Monday, August 17, 2009

A tip for the uninitiated...


When sending an event planner (me) a list of invitees, to whom I am mailing invitations to an event, MAKE SURE THEY'RE ALIVE FIRST!

No, I couldn't make this up.

This really happened.

One of our local county chapters, which is actually always a problem child, sent me a list of names for an event mailing and not only were some of the addresses wrong, at least one person who received an invitation has been dead for 10 years. Ten years!! Talk about not knowing your membership!

I was mortified.

Fortunately the people who called to let us know were very kind...and got my voicemail.

Unfortunately our organization's name was on the invitation.

And far from being mortified like I was, when I contacted the staff at this chapter, they were like, "Oh, thanks. By the way, the invitations looked neat." Bloody fucking hell!

*Ninja edit: The funniest was yet to come. I e-mailed a friend who is on their board and explained what had happened. She wrote back, "Did they also send you a list of - WAAAAAAAAAIIIIIT!!!!! There might be dead people on THAT LIST, TOO!!" She subsequently made some edits and sent it to me.*

I asked my volunteers to remove my name from the invitation list if I croak off before the event.

9 comments:

Scarlet said...

Your last line is hilarious! :D

(But stay with us, OK??)

Fireblossom said...

The dead like to be invited, too. And they don't eat much!

G. B. Miller said...

Sound like a typical state thing.

Vincent Santa Cruz said...

I don't want people missing off their invite lists just because I'm fucking dead. I mean, is that all it takes to become a social nobody?

I love it when I go to an event and there's a load of dead people there; basically, it saves on the Rohypnol!

vivavavoom said...

LMFAO!!! awesome!

listen for azure said...

I can hear the follow-up calls now.

"Hi, can I speak to Mr. So-and-so. Dead? No? Really?

Can you donate in his memory...?"

Riot Kitty said...

LOL!

PG: My ex once received a wrong-number telemarketing phone call. Being a prankster, he said, solemly, "John died."

The telemarketing twit started to say, "That doesn't mean you can't-"

And my ex roared, "Oh yes it does!" and hung up.

Anonymous said...

If it makes you feel better, my dad sent a Christmas card to my dead grandmother. Then again it was my maternal grandmother and I was sworn not to tell him she had died so that he didn't show up to the memorial service when my mom and I rolled into town (that was only an hour away from where he lived).

There's nothing like sitting down on the phone to have my dad ask me why his card was sent back and being the one to tell him that a month and a half prior, she had died and I was sworn to secrecy. I was hopeful that my sister, who cannot keep a secret, would have spilled the beans. The one time I counted on her big mouth, she failed me. Go fig.

Okay.... and that was nothing like your posting after all. Oh well.

Darth Weasel said...

that is just plain awesome. But it is kind of your fault...I mean, they only had 10 years and they have been so busy...I mean, your complaint would make sense if they had received adequate time to update their list you know...