Funeral directors help grieving families navigate the daunting, and perhaps unexpected, bureaucracy of death.
(And more about paperwork than anything else.)
First, tell us a little about your work and how long youve been at it.
I am owner and funeral director at Elemental Cremation and Burial in Seattle.
We opened up January of 2012.
What drove you to choose your career path?
I had a background in restaurants as well as aviation.
I didnt want to go back to restaurants and aviation was a really tight job market.
How did you go about getting your job?
What kind of education and experience did you need?
Truth is that getting a job doing anything in the industry outside of funeral directing/embalming is actually pretty easy.
Did you need any licenses or certifications?
The funeral director license is for arranging for the disposition (cremation or burial) of the deceased.
They are the party planners, so to speak, of the industry.
Embalmers [do] the preparation of the body and require an embalming license to care for the deceased.
For restaurant readers, they are front of the house and back of the house, respectively.
What kinds of things do you do beyond what most people see?
What do you actually spend the majority of your time doing?
Most of the behind the scenes of funeral directing is nothing like what people think it would be.
A funeral director can go months, sometimes years depending on the firm, without seeing a dead person.
What misconceptions do people often have about your job?
Everyone seems to paint their own little macabre job descriptions of what we do.
The reality is far less Victorian and dark.
The Emo/Gothic set ends up pretty disappointed.
What are your average work hours?
Did you have to be on-call or is it more of a 9-5 thing?
As an owner, its 24 hours a day.
What personal tips and shortcuts made your job easier?
The challenge with that is that it is easy to fall into the well of grief.
What do you do differently from your coworkers or peers in the same profession?
What do they do instead?
Whats the worst part of the job and how do you deal with it?
Where mistakes crop up is with typos on death certificates or scheduling with families.
Whats the most enjoyable part of the job?
Hugs and thank yous from the families that I serve.
Its such an amazing win when youve made things better for people.
Ive never had another job that continually rewards you in that way.
What kind of money can one expect to make at your job?
Or, whats an average starting salary?
Its a labor of love, because youre never going to get rich doing this job.
$60k may even be on the high side.
for the first few years, you’re able to pretty much bank on not getting a paycheck.
After that… hell I dont know, Ill let you know when I get there.
How do you move up in your field?
The difference between bottom and top (outside the major corporations) is pretty shallow.
In the major corporations, its about six.
It sounds so trite, but the reality is hard work and a mastery of craft.
With any job, theres the networking and political component.
[It] isnt any different than any other industry on how you climb the ladder.
What do people under/over value about what you do?
I think that people overvalue the care of the deceased.
There is nothing mystical, difficult, dangerous, or surprising about caring for the dead.
Anyone can do it.
The problem is that they dont have the tools for transportation and refrigeration.
What I think people undervalue is the capacity of funeral directors to get things done efficiently.
dad died today and we want his ashes tomorrow).
What advice would you give to those aspiring to join your profession?
Readthis blog postand continue with further research.
This is not some kind of gothic forensics horror show.
It isnt a profession to shock your friends.
It is an opportunity to help people navigate the bureaucracy of death.
