Saturday, May 19, 2007

Tactlessness or the height of efficiency?

When Grandma got her diagnosis (stomach cancer with incurable secondary tumors in her brain) about two weeks ago, the very next morning she received a courier package delivery from the local undertaker with forms for her to specify her funeral wishes and details of their "very reasonable" pricing schemes.

(Weirdly, the undertaker's forms want the most bizarre details, like her mother's maiden name, and Granddad's number from when he was in the army in WW2.)

5 Comments:

Bardiac said...

/comfort

I vote incredibly tacky. :(

Your family is in my thoughts. I wish there was something we English phuds could do to be useful.

StyleyGeek said...

I wish there was something we English phuds could do to be useful.

You can continue to write lots of entertaining blog posts so that when I do get a chance to explore the internet there is something fun there to read :)

Weekend_Viking said...

I've always thought that undertakers should go for discretely passive advertising, not active, which has too much room for tackiness/bad timing.

The military number thing seems to be mostly NZ - not sure I've noticed it much in other countries. I think the main reason for wanting it is for the notices in the paper. Unusual to ask for spouse's military number, though.

Grandad was 7/21.

Lucy said...

I agree, tacky and kind of creepy. Does the hospital give them addresses?

StyleyGeek said...

Yes, I think they do, Lucy. And it's not so much the active advertising I think is weird, it's targeting the person themselves, and so quickly! You'd think they could approach the family, and not necessarily the morning after the diagnosis!