Friday, March 20, 2009

Why in the world...

First: I love my job

Second: I am a mortician.

Third: I have been in this industry since 2002

In a day of work I do the following (give or take): meet with families that have experienced the death of a loved one, embalm, fix up hair/make-up of deceased people, work funeral services, work at a desk to complete funeral tasks (death certificates, service details, memorial products, etc.), answer phones, and many other things.

Most of what I discuss here will be about the office work, as I am sure that I can’t (or shouldn’t) write about specific decedents. Now, that might seem like a bit of a disappointment to some readers, and maybe it is, but in the past while I’ve figured out that the interestingness of my job is not dependent upon the amount of time spent with the dead or the grieving, but the amount of time spent listening to and interacting with my co-workers. They are, by far, the strangest group of people I will ever know, and I am going to attempt to capture a bit of what I experience on a daily basis so that when I’m old and grey I can read back pieces of this funny journey.

So, there’s the beginning…