A few months ago, I landed my current job at a local funeral home. I'm an office manager, not somebody who touches the dead people. That is the first question I get after the 'eww' reaction. Here are a few things I've learned working here.
5. Dead people liven things up.
I work in a small funeral home owned and operated by a larger corporation. No big deal. Most funeral homes aren't Mom and Pop organizations, what with the heavy regulations and fierce competition. But since my location is smaller and not as fancy, we don't get as many funerals. Consequently, things are dead in here. Figuratively.
At least two days a week, I never see another employee. And most days, people just stop by to grab something real quick and head out again. I have to record everything I do on a log to prove that I'm actually working, since most of my forerunners just goofed off.
Funerals make all the difference.There's extra cleaning, chairs to be dragged out, and families to deal with. It's a lot like a out of town visit when you're a kid: new food comes in, you have to look your best, and crawl out of your bedroom in order to greet people.
4. We're not all dour undertakers.
No, not even close.
One of the Funeral Directors (the guys in suits who take you money and empty dead people's fluids, among other things) I work with is in his mid twenties. This guy is constantly grinning and joking around. And he's not alone. We don't make jokes about the bodies, or play Weekend at Bernies, but it's not by any means all business all the time.
One example: once my HR manager and said director spent a few hours figuring out their employees 'catchphrases.' Mine was 'I gotcha'.
Could be worse.
3. There is so much freaking paperwork.
"But Rebecca" you say (because most of you don't know my real name, and I'm not dumb enough to attach it to this), "of COURSE there's paperwork. The government and doctors need to make sure everybody's dead, otherwise we get an Edgar Allen Poe sequel."
True, a lot of the paperwork is about making sure the decedent is who we think, they're where we think, and that all permits and regulations are followed. What you don't think about is the massive amounts of printing, billing, checklists, more checklists, and enough mail to choke a horse. I filled a notepad just dealing with the paperwork aspects. Never mind customer service: they assumed I could do that, no problem. But filing an order for a casket? We spent a DAY on that, and I'm still not fully trained.
2. Dead people can be anywhere.
The office supply room is in the basement. The casket display is also in the basement. So is the embalming room. On two separate occasions I've gone for post-its and been faced with an un-embalmed body in the office supply area. Both times I fled back upstairs, totally freaked. It's not against regulations, unsanitary, unsafe, or a violation of the decedent in any way.
It's just creepy as fuck.
I've stumbled across embalming photos on computers, people with plastic wrap on their faces waiting for the makeup and hair lady (an amazing woman who was a funeral director in the sixties when women were just barely getting past the MRS. degree), and a host of other freaky things. Once they're casketed and on display, my issues fade. But that doesn't hold a candle to the last surprise.
1. Haunting are no big deal.
Booo or whatever.
At least, to me. I hear phantom footsteps and voices all day when I'm alone. I figured it was my imagination, until another director heard them too. We went down to investigate, and nobody was there.
The weirdest thing that's happened is one day, I kept getting urges to check the window, when I'd either just checked, or wasn't due for a while. Each time I saw a delivery van, or my boss coming in. I was able to greet them and looked like a model employee.
"So what?" You ask. So a little later I was downstairs after hearing another voice. Three feet in front of me, I heard a distinctly male voice say "Muuuuhhhh."
It ain't Shakespeare, but who am I to judge? I went to the door, and yep, a delivery AND my boss.
The ghost seems to be the former owner of this place, who lived here when it was a house. He stays downstairs, make little noise (I've been tricked down a few times when nobody's there), and seems benign to benevolent. Hell, I have worse living neighbors.
The rest of the staff is disturbed by my encounters, so I've learned to keep mum unless asked directly. As for me, the bodies freak me out much more than a ghost. Ghosts I deal with pretty well.
But that's another story.
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