The death care industry is one of the most misunderstood fields you will find. There are misconceptions from the general public about what funeral directors actually do, what the workload looks like, and what is expected of us. There are also misconceptions among the people who seek a job or career in funeral service. And, in my experience, those misconceptions are beginning to deeply affect the future of this profession.
I have helped guide many eager, yet not-so-willing, individuals to the conclusion that maybe this job was not for them. I have never taken offense to that. This was not done to discourage anyone who was truly following their heart or their passion. It was more often a matter of helping someone recognize that the job they imagined was very different from the job we actually do.
In a few of my previous posts, I touched on some of the most common questions I get when people learn what I do for a living. Questions like, “What is the worst thing you’ve seen?” People wonder if being around the dead scares me, if I have ever had any paranormal experiences, or how I bring myself to be alone with the dead on a daily basis. That is the part of the job that most people cannot imagine.
I have heard the phrase, “Well, at least your customers don’t talk back to you, so that part must be nice!” more times than I can count. That statement is one of the reasons I truly feel that the majority of people do not have a clear concept of what funeral directors do every day.
Because the truth is, working with the dead is only a very small portion of what funeral service really entails.
Yes, for a small part of my day, I am working with someone who is not going to carry on a two-way conversation with me. But for the majority of my day, it is just the opposite. I am working with people constantly.
I am calling florists, pastors, courthouses, doctors, and family members of the deceased. I am corresponding with multiple families from different cases throughout the day, either by phone, appointment, or email. I am designing service programs and printing stationery after getting orders of service and making sure the names of all 13 grandchildren are in order and correctly spelled. I am ordering catering and lining up help to make sure each service is set up to run smoothly, with as few hiccups as possible.
I am corresponding with the military for honors, working with my office manager on insurance claims, and helping a family who walked in with no appointment because they were so grief-stricken they didn’t know where else to go first.
I am proofreading and signing death certificates, filing stacks of paperwork, and obtaining signatures. I am explaining, very delicately but honestly, to a mother the injuries her child sustained during a tragic accident, and holding her while she falls apart. I am walking someone in to view their loved one for the last time, carefully watching to make sure I am there to catch them if their knees give out or offer them water before they lose consciousness.
I am standing in the blazing heat in a black suit for a graveside service, with sweat dripping down my forehead, waiting for my cue to play “Amazing Grace.” I am up for the third time in the middle of the night, either putting on my coat or corresponding with hospice nurses, family members, and our removal team to bring the deceased into our care.
I am telling my own friends or family, “I can’t go this weekend, I’m on call,” knowing I can’t be a certain distance away from the funeral home in case I need to go into the office. I am keeping my phone with me in the pool or at the dinner table, knowing my plans may shift in an instant. I may have to get up and excuse myself to speak with a family or leave for a last-minute appointment request.
This is the part of the job that people often do not understand.
I have found that many of those who express an interest in this profession are looking for a strict 9-to-5 job with no weekends. They don’t want to be bothered at 3:00 a.m. for a death call. They don’t want to be called just as they are sitting down for their Thanksgiving meal because someone has died and needs to be brought to the funeral home.
Some only have an interest in working “in the back” because they don’t want to deal with people or be the face of the funeral service. Others see the profession as a cool, hip, morbid career that will give them an interesting answer when someone at a social event inevitably asks, “What is the worst thing you’ve ever seen?”
There is nothing wrong with being fascinated by the death care industry. There is nothing wrong with being interested in embalming, cremation, or the science behind what we do. But if that is the extent of your interest, you are missing the heart of funeral service.
That is one of the reasons the funeral service industry is struggling to find and keep good help. Too many people entering the field have no real concept of the time, effort, flexibility, and sacrifice required to do this job—and to do it well.
It is also one of the reasons funeral directors who have been doing this job for 40-plus years are burnt out and tired. There are limited promising, up-and-coming funeral directors to pass the torch to or to share the workload with to lighten the load. There are people who walk through our doors eager to start, only to become much less eager once they see the amount of dedication required to be successful.
I understand why that happens. You cannot fully understand what this job asks of you until you experience it.
Thanksgiving a few years back, of course, fell on one of my nights to be on call and on standby for any removals. I was crossing my fingers all day, hoping and praying that the phone would never ring. First, so that a family would not have to experience losing a loved one on a major holiday, and second, so that I could be free to enjoy a meal with my own family.
Someone approached me after hearing the rest of the family discussing how I might have to leave if I got a call.
“Well, they won’t call you unless it’s an emergency, right? Can’t that wait until tomorrow?”
With a puzzled look on my face, I began to explain that someone dying was, in fact, an emergency.
“Can’t they just put them in the morgue for the night and you can go tomorrow?”
They slowly began to understand that while a hospital might have somewhere to keep a deceased person temporarily, people’s homes and most nursing homes do not have cold storage on standby to store a loved one until my Thanksgiving meal and holiday were over.
And that is another part of this job that can be difficult to explain to people who have never experienced it. When someone dies, their family doesn’t get to put the situation on hold because it is a holiday, because it is the middle of the night, or because the funeral director is having dinner with their own family.
Questions I do get, although very rarely, regarding the emotional aspect of this job often come from family members sitting across the table from me while they are grieving. They wonder how I do this job and deal with the constant sad undertone in the room, or how I handle constantly being around people who are grieving.
And I guess that just goes to show that people really don’t know until they are grieving or in need of a funeral director themselves.
Or until they are hired and their phone is ringing at 3:00 a.m. Or until they are juggling the many emails, phone calls, and accommodations needed for one service while they have four others they are actively planning. Or until their Thanksgiving meal is interrupted by the call that someone needs to be picked up and cared for, taking them out of dinner for an undisclosed amount of time.
Because despite my crossed fingers and that confused family member’s question that day, I did, in fact, answer that call 30 minutes before I was due to sit down and eat.
It was someone else’s emergency.
And it was someone else who not only lost their loved one that day, but whose own Thanksgiving dinner was ruined and out of the question.
That is the reality of this profession.
But there is another side to it that I think those who only want to “stay in the back” are missing.
Following a call from beginning to end is one of the most rewarding parts of being a funeral director. From that first call reporting a death, to the removal, to meeting with the family, performing the embalming or cremation, planning the funeral service, and working the funeral service, you get to watch everything come together. You get to see the end result and, hopefully, a family who feels that you helped them through one of the worst days of their lives.
The tears of gratitude in someone’s eyes as they tell you that their loved one looks beautiful and peaceful for their viewing, or the hug that you get at the end of a successfully run funeral service, makes those 3:00 a.m. calls and the workload completely worth it.
It is full circle.
You know that your efforts made a difference for someone else who is grieving. There is no do-over for funerals. That funeral or that viewing is a monumental event in so many lives, and you are directly responsible for helping shape that experience. When it is done well, that is the fulfillment you get at the end of the day: knowing that you served some sort of purpose and made some sort of difference.
That is why I believe the people who want to work in funeral service need to understand that this is not simply a job where you work with the dead.
It is a job where you work with the living.
It is a job where you answer the phone at 3:00 a.m. It is a job where you miss holidays, rearrange plans, carry your phone into the pool, and leave dinner when someone else’s family needs you. It is a job that requires patience, flexibility, emotional strength, attention to detail, and an enormous amount of compassion.
And yes, there are parts of the job that happen in the back. Those parts matter. The preparation of a loved one is an important responsibility, and it takes skill, care, and respect. But funeral service does not end there.
The most meaningful part of this profession, at least for me, is being able to follow that family through the entire process. To meet them at the beginning, help them make difficult decisions, care for their loved one, help create a meaningful service, and then stand beside them when it is all over.
You don’t get those full-circle moments when you never get to follow your work through every step of the way. You don’t get those experiences and connections with families. You don’t get to see the real difference you can make in the lives of others if you are only in it for easy work or morbid curiosity.
That is what I wish to tell anyone interested in this profession, or anyone who is simply curious about it.
I want to set the record straight about what we really do and pull the conversation away from what funeral service is not.
This is what the next generation of funeral directors needs to know before they go to school or seek out an apprenticeship.
This work requires dedication. It requires sacrifice. It requires you to give up some of your time, your holidays, your plans, and sometimes your sleep.
But if you know what to expect, and if you are willing to give this profession what it asks of you, it can also be one of the most rewarding and meaningful things you will ever experience.
Because at the end of the day, this job is not just about the dead.
It is also about the living who are left behind.
And if you can understand that, you understand what funeral service is really all about.
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