Slow Day Turned Busy Real Fast
My boss is on vacation this week, so I've been covering the phones after hours. As a result, I know ahead of everyone else when we get a call or have extra work at the open of business each day. Today I went into work knowing we had no calls, with only one memorial service scheduled for Saturday.
When I arrived, I had my coffee and skimmed the newspaper, then got to work doing some paperwork and going through all of our recent files to make sure all the paperwork was in order. About 9:30am an older gentleman walks in. I figured he was coming in to make payment on a preneed arrangement or something. He tells me his wife died yesterday and he wants to make arrangements. I take him into the office and sit with him. In the meantime, the secretary is on the phone to our owner, telling him what is going on. In the meantime, I take as much as information as I can from the gentleman. When the owner showed up, he took over while we went to the hospital to get the body. The arrangements turned out to be cremation with viewing and visitation, so we start embalming the body. Due to difficulties encountered during the embalming process, I ended up working through lunch. I finally sat down to eat about 1 o'clock. Just as I'm eating, our courier tells me we have another call. I tell him to take somebody else, as I'm just now getting my lunch.
When they return from that call, we have another embalming to perform. In the meantime, I'm trying to deal with a doctor who is just now informing us he can't sign the death certificate on one of our calls because he hasn't seen the patient in over a year. So we're calling around trying to find another doctor to sign, plus we have to call the doctors on these two new calls to see if they're going to sign the death certificate. At the end of the day, with about 45 minutes until quitting time, the owner wants us to clean out the side rooms that look out into the chapel. Tomorrow's service is expected to be quite large, so we set up those rooms for overflow seating. We moved out two wooden caskets and six metal caskets, plus some assorted lamps and end tables left over from our recent redecorating.
What started out as a very slow day with nothing to do quickly turned into one full day. This type of occurrence is what makes this job so exciting. It's rarely the same day twice in a row. There is usually something that comes up that makes today different from yesterday.
When I arrived, I had my coffee and skimmed the newspaper, then got to work doing some paperwork and going through all of our recent files to make sure all the paperwork was in order. About 9:30am an older gentleman walks in. I figured he was coming in to make payment on a preneed arrangement or something. He tells me his wife died yesterday and he wants to make arrangements. I take him into the office and sit with him. In the meantime, the secretary is on the phone to our owner, telling him what is going on. In the meantime, I take as much as information as I can from the gentleman. When the owner showed up, he took over while we went to the hospital to get the body. The arrangements turned out to be cremation with viewing and visitation, so we start embalming the body. Due to difficulties encountered during the embalming process, I ended up working through lunch. I finally sat down to eat about 1 o'clock. Just as I'm eating, our courier tells me we have another call. I tell him to take somebody else, as I'm just now getting my lunch.
When they return from that call, we have another embalming to perform. In the meantime, I'm trying to deal with a doctor who is just now informing us he can't sign the death certificate on one of our calls because he hasn't seen the patient in over a year. So we're calling around trying to find another doctor to sign, plus we have to call the doctors on these two new calls to see if they're going to sign the death certificate. At the end of the day, with about 45 minutes until quitting time, the owner wants us to clean out the side rooms that look out into the chapel. Tomorrow's service is expected to be quite large, so we set up those rooms for overflow seating. We moved out two wooden caskets and six metal caskets, plus some assorted lamps and end tables left over from our recent redecorating.
What started out as a very slow day with nothing to do quickly turned into one full day. This type of occurrence is what makes this job so exciting. It's rarely the same day twice in a row. There is usually something that comes up that makes today different from yesterday.
posted by Granimore | 7:52 PM
3 Comments:
The day to day details of your job allow me to live vicariously through you. Funeral services was one of the paths I did not take. I do not regret it, but I often wonder. I love reading your stories.
Thanks for the compliment, Sharkbait. I appreciate you not only taking the time to read my posts, but comment on them, as well.
It certainly sounds like you get a lot of variety in your job Granimore. Sounds like you're settling well into your new job now too. Seems like everything was running well whilst your boss was away.
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