn enough to not pay... Wouldn't this hurt the poor unsupecting people who chose this funeral home?

The solution here would be to put a spot near the obits the next week or so "Due to outstanding debts, we are no longer running obits for X funeral home."

[tropicsgoddess]

That funeral home needs to get it's shit together for one and stop foisting all the blame on others when they are to blame for their own mistakes. I can't believe that they lied to the widow about their screw-up. I thought the funeral homes were supposed to be the ones making sure the obits went out in time for the paper, not the bereaved. ETA: I hope there's a way you can stop doing business with that funeral home if they refuse to pay.

[roguesqd]

stop dealing with that funeral home, and put a nice ad in the paper saying that due to not following policies you will no longer be running obits for them