I thought I'd post up a generic accounting of what I do in a typical day to help readers understand my position.
I work Monday-Friday, and one weekend a month. This is not incredibly common for Funeral Service workers. Most work on an on-call basis all of the time. Meaning that someone passes in the night, they get a call, they go get that person, they bring them back to the funeral home, and then meet with the family during the day. I am one of the lucky ones in the biz, with scheduled days off and set hours.
My Day
- 8:00am - Work start time
- 8:10am - Usually about the time I get in.
- 8:15am - Check to see if any new cases came in overnight. If they have, all available Funeral Directors discuss their availability. Assign families to Funeral Directors.
- 8:20-8:25am - Call families to set up funeral arrangement appointments.
- 8:25- 8:40am - Get files ready for appointments, schedule them on our huge whiteboard, which has all of our Service information on it for easy scheduling.
- 8:40-9:20am - Call back any families that left messages overnight, and do "followup". This is a term that we use, meaning that we basically "follow up" on pending services. Calling the florist, confirming the casket is ordered, clergy is scheduled and location availability is just some of what followup could mean.
- 9:20-11:00am - Go to the prep room and prepare cases for their visitations of the day. Dressing someone, doing their hair, makeup and nails can be involved. Then we put them in their casket, make adjustments, and ensure that they look as good as possible. Then we put them in their visitation room, set up the flowers, adjust lighting, move furniture and overall, make sure that everything looks just right.
- 11:00-11:30am - Continue on more followup, this time checking to make sure obituaries are in before the newspaper's deadline. Also, call anyone who has left a message for me.
- 11:30am-12:30pm. Eat lunch. This thing, lunch, may or may not happen. It's happened as early as 11am for me, or as late as 4:30pm. Some days we don't get lunch. This is just because scheduling doesn't always take into account that you need to eat.
- 12:30-2:00pm - Embalm anyone if necessary- Keep in mind it can take anywhere from 1 - 3 hours to embalm someone. This is just a mockup of a typical day.
- 2:00pm - 4:40pm - Meet with a family to make arrangements for their loved one. Go over vital statistics, casket/urn selection, service specifics, and create an invoice for charges. This may or may not be the only time I meet with the family, depending on how organized and mentally able they are.
- 4:40pm- 5:00pm - Start a to do list for the family I just met with, and do as much as possible for now, call clergy, order flowers, work on obituary, scan photo of deceased, prepare music for the service, etc.
- 5:00pm - Check on any messages left for me while I was with the previous family.
- 5:10-5:20pm- Go home.
There are vast variations of all of this. Going to someone's home to bring the deceased back to the funeral home, taking an urn to the airport for overseas shipping, embalming 4 cases in a row, spending all day on the phone, seeing 4 or 5 families, or running from funeral to funeral all day is completely possible and common.
Some people believe that we have a desk-only job, or that all we do is drive a hearse around. I hope this helps to explain the position a little better.
