Ho-Ho-Ho-ly Mistake: The Christmas Card Gone Wrong

It’s that time of year again, when businesses send out their holiday greetings to customers and clients. But let’s be real, who actually enjoys getting a card from a corporation? It feels a bit disingenuous, especially when things go wrong. Like in the case of Askern Medical Practice in Doncaster, England.

Instead of sending a simple “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” message to their 8,000 patients, they accidentally informed them all that they had aggressive lung cancer with metastases and needed to fill out a DS1500 form. Yikes!

It only took an hour for the practice to realize their mistake and send out a corrected message, but the damage was already done. Can you imagine opening a text message like that during the holiday season? Talk about a lump of coal in your stocking.

One patient even pointed out the absurdity of the situation, “What if that message was meant for someone, and then they are told it’s a Christmas message, then again told, ‘Oh no, that was actually meant for you?’ ”

Moral of the story: maybe stick to sending a simple “Happy Holidays” message, and avoid any potential disasters. And if you do happen to receive a message like Askern’s, just remember, it’s not a death sentence, it’s just an unfortunate error. And at least it’s not socks.