New Website

I’m happy to inform you that I have a new website, www.thefuneralgirl.com!

I’ll no longer be posting to this site and will be deactivating it within a few weeks.  Although I’m overdue for a new post, one will be coming along shortly so please stay tuned on the new site!

Thank you!

Second Week

More registering deaths and fraud prevention this week but there’s so much more paperwork I can’t do until I’m a practicing funeral director. The only other thing I’ve also learned to do is create burial or cremation permits.  When performing a cremation or a burial in the cemetery, a permit has to be on hand.

I did finally see the prep room.  I went with a funeral director too fetch Mr. Ferguson from there and wheel him up to our viewing/visitation room.  I expected it to look like the ones I saw on TV…dark but a lot of white and stainless steel, bare counters… but it was much worse that I imagined.  I didn’t have a good look around but it was dark, very cold, and containers and tubes were laying everywhere.  To top off the experience, a body covered in a white sheet had some yellow and bloody fluid soaking through it, “oh looks like someone is leaking” say the funeral director.

Mr. Ferguson’s funeral went well.  He was a man in his early 80’s and his body had just shut down.  His family chose to have a viewing, so those who wanted to could see him and say their goodbyes and then have a service in the chapel.  By the way, I did find out the large room where most services are held with the pews is in fact called the chapel.  The family was pleased with the service. We had another funeral that same day, a young man with a young family.  It was sad, but you just have to be grateful you aren’t in that families place, you can’t let yourself think “what if this was my husband, my brother, my dad” or you will break down. His family didn’t have a viewing, but the family requested he be cremated in time for the funeral so his ashes sat in front of the chapel as the service was held.  Then afterwards everyone went to the reception room where there was catering and they all stayed for a few hours.

This was the first day a funeral director let me have a big hand in the services.  Before a service we review the contract to see what type of service the requested (i.e. viewing/ service, traditional (service, then graveside etc.), service and reception) and get the box of items. (As a funeral is being planned we create a box labelled with the deceased last name and throw in items needed for the funeral as we go along i.e. service cards, signs, guest book etc.)  Before anyone arrives, we turn on the microphones (if they are having a service in the large chapel room), we turn on the tv’s (if they are to show a video/slideshow), put the signs out with the deceased name and indicated where to go in the home, and other small tasks.  Usually, the funeral director calls our Care Centre and arrange for an Attendant to come in and assist with these preparations.  We gather the family when they arrive, or sometimes they request a family room to all wait together in until the service begins.  Sometimes they bring items like pictures or the deceased favourite items and we set those out, or they bring music they want played during the funeral or their own dvd. Then the funeral director and clergy (if requested) will discuss the order of events.   When family and guests arrived, I assisted by handing out the small service cards, hymn books, directing people and asking them to sign guest book. Also, during the second funeral I had to follow along with the funeral and play and stop music at the appropriate times.

I had to laugh the other day.  We have a lot of funerals for old people and that means they usually have a lot of old friends and family and most of them are now familiar with our funeral home.  One little old lady “Oh it isn’t in the chapel today?”  Another one, “Is the reception in the downstairs tearoom, or that lovely room down the hall?”

Random Learning’s this week:

• Some people call wanting their loved one to be immediately transferred from the hospital but it takes 24 hours for them to be released. 
• Walk slow, real slow around the funeral home.  A fast pace makes people nervous and feel rushed…even if you aren’t rushed, you just have to slow the pace. 
• Anything to do with choosing a resting place in the cemetery goes to cemetery staff, funeral directors do not deal with it, so a FSC (funeral service coordinator) from the cemetery staff will often join a funeral director when arranging with a family.  Also if people are doing preplanning for their own funeral, it is done with a FSC. However, if it’s an imminent as discussed last week (where one is expected to die at any time so the informant or executor of their will), that family will meet with a funeral director.  
• If someone has pre-planned and the executor doesn’t know, when we enter the contract online, we will see that they are registered.  If it’s with a funeral home within our corporation, the planning can easily be transferred to our funeral home or a funeral home of their choice.  Bigger problems arise though if it was down outside the country. Also, it’s hard to believe but sometimes people forgot they have already pre-planned their funeral and pre-plan again. 
• Arranging the death of a stillborn baby is free, the only thing I family has to pay for is a casket or urn if they choose to have one.  Also depending on how long a baby dies after birth there is also considerable discounts for the family.

We get all kinds of visitors

We had a guy come in today completely smashed…true story.  He says he’s been wandering around the cemetery trying to find his friend’s grave and that every time he stops by, he has a hard time finding it.  He’s bent over the reception desk reeking like liquor and it looks like he hasn’t bathed in days. So the receptionist, Lauren, says “Okay sir, what is the name of your friend?” where he replies “I dunno.” Lauren goes “Well sir, we will need you to recall his name if we’re going to help you…why don’t we start with the year he died.”  Drunk guy says “In the 80’s.” At this point I am trying not to laugh and Lauren turns and looks at me like “WHY ME!?” He suddenly blurts out his friend’s name.  So Lauren asks him to have a seat and we’ll have a staff member look it up and give him a map.  He says he’s going to wait outside (which was quite a relief), but then he proceeded to hang out just outside our entrance.  In our entrance we have a water fountain and there he is running his hands through it and having a super time and even had his face about 2 inches away from it, Lauren and I were gawking waiting to see if he was going to drink from it.  Anyway the point of this story is, lay off the liquor and maybe you’ll be able to find your friend’s grave. Also, my job will never be boring.

First Week

Of course, that’s the way it goes – hire the new girl to assist the overwhelmed funeral directors and have the slowest week ever – even with a two funerals directors away.  I learned some basic funeral office stuff like how to answer phones, which is different from your typical office; you need to know what to say if someone is balling their eyes out.  I didn`t get any of those callers this week , although I did have one guy whose brother passed away who he was estranged from for the last 20 years and he was shopping around for the least expensive cremation service he could find.  He was NOT happy that he was left in charge to take care of the arrangements and cost.  He shouted the information to me and then when I passed him to a funeral director to speak to he yelled at her asking why he would have to give personal information to another person and demanded to know why we were so expensive…he ended up saying something nasty and hanging up on the funeral director.  We had a few people come in to pick up remains, so I learned how to sign out the remains.  I also did some paperwork including registering deaths (creating death certificates) and “fraud prevention” paperwork.  Identity theft is common for those who have deceased so we offer optional fraud prevention coverage. This entails contacting all the necessary agencies (government agencies, credit card companies etc.) on behalf of the family to let them know the person has died.

I had a tour of the cemetery. There are areas outlined for certain religions, the Muslims purchased one area, Jewish another, Armenians another, etc. and there was several welfare areas, meaning those who were on welfare at time of death are buried in designated areas which are paid by for the government.  We took a look at the private estates area. You could choose an area on the ground that has paver stones around it, or there were small gated areas that you could buy for just yourself, double plots, families up to 4 people, or with combinations of burials and cremated remains they can hold up to 20. The prices ranged from $75,000 to $110,000. Although they are beautiful, it’s too pricey for my liking (even with my 50% discount!) I’ll be happy to have my cremated remains in a public area or scattered somewhere.  They also have a large natural, beautiful pond in the cemetery where ashes can be scattered. I also got to see the crematorium which is located within the cemetery.  There was one large room with two cremation ovens; they are actually pretty new looking and sleek, they are like industrial stainless steel ovens with a bar on the door you pull up (there aren’t any windows on the doors though!) Also in the room were a couple of shelves for the bodies going in next.  There were a couple of bodies waiting, one was in a plywood box and then there was one I didn’t even notice until my tour guide pointed it out, just a little baby, the box was hardly bigger then a shoebox, so sad.  Only one person goes in an oven at a time.  Then there was a refrigerated room, I believe we counted 19 boxes in there.  Mostly made out of the basic plywood but there was one I hadn’t seen before, I can’t remember what they call it but it looks like a carpeted box with decorative handles around the side, I guess this would be considered the luxury burning box.  I believe they said the typical person takes 2 to 2 ½ hours to break down. I saw what the remains look like once they are removed from the oven, there are some ashes but also big chunks of bone are left and nails and metal pieces from the box.  They take a magnet and remove all metal remains then put the remains in a grinder to grind it down to ash.  That was basically it for the crematorium beside an office and a bathroom.  There are just two staff members at our location that take care of the cremations. 

The most valuable information I took in this past week was when I got to sit in on one meeting with one of our funeral directors, it gave me a much better idea of the process. This particular meeting was for what we call an “Imminent” (planning for an imminent/expecting death).  It was for a family whose father is in the hospital and he’s having good days and bad days, but he could pass at any moment and they are actually going on vacation.  They wanted to take care of all the paperwork so if he passed while they were away, all the arrangements are already taken care of.  The funeral director was caring but brought up questions in such a way that the conversation flowed but she could get through the massive amount of paperwork as they went.  The family was able to answer every question but it would be difficult for some to think of the answers especially if they were in mourning.  They were asked about the father`s parents (their full names, where they were born, the mother’s maiden name etc.) It turns out the wife had passed away 3 years earlier though so we pulled out the paperwork and discovered the father purchased a double urn at the time and requested that their ashes be co-mingled. Co-mingle means the ashes would be mixed together.  She currently rests in a memorial wall, so we would take them out and mix them with the father’s and put them back in the niche. 

The only other thing I could recall from this week which kind of surprised me was one family who came in that was arranging a funeral; they brought 12 people, including small children.  Apparently this was the fourth time they had been in and even scheduled a dress rehearsal again for the day before the service.  The funeral director assured me that this was not common. The kids were totally misbehaved, the parents let them run around the funeral home, but one family member got out his guitar and was playing songs, and they were all singing and laughing.  A few staff joked that they must have a huge inheritance coming for them to all be so giddy…probably true. I think we had over 10 services throughout the week, some services with receptions, some just viewings (to view the prepared body) and some just burials (no service inside, just graveside).  All went very smoothly and the families were pleased with the results which proved to be the result of good planning by the funeral directors.

The Tour

My tour guide was one of the managers, who I shall call Guido for the sake of this post, he greeted me as soon as I got in the door and we were on our way. We started by looking at the room where the services are held. There were about 15 lines of wooden benches/pews (are they still called pews if it’s not in a church?) on either side of the aisle and a couple of nice flat screen TV’s that hung at the front for videos or picture galleries.  Next we went through the meeting rooms where the funeral directors sit down with the families, they had shelves and tables with some examples of keepsake memorabilia that families can purchase to commemorate their loved ones.  Then there was the room with sample urns, and coffins. They only had a couple of full size coffins, all the rest were quarter coffins – just samples.  Guido explained that you can buy packages, like the “full funeral service” package, one was labelled $9,945.00. Or, the other option is you buy a la carte, “Just like at McDonalds” Guido explained… “I don’t want a value meal, I just want some nuggets and a Coke”. He said it in a soft spoken almost serious tone, I guess he was used to that tone in this particular room but I had to laugh… “Yep, I get it Guido.”

He took me through a hall of waiting rooms, one for the clergy, a small reception room for the immediate family to gather prior to a service, and the funeral overflow room.  Then we went to the reception room, it was one of the nicest I’d ever seen.  There was a large, beautiful mahogany fireplace and mahogany accents throughout the room.  There were a few wooden tables with seating for 4 along the back of the room, as well as oversized patterned arm chairs.  In the centre of the room was a long table with pretty shiny silver antique platters.  Two sets of French doors opened up to a large patio with lots of greenery.  There was a kitchen off to the side, I asked who they contracted for catering and Guido said all of it’s done in-house.

Next we went to an area for the cemetery sales team, managers and admin staff.  I hadn’t really thought of a cemetery sales team before but they do just that, find people interested in preplanning for their own funerals and buying plots.  I learned that although the cemetery and funeral service staff team up, they are actually completely separate divisions. 

Afterwards we headed down a hallway where the walls changed to white and the floor was no longer nice cushy carpet but white linoleum…and very clean, like a hospital, and I knew where we were heading.

The first door opened to a garage, inside was a limo, Guido mentioned they have two but one was out, and then there was a hurse and a van. They also have a couple of golf carts to get around the cemetery and to the crematorium down the way. The next door went to another garage room and I saw a couple of 6 foot boxes on trolleys.  Guido said “Those are going to the embalming room today to be prepped then taken to the crematorium.”  There was also a very, very large fridge.  He asked if I wanted to see inside and I agreed.  He opened the door and I saw 15 white body bags on metal sheets.  The bags kind of formed around the bodies. It seemed unreal, something you would see on TV. My eyes went to one bag that was unzipped on top; I could see the top of a head and a mess of orangey-red tangled hair.  That made it real.  Guido closed the massive door and a smell wafted past my nose, definitely an unpleasant scent…one I wasn’t prepared to take in. I briefly had a moment where I thought to myself “What if I can’t handle the smells? The smell of death when the body isn’t in a fridge anymore and the chemicals…” *shudder*

“How bizarre” I mentioned to Guido, “hard to believe I’ll be lying in a fridge one day.”  “Oh we don’t think about that here, we all seem to have this mentality that it’s never going to happened to us.” he says.  “What? How can you not?” I was already thinking about it.

The embalming room was next but I couldn’t go in as an embalming was taking place.  After my glimpse in the fridge I figured it might be a little too much for one day anyway. I was taken to one last room and it was somewhat like a prep room before the embalming room.  Guido explained that some religions, such as Muslims and Sikh’s, often perform rituals to the bodies before it’s taken in for prep and this is where it would be done. It was a sterile room, with a large stainless steel sink and a curtain.

We made our way back to the nice carpeted area with warmly painted walls and we ended our tour with a view of the funeral directors office and a couple more managers’ offices. 

It was a weird feeling the first time I went to the funeral home because nobody had died, I felt like I should be sad.  After meeting several of the employees, most along this tour (about 20), I felt very comfortable – there’s a sense of family here.  They aren’t what most would stereotype as funeral staff either, they aren’t morbid, they are happy, smiling, sincere, and have wonderful senses of humor.  Another thing I have to mention is how young everyone looks, very young. Guido shared his age with me and he seriously looked 20 years younger, he mentioned a couple of other people that I had met that were just as old.  I honestly believe it has to be the embalming fluids in the air – they are preserving everyone.  Forget Botox, work for a funeral home.  Hmmm, I should talk to their marketing team.  Anyway, it was a great day. I am going to like it here.

Personality Test – all I know is that I’m very confused now

I took a tour of the funeral home this morning which I plan to write about soon, but I came home today to find an online personality test in my inbox from the International Funeral Service Association.  Even though I have the job, I’m required to fill this out before I start. Anyway, I’m feeling really weird about it so I was compelled to tell you about it.

So I click to begin and it tells me that I’m going to be presented with rows of 4 words, and I need to click on the 1 word that most describes me and the 1 word that least describes me when I am at work only.  Well, the choices I was presented with honestly dumbfounded me.  Here is an example:

1) Life-of-the-Party   2) Argumentative   3) Uncooperative   4) Dominant

Hmmm, perhaps you can see why?  In my head there was a separation:  Life-of-the-Party could be seen as both positive and negative but Argumentative, Uncooperative and Dominant certainly didn’t seem to have any positive tone.  One thing was for sure, none of these (most or least) suited a person in the funeral profession.  I’m definitely a social, happy person at work so I chose Life-of-the-Party as most and Uncooperative as least.  I had about 30 rows of these to go through and once I hit “Submit”, a message came up that the results will soon be sent to me and my employer.  What I want to know is how on earth they’re going to determine what kind of employee I’m going to be?!  Especially based on that one example, am I going to determined as some kind of unruly animal?  I have to go back tomorrow to sign some more papers so I might bring it up, it just seems so ridiculous. I’ll keep you all posted on my results.

FG Answers: The Interview Questions

So some people have asked me why the interviews took so long and what kinds of questions were asked.  First I was briefly interviewed by two individuals then had interviews with them both.  I was asked why I wanted to get into this career (See ABOUT) and then about my expectations. Next, they wanted to know all about me.  I told them where I lived, went to school, and they pressed on for more info…what do your parents do, what are they like, do you have any siblings, what are they like, what does your husband do, what does he think of you in this profession? etc.  They said it was important for them to get to know me as much as possible to get to know what kind of person I am. Then the formal interview questions came: Tell us about a time you were under a lot of pressure, what type of work environment to do you prefer to work in, tell about a time someone confided in you, what would you say to a family that looked at the cost of a funeral and said “that’s just too expensive!”, did you handle any adverse situations in your last job, have you ever faced an ethical dilemma, when did you exceed expectations? The list went on and on, and they even asked some of the same questions more than once, but they wanted me to give them another example. My favourite question had to be from John, “Let’s say there was a employee…let’s say a female, who was very opinionated, thought she knew the answer to everything, thought her way was the only and best way, and always needed to be the center of attention…how would you handle her?”  I laughed and at this point we were quite comfortable in the interview and I said “John, is there somebody, let’s say a female, that you want to give me the head’s up about?” “You’re perceptive!” he says. I have to say, I even surprised myself at how well I did and they said they saw me in management in 5 years.  I felt terrific but as I drove home after the first interview I couldn’t help but think about the one question specific to this profession that shouldn’t have caught me off guard but did, “Tell us about the most difficult death you’ve had to deal with.” It’s a question we rarely ask one another so it was surprising how awkward it was to give a response but as far as answers go, who’s to judge?

Getting in the Door

The funeral service profession doesn’t often come to peoples’ minds as a career choice but I just so happened to always have it in the back of mine.  My cousin Faith is in the business and at one point even owned a funeral home.  It was hearing her stories from a young age that made me think that she had such an interesting job and every time I went to a funeral I’d think of her and the people behind the scenes.

At first, I decided to do some online research to see what it entailed and I discovered two things: 1) Although there are many different capacities and roles, funeral directing seemed to be the area I was most interested in and 2) it would require doing an apprenticeship to get a license and there was a high possibility it would also require training as an Embalmer.  Other than that I couldn’t find out much more – there’s a lack of information out there.  So I figured another two things: 1) I gotta call Faith and 2) if this works out, I should spread some information out there – voila, this blog.

I met with Faith and she agreed I fit the funeral director profile (see “About” page) and then I asked about the apprenticeship. She explained that the company she works for requires that funeral directors are also embalmers.  The reason being, that they own numerous homes (that’s common) and not all funeral homes have service centers.  A service centre is where all the preparatory work, embalming and casketing is completed.  So if I were hired to work in a smaller facility that did not have a service center, as a funeral director I would need to do the embalming as well as all the other duties required to serve the family.

It’s not that I have a problem being near a dead person, and I find embalming very interesting…I just don’t know if my weak stomach can handle it.  Faith explained that the actual fluid process is quite simple, just a small incision in the neck where the chemicals flow in and the blood flows out but it’s the autopsy bodies that take a while to get used to. Also, there’s no middle man between the time of death and the embalmer…the body goes straight to you from wherever it may be…the hospital, scene of the accident, you name it, you see it all.  She said though that it’s very rare that you jump right into an apprenticeship, you usually have to be involved with the funeral home first whether it be volunteering, being an attendant, being on call or lucking out with an admin job. I didn’t want to rule out this potential career, I’d try embalming, so I asked if she had any references.  The next thing you know, she’s opened the door for me and I’m meeting with a GM at a local funeral home, one who I shall call John.   

The first meeting with John was just to discuss the biz and offer my services on a volunteer basis but it just so happened that this funeral home was really swamped.  John took a closer look at my qualifications and then subjected me to a rather intense interviewing process.   Over the course of 3 meetings I completed a good 7 hours of sit down interview time. I also had several forms to fill out including drug and alcohol testing forms, a criminal record check and I supplied them with 6 references.  (I swear, if this career doesn’t work out I’m going to be a professional interviewer).  At the end of the process though, I was given an admin job where I will primarily be assisting funeral directors.   

I couldn’t ask for a better start though, I will be working with everyone – the funeral directors, managers, admin staff, cemetery staff and embalmers.  I already knew John and I would get along well, he was so kind-hearted, had a great sense of humor and we had some things in common, like our favourite place to travel.  A couple of other people I had met so far too I knew I would enjoy working with.  This was going to be a great start job to learn all about the profession and at the same time this would ensure that I was the right fit for myself and the company.  It was good timing too.  It’s almost February and the apprenticeships only start in September.  I will have a chance to witness embalming and determine if I want to go ahead with a funeral directing/embalming apprenticeship.  It’s not like I couldn’t just do a funeral directing apprenticeship, especially this place, it has the funeral home, service center and cemetery – the full package.  I just might be eliminating some options in the future.  Just so you know, there is just an embalming apprenticeship too. Some people go into it wanting to do both and love the embalming side.  No matter what though, John informed me that even if I don’t take the embalming apprenticeship that I am required, and will have fun doing, the washing, dressing, hair and makeup on the deceased.  “Fun?” I asked John, “Well yeah” he replied, “what are the first three letters of funeral?” and a big glowing smile wiped across his face.