http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2011/09/27/hallmark-now-selling-unemployment-sympathy-cards/DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – Call it another sign of our difficult economic times: Hallmark has taken a cue from the nation’s 9.1 percent unemployment rate and released a line of cards for people who’ve lost their jobs.
Caring or insulting?
“It’s says something about the economy I suppose. But it also says something about that folks are still loving and caring and want to encourage folks along the way,” Emily Louis said.
Louis was in a Dallas Hallmark store looking for a birthday card.
Asked if she would give someone who lost a job one of the new cards, she said, “Yeah, I think I would.”
Frank Fernandez, who owns Monica’s Hallmark in Dallas, said, “The cards are flying off the shelves.”
Call it caring with a twist. The kind that tells you, “When life gives you a lemon, go ahead and make a martini with it,” as one so boldly suggests.
Suzanne Sheafer was in Monica’s Hallmark with her nine-year-old daughter Kaylie.
Asked what she thought about the job loss cards, Sheafer said, “Nowadays everybody’s always doing email or other things and I think when you get a card in the mail it’s that extra touch that you know someone went the extra mile.”
So what is the protocol? How soon should you give someone who’s lost a job a card? More importantly when is it too late?
“It seems to me like within a couple of days you should be able to address the question,” Frank Fernandez said. “Because you’re basically trying to make the people forget about what happened and focus on what’s ahead.”
Fernandez was a sales representative for a Fortune 500 company in 1994 when he lost his job.
“We can all relate to it,” he said.
Fernandez was without a job for a whole year. And though he never got a card, he got the message about life lemons.
“I lost my job,” he said. “But, that’s how I ended up owning Hallmark stores.”
