Q & A With Funeral Director Roman Coale

(This interview was written for ASD – Answering Service for Directors and was originally published in the March 2012 issue of Mortuary Management)

Roman Coale is a Certified Funeral Service Practitioner and works as a Funeral Director at Framptom Funeral Home in Federalsburg, MD. Roman became involved with the funeral business after meeting his wife Christy Coale, also a funeral director, and building a strong personal relationship with her father Mike Eskow, current owner of Framptom Funeral Home. Recently, Roman and Christy purchased Mid Shore Cremation Service, also located in Federalsburg, to expand the service options available to residents in the community. Roman also served as Vice President of the Delmarva Funeral Service Associations. But before he ever set foot in an embalming room, Roman used to worked for a local answering service—an experience he says still hasn’t left him today.

Can you give me a little background on Framptom Funeral Home’s history?

Framptom Funeral Home has been here since 1864. We’re one of the oldest funeral homes in the state of Maryland. We’ve built up a reputation by providing a caring and loving environment. When I first started working here, my father in law made it very clear how essential empathy was to the identity of our funeral home. That was the main reason why I wanted to become a funeral director: I really wanted to help my fellow man. Aside from that, I knew it was a really respected profession and I knew that I wanted to be my own man someday, my own boss, and I am that now because I choose this path.

How did you first become involved with the funeral home?

I started working at Framptom Funeral Home as a lot of funeral directors first become involved with the business: washing cars, mowing the lawn, and doing odd jobs for Mr. and Ms. Eskow, who eventually became my in laws. Overtime, you begin to build more relationships with families in the community. I’ve never thought of the funeral profession as being about facilities and buildings. It’s about people. I think the biggest reason people choose a funeral home is because of a relationship they have with the people working there.

Before becoming involved with Framptom Funeral Home you worked for an answering service company. Can you describe that experience?

Before I worked at Framptom Funeral Home, I went to work for a company that was consuming answering services across the country. So I learned a little bit of the technical end of answering services and how they work. We were basically buying answering services across the country and moving traffic from one service to another service near by that could handle the extra call volume. I didn’t answer the phones personally but when I heard operators taking calls, it was almost like they were in a great rush to get off the phone. It was always a race to hang up because there were always too many calls for the operators to answer without callers being placed on-hold for long periods of time.

How did the answering service you worked for handle calls for funeral homes?

Every time a call rang in from a funeral home account, everyone at the answering service dreaded it. You would walk through and hear operators talking to people who called in to report a death and they were often being put on hold so that other calls could be answered first. I just thought that was so disrespectful. They just really didn’t have a choice but to handle calls that way because there was such a high call volume of calls from all different types of businesses. A lot of calls were timed by management. Every sales meeting, managers would say, “We’re not here to make friends, we’re here to take as many calls as we can.” There was no patience. But you just can’t hurry a person reporting a death off the phone.

How did working at an answering service influence how you handle calls at the funeral home?

It’s all about relationships. If you treat your customers right and take care of them, they will treat you the same. It can be hard and emotional sometimes, but the reward is that you are helping your fellow man. You have to be a good listener because there are often hints in the callers voice or in their statements that will make you stop if you are listening well.

Were you reluctant to use an answering service after your experience?

We used to use a local answering service similar to the one I worked for that caused us a great deal of frustration. They answered for a bunch of different businesses and every time they handled one of our calls they never knew what questions to ask. It’s such a huge level of trust to let someone else answer your calls. It’s the first impression some people may have of your funeral home. All it takes is one little foul up and you can lose the loyalty of that family forever, and getting it back is not as easy as one might think. We began using ASD – Answering Service for Directors in 1999. We didn’t know ASD from Adam when we signed on, all we knew was that they were a funeral home exclusive service. We’ve had a pretty great success record by treating people right and I think the same can be said for ASD. They have trained their employees to operate with compassion and respect and to talk to families in a way that gives them peace and comfort. ASD is the next best thing to the person calling and speaking to us directly.

What are some differences between a Funeral Home using a service like ASD and using a service like the one you were once employed by?

I’ve been on both sides of the fence and I can certainly see the value in how ASD runs their business compared to other answering services. Taking a death call is a very intricate process. People think there is nothing to it but it’s really difficult. You have to show empathy and put yourself in the person’s place and try to help out with a kind word to say. A lot of calls are emotional, and ASD just has a knack for talking to grieving family members because it is all they do. We can log in and hear a recording of all of our calls and their operators speak to callers just as we would. If I went to XYZ answering service down the street and forwarded to a local number here in town, they would just ask for the caller’s name and number before disconnecting. ASD records detailed, specific information for us. I’ve recommended them to many other funeral professionals because even though everyone has a different philosophy when it comes to how their phones are answered, ASD is able to customize everything so their operators are only asking callers what we want them to ask.

Read my short story in ‘The Philly Anthology’

Read my short story in ‘The Philly Anthology’

Order your copy of ‘The Philly Anthology’ to read my short story “Anchored” as well as other wonderful fiction from local  writers like Shane R. Toogood, Drew Fowler, and Gina Soltesz.

Serving Funeral Directors and Families

Originally published in the March 2012 issue of The Director Magazine. Written for ASD – Answering Service for Directors.  

“I don’t mean to burden you with my problems,” says the stranger over the wires that connect us. But by the time we both hang up, she isn’t a stranger any longer. I know her name, I know her age and the town in which she was born. And I know that she needs to have her son’s ashes buried because the sight of his urn in her empty home is a painful daily reminder of how alone she feels without him. When I tell the woman that everyone needs someone to talk to sometimes, I don’t require a script to find the words. The difference between saying something and meaning it is that by the time I hang up I am blinking back tears.

In the eight years I have worked for ASD – Answering Service for Directors, I have fielded more than 250,000 funeral-related calls and more than 14,000 first calls. Many of these are brief, routine exchanges that simply require me to ask a few quick questions and record an accurate message for the funeral director. The calls that stick around the longest in my memory are the other kind: the people who call the funeral home just to hear a kind voice and to feel connected with another human being. While it is requirement of my job to speak empathetically with the bereaved, the greater motivator is my need to come home after an eight hour shift and feel as though I have had a positive impact on others.

Desensitized. The word is always in the air, spoken by new employees I train and those who ask what I do for a living. It’s easy to assume that nearly a decade of working for a funeral home exclusive answering service might harden a person over time. Yet the longer I am employed in this capacity, the less it feels like a job and more like a personal calling to provide compassion to those who are often speaking to me on the worst day of their lives.

Regardless of the reason for their call, the majority of the people who contact funeral homes feel emotionally vulnerable and fragile. It doesn’t matter if the death occurred five days or five years ago. Dialing that number is the same as ripping off a scab from a wound that never fully heals. It’s very common for callers to begin speaking in a cheerful tone only for their voice to crack the moment they have to speak the name of their departed loved one.

In the past, I tried very hard to select exactly the right words to say on these calls, but I have since found that providing compassion is much more about listening than speaking. Instead of trying to formulate what my next sentence will be, I pay close attention to everything the caller says without interruption and repeat their concerns so they know I am listening. Contacting a funeral home is nerve racking enough for most people. Exacerbating a caller’s anxiety by bombarding him or her with questions before he or she is able to explain their situation could damage the funeral home’s relationship with that family. By allowing callers to cry, vent, and explain themselves in complete detail I am able to establish a level of trust before gathering the information the funeral home requires.

When speaking to people face to face, you can rely upon their facial expression and body language to determine their emotional state and whether or not your words are providing comfort. On the telephone, you must be more attentive to the subtleties that are sometimes lost in everyday conversation. A sharp intake of breath, a delayed pause, or a small voice inflection are often the only indicators that someone just passed away.

The language of the death care profession can be a major barrier for callers contacting a funeral home for the first time. It’s common for a phone call to begin with the sentence, “This might be a strange question, but…” and end up as a first call for the funeral home. Many callers are unsure of the correct terminology to use and are hesitant to ask direct questions. Additionally, it has become increasingly common for families to call multiple funeral homes before selecting one that fits their personal, financial and religious needs. Since many of these callers would prefer to speak to a director personally, they might be reluctant to provide details or vague about their reason for calling. To ensure that directors never lose a potential business opportunity, it is my responsibility to assume that every time the phone rings it is a new first call for the funeral home until proven otherwise.

For instance, when someone begins a conversation asking whether the funeral home accepts credit cards or if there is an onsite crematory, instead of dismissing the call as a routine question, my mind immediately asks, “Why would someone want to know this unless someone has passed or is close to passing?” If there are long pauses or I sense apprehension in the callers voice when asked a direct question, nine times out of 10 it’s because has just died, but the family doesn’t feel comfortable explaining the situation to me. While attending to callers, in addition to listening carefully to what they’re saying, I must remain attentive to everything that is not being said as well,` including the person’s tone and phrasing. What might seem like a simple question is often a family’s first step toward choosing the right funeral home to service their loved one.

No matter how affected I am by a phone call, ultimately it is the funeral director we are here to serve.

With the advent of new technology, the expectation that directors should be available at all times has escalated to the point where people now call at 9 and 10 p.m. regarding death certificates. While mobile and internet advancements have made life more convenient, there is no denying that we have become a culture of instant results. In the past, there were very few calls on Sundays that didn’t involve a recent passing because most people understood that the funeral home office would be closed. Now, florists call from the front door and request that a funeral director be paged while they are at church to open early for a floral delivery. Since websites can be accessed 24/7, people call at all hours of the day asking for an immediate call back for help with sending an online condolence. Society as a whole has become less accustomed to having to wait for answers, and I am often amazed by how little regard is shown for the personal lives of funeral directors by their callers.

While doctors and nurses have to be on call for emergencies, there are so many variables involved with funeral planning that the probability of a negative fallout resulting from a single missed call is much higher for funeral directors. Funeral professionals must coordinate with dozens of other businesses – cemeteries, casket companies, donor networks, florists – all with different schedules and timetables that don’t always coincide. My job is to screen calls based on the criteria provided to determine which calls are reachable. Funeral homes often go through periods when they are very busy handling multiple tasks that are extremely time sensitive. During these times, directors sometimes prefer not to be contacted for calls they normally would, and possessing a clear awareness of what issues require immediate attention is crucial for operators at ASD. In many cases, determining if a call is reachable is left up to my judgement. When confronted with this situation, I must consider every possible consequence that could result if the call is not dispatched, while also keeping in mind that the director may be in the middle of something of much greater importance.

The biggest difference between working as a receptionist for a single funeral home and handling calls for thousands of funeral homes nationwide is the range of issues I am confronted with on a daily basis. A large requirement for employees is becoming familiarized with the burial customs of different regions, ethnicities and geographic regions. For instance, Alaskans can only be buried a few months out of the year because of the frozen ground, while the entire city of New Orleans buries their loved ones in crypts located above ground due to the high sea level. The large variety of different types of funeral establishments requires call specialists to adapt to the customized procedures and notations of each unique account. A small funeral home in the rural South may want their phones answered completely differently than a funeral home based on the West Coast with multiple locations. Understanding the distinctions and learning how to distinguish between a wide array of different firms allows us to act as an extension of every funeral home we answer for. To this day, I still remember the name of the woman who called about arranging a burial for her son’s ashes, even though I handled the call years ago. I’ll never know what she looks like, but I am confident I would recognize her voice if she called again today. After eight years and a quarter of a million funeral calls, one might expect the memory to fade, but it remains clear in my mind as a daily reminder that every person who calls a funeral home deserves undivided attention, care, and compassion.

ASD Blog Post

Awake

Awake

You woke me up from a deep sleep.

I might have been dreaming for

years. Comatose and unresponsive

Silenced. Unaware of my own

screaming from the weight of these

heavy fears. I had this photo in

my mind of where I thought I

should end up, it was framed in

broken glass and cut me when

I reached out to touch, but

I clung to that photo even when

it hurt so much, I let the jagged

edges tear my skin, I watched

myself change into someone I don’t

know, I thought it was my burden

to carry within, my pill to swallow.

Then you walked in my life

like a tornado, disturbing

the delicate delusions I had

built, it was like you could

see straight through to my

sadness, my anger, my

guilt. I was walking around

in the dark until you came

in and flipped a switch,

sitting with you in your car

I can’t help but marvel that

a person like you exists. And even

though I never want you to be

far, I don’t expect anything

of you, you have already

helped me enough, just by being

who you are you have

woken me up.

For Better or Worse: Being a Funeral Director’s Spouse is…Different

Originally published in the January 2012 issue of ICCFA Magazine. Written for ASD – Answering Service for Directors.  

Their calendars are marked with notes and Xs labeling all the plans they have had to reschedule. They dread the sound of a ringing telephone. Their DVD players always contain a movie paused in the middle. This life is not for everyone. Yet, for the thousands of people who married into the funeral home business, it is the only life they know.

Funeral directors play a key role in how society honors life and ritualizes death. They must remain available to families 24/7. They must dress formally and maintain a composed demeanor anytime they leave home. They must be both sensitive and fastidious; a steady hand in public and a shoulder to cry on behind closed doors.

But behind these hardworking and empathetic professionals are the often overlooked wives and husbands who provide the support, reassurance and understanding to help their spouses serve families from their community.

In many cases, funeral directors grew up in the business or went directly to mortuary school after high school, so their spouses theoretically knew what they were signing up for—though “knowing” and “experiencing” can be two different things.

And these days, more people are entering the funeral service as a second career, and their spouses may find the transition overwhelming at first.

Marrying into the funeral profession

Margaret Fox never intended to become a funeral director, but falling in love can change even the best-laid plans. Fox’s life took a series of unpredictable turns that eventually led to her meeting and marrying Funeral Director George Fox of Fox Funeral Home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

When Fox’s husband passed away many years later, she received a widow’s funeral license that allowed her to keep the firm in the Fox family and remain connected to the families in the neighborhood with whom she had built strong personal relationships.

“Becoming a funeral director was never something that was ever really on the scope for me. I didn’t pick it myself,” Fox said. “It picked me.”

Though Fox never planned to become a funeral director, she now cannot imagine doing anything else. She credits her love of people and the guidance passed on to her from her late husband. Fox remembered her husband cautioning her before they were married about the daily sacrifices a funeral director’s wife would have to make.

“He told me my life was not going to be the way it was, that there were going to be social occasions I would have to go to by myself or plans that would need to be cancelled,” Fox said. “You have to be able to go with the flow and know that when that cell phone goes off you have to respond. People who have families that are rooted in this industry don’t think twice about it—it just becomes second nature.”

Remaining available and connected to a telephone 24/7 can be a strain for any person, but is especially difficult when you’re also a parent. Fox recalls heading down the shore once with her two children for an Easter holiday, only to be forced turn back around so her husband could respond to a first call.

“There is a flexibility to this business where you can run out and do errands, but you can’t simply take off—you have to have back up,” Fox said.

Fox’s story echoes the experiences of other wives that became an integral part of their spouses’ firm after unexpectedly marrying into the funeral home business.

For more than 18 years, Ronnette McCarthy has assisted her husband, Daniel McCarthy, with the day-to-day responsibilities at Heritage Cremations in Chicago. In addition to raising their two children and helping with the firm, McCarthy also works as an attorney.

Like Fox, McCarthy believes that attitude is everything, and without the right one the demands of the business can overtake even the most devoted spouses.

“It’s really important to appreciate and understand the necessity of funeral directors and the impact they have on families, because if you don’t appreciate what they do it would always feel like an intrusion in your life,” McCarthy said. “Both of us becoming one with the business was very important to me.”

In order to set time aside for leisure, many funeral families now rely on answering services on the evenings and weekends to screen their calls and contact them only for urgent messages. This ensures that the business needs are never ignored without sacrificing time with the family.

“As tied as we are to the telephone and other families, there is also a lot of freedom you wouldn’t normally have in a typical 9-5 job,” McCarthy said. “Technology has also improved our lives a great deal. Our answering service can send a text message while a first call is in progress, so we stay connected even when we’re at family functions or events.”

McCarthy feels fortunate to be able to work side-by-side with her husband every day, both in order to have a better understanding of the pressure he faces and to decrease the amount of time he has to spend away from home.

One’s a funeral director, one’s not

For some families, working together at the funeral home is not in the cards. In the past, independent funeral homes were often managed by the family, together. As dual-income funeral families have become the norm, more spouses are working full-time outside of the funeral profession.

As the wife of a funeral director and mother of two, Katy Prange has climbed numerous professional hurdles to find a job and schedule that aligns with her husband’s responsibilities at an independent funeral home in Wisconsin.

After being forced to leave a position at a large corporation due to a travel requirement, Prange eventually found a full-time job at the Wisconsin State Legislature’s Office that offered her the flexibility she needed.

“This can really impact how we see our life in relation to the business,” Prange said. “We have our own schedules, commitments and aspirations that are unrelated to the success of the funeral home; therefore the sacrifices we make are a little more obvious to us.”

Prange relies on her faith, dependable daycare, and encouragement from others in her situation for support. However, connecting with those who can relate to her lifestyle is a challenge. While funeral home spouses share many of the burdens of their partners, they are rarely acknowledged within the industry for the crucial role they play in the funeral home’s daily operations.

The lack of support groups, organizations or resources for funeral families led Prange to team up with her friend Erika Block (whose husband is also an independent funeral director in Wisconsin) to create Life With a Funeral Director—an online WordPress blog and Facebook community for anyone with a funeral director in their immediate life.

Launched in April 2011, Life with a Funeral Director provides an outlet for those with a common lifestyle to share their experiences, discuss issues and offer guidance to others. Prange had been mulling over the idea for years. Before marrying her husband, she remembers searching online for a way to connect with others who could paint a picture of what she could expect. Instead, Prange found a single, negatively written article and little other information.

Since launching the site less than a year ago, Prange and Block have received an outpouring from wives and family members who have connected with what they are writing about.

“We have been experiencing a steady growth despite minimal promotional efforts. As a marketing professional, this shows me that there are people out there literally searching for what we are offering,” says Block. “It is my hope that the blog and Facebook group will continue to grow and evolve into a family of informational products and services to further support our audience.”

While dual income funeral families have increased, it is still uncommon to find a female director whose husband works outside of the profession. For Steve Adams, adapting to his wife’s schedule at an independent funeral home in Minnesota was made easier by his own irregular schedule as a nurse. Still, her mid-life transition into the funeral business was not without its share of adjustments.

“There were times when she’d have to leave a family function much earlier and I would end up having to catch a ride back with someone,” Adams says. “I really didn’t have a chance to talk to other husbands in my situation. There really is no opportunity to get together. I think if there was, it would have been a big help for my kids when they were first getting used to her working as a director.”

Prange and Block are hoping Life With A Funeral Director will help to change that by facilitating communication between funeral families. For Prange, trying to reach out to other wives in her local area is not an option because she can’t share her personal thoughts with the spouse of her husband’s competitor.

While conventions and seminars bring together funeral professionals from across the country, Prange and Block are rarely able to attend due to their own work schedules. Even if they could attend, these events do little to capitalize on an opportunity to bring together the family members of funeral directors.

“I have gone to continuing education classes and one of the things I noticed was there are no classes or training for the many spouses who attend,” says McCarthy, who has attended funeral seminars in both Florida and Nevada. “There is no outlet for them to meet or speak to each other.”

Until the rest of the profession catches up, Life with a Funeral Director is doing a fine job bringing to light some of the unique situations that their members confront on a daily basis. The blog tackles issues from time management to raising children to handling the perceptions of others outside the industry.

Milestone events often a challenge

When it comes to holidays, anniversaries and milestone events, never has the phrase ‘until death do us part’ had a more literal meaning then for the wives and husbands of funeral professionals. There is no way to forecast how the next week or even next few hours will play out, and planning around the worst day in someone’s life is impossible.

In a blog entry for Life with a Funeral Director, Prange expresses her feelings after her husband is detained at work later than expected, nearly missing their daughter’s 7th birthday party. The post describes how important it is for family members of funeral directors to carefully choose their reactions and fight off feelings of resentment, self-pity or sadness.

“What [my husband] does is extremely important to those that he serves, and helping him serve them with peace and calm, means that I am serving them too,” Prange explains. “If he was annoyed or frustrated with them – because of the response he was getting from home – it would be my fault if the business, or another person, suffered as a result.”

For funeral families, walking that thin tightrope between personal and professional can be especially tricky. Soon after their son began walking and talking, McCarthy recalls noticing him pretending to use a cell phone, immediately alerting her and her husband that the lines between work and home were becoming too blurred. They decided to handle all future phone calls away from their children to set the example of separating their personal and professional lives.

To help maintain this balance, the McCarthys established a family rule that their dinnertime would be free of any and all interruptions, ensuring a stable routine despite their hectic schedules.

From an early age, children begin to wonder more about the world around them and question their surroundings. For parents in the funeral industry, deciding the correct approach to explain death and what they do on the job can be a daunting task.

Though they don’t take business-related calls in front of their children, McCarthy believes that it is essential for funeral families to remain open and honest with their children about their own mortality and the significance of funeral services.

“For us, it was easier than trying to shield him from it because we felt that it would give him a better understanding of what we do and death in general. It is apart of our lives so we needed it to be apart of his too,” McCarthy says. “We tell him all the time that’s why you have to live everyday to the fullest and tell everyone around you that you love them often.”

In Life with a Funeral Director, Prange confronts this same issue, describing a conversation she had with her daughters after they saw a woman lying in state at the funeral chapel. Instead of urging them to leave the room, she calmly and plainly answered her daughters’ questions about who the woman was, the nature of her death, and the importance of honoring her life with a funeral ceremony.

In the blog entry, Prange writes: “I’m glad I didn’t have the chance to make a big deal of it, or forbid them from going into that room, because I probably would have created a reaction, contrary to the one we ended up with. I’ve learned that a calm, honest approach to big-deal issues works with my kids.”

Perhaps one of the most frustrating aspects of having a funeral director in your immediate life is the assumptions made by people outside the industry. In many ways, spouses have to take on the role of a public relations manager, fielding every “I was just wondering…” inquiry so that his or her spouse won’t have to.

While Prange and Block have answered their fair share of inappropriate questions, they hope that establishing a line of dialogue for those who are related to funeral professionals will play a role in educating the public.

“I’m amazed by some of the feedback I’ve gotten from my family and friends. It has really given them a look into my life,” Prange says. “I hope someday that Life with a Funeral Director will lead us toward opportunities to share our experience with a broader audience and be a resource to help others cope and plan for their futures.”

“Missed Opportunity: the Cost of an Unanswered Phone Call” (Article Published in the January issue of American Funeral Director Magazine)

Originally published in the January 2012 issue of American Funeral Director Magazine. Written for ASD – Answering Service for Directors.      (click to enlarge)

Battling Burnout: How Funeral Directors Find Peace in the Midst Of Chaos

(This article was originally published in the October issue of The Director. Written for ASD – Answering Service for Directors)

uneral Director Thomas Gale counts ceiling tiles. Each one represents another moment in his life to remember not to take for granted. For nearly 20 years, Gale has been a funeral director at Currie Funeral Home in Kilmarnock, VA, and has learned how to balance his professional and personal life after his own brush with mortality.

Gale remembers lying immobile in a hospital bed during a heart procedure several years ago, his only outlet the ceiling tiles above him. When he counts them now, it is to remind him to take regular breaks, set time aside for hobbies and accept assistance from others.

“We take better care of our cars than we take care of ourselves,” Gale says. “If you see a blinking red light in your car, you’re going to pull off the road to get it serviced. Yet, we have warning signs go off in our lives all the time, but we keep driving until we have a major crash.”

A funeral home operates on a constant, 24-hour rotation that never sleeps. On a daily basis, funeral directors must deal with economic, operational and emotional stress, as well as the demands of providing compassion to the bereaved. In Funeral Home Customer Service A-Z: Creating Exceptional Experiences for Today’s Families, author Dr. Alan Wolfelt outlines the symptoms of what he calls “funeral director fatigue syndrome.” Known generally as “compassion fatigue”, this syndrome is common among caregivers who focus solely on others without practicing self-care, leading to destructive behaviors. Some common symptoms include:

*Exhaustion and loss of energy
*Irritability and impatience
*Cynicism and detachment
*Physical complaints and depression
*Isolation from others

While the admirable goal of helping bereaved families may alone seem to justify emotional sacrifices, ultimately we are not helping others effectively when we ignore what we are experiencing within ourselves,” Wolfelt says. “Emotional overload, circumstances surrounding death and caring about the bereaved will unavoidably result in times of funeral director fatigue syndrome.”

Dramatically changing these behavior patterns and adopting positive, healthy habits help these symptoms diminish overtime. While it can be easy for funeral directors to get swept up in the workload, it is often considerably more difficult to allocate free time for leisure. Here are some tips from directors and experts on how to defeat feelings of funeral director burnout:

Family Matters

According to Tim O’Brien, author of A Season for Healing – A Reason for Hope: The Grief & Mourning Guide and Journal, funeral professionals must maintain a near-constant demeanor of strength and self-possession, rarely displaying their emotions.

“Those characteristics are exactly why they need to take time for themselves and practice sound stress management techniques,” O’Brien says. “Yes, they do have to show outward composure and be the steady hand in public. However, they can and should have private time for exploring and expressing emotions. The alternative is often premature death.”

In a recent article for The Director, O’Brien cited irregular hours, interpersonal relationships with employees, limited free time and the often-depressing environment that grief can create as some of the main reasons directors experience compassion fatigue. However, finding a way to strike a balance between professional and personal isn’t as simple for small town funeral homes where the two categories are often one and the same.

Director Stephen Hall grew up in the funeral home business and has worked at the family owned and operated Trefz & Bowser Funeral Home in Hummelstown, PA since he was 12 years old. As an experienced director living in a small town, it is often difficult for Hall to step away from his numerous responsibilities but he has found that the nature of the job offers its own share of rewards as well.

“When my kids were younger, if there was a slow day at the funeral home I was free to attend activities at school because I set my own schedule,” Hall says.

The fine line between personal and professional has always been especially faint for Funeral Director Derek Krentz. He resides at the Gardner Funeral Home in White Salmon, WA with his wife Dominique, also a director, and their children. While Krentz rarely takes vacations, he feels fortunate to work side by side with his wife and still function as a family.

“Its not on common for the kids to do their homework while we’re working. Very often we’re folding memorial folders and laundry at the same time in the middle of the living room floor,” Krentz says. “We rarely go anywhere more than an hour away. You just learn to enjoy being at home.”

Embrace Technological Solutions

In the past, funeral professionals would remain near their firm’s telephone at all times to secure new business and provide families with assistance day or night. Many firms still operate with skeletal staffs, employing only a handful of full-time employees to share the workload. However, in the past decade, new technology and services have emerged that cater to the funeral home industry and help directors conduct business more efficiently.

“With new technology, we’re no longer tethered to a physical location anymore,” Hall says. “Pagers and cell phones have given us the freedom to run our business practically from anywhere.”

Improvements in telecommunications have allowed directors to remain available to families anytime they step out of the office. Whenever Hall has to step out of the office, either for a few minutes or for the evening, he forwards his phone lines to a funeral home exclusive answering service that records detailed messages and contacts Hall for any urgent or first calls.

“When ASD (Answering Service for Directors) came around it was a god send because their people know the profession. All of our calls are screened so we only have to address important concerns right away. ASD can field a lot of the questions that would have been another phone call for me to make,” Hall says. “Now that they have broadened out with the web connection I can log in to see the activity and if there is anything that needs to be addressed immediately.”

Other organizations work to decrease the time consumed by daily tasks at the funeral home. Life insurance assignment companies expedite insurance payments that can otherwise take months for funeral homes to receive. Many funeral professionals rely on removal services to transport decedents after office hours. Software companies have adopted new technology to speed up the process of death certificate filing, obituary placement, and much more.

Yet there is a still a slight stigma associated with modern funeral home practices and some multi-generational and small town firms continue to employ an older business model based on 24/7 availability. Many funeral home owners avoid hiring extra help or seeking assistance from other companies in an effort to provide families with a more personal touch.

“I’m not that computer savvy so I just prefer sitting down with a family while they’re making arrangements and write it down rather than type it into a computer,” Krentz says. “I just find it more personable.”

As President of the Association of Independent Funeral Homes of Virginia and a director in a small, tight-knit community, Gale knows first hand the pressure placed on directors to uphold traditional values. It is the reason why he still sometimes counts the ceiling tiles above his desk—to remember to never ignore his own needs or take his life for granted.

“I remember the old regime of remaining available all the time,” Gale says. “While you still have to be available, you don’t have to do it all alone.”

Care For Yourself So You Can Care For Others

According to O’Brien, funeral professionals are highly likely to develop compassion fatigue without “professional detachment, a positive attitude in the midst of an apparent negative atmosphere, regular personal time and good dietary, sleep and exercise habits.”

Every person needs an outlet: an activity they enjoy that should never feel like work. For funeral professionals, it is essential to seize any opportunity for personal enjoyment, even if only for a few hours.

“I don’t get away a lot but I’ve learned that when things are slow, go fishing, because you don’t know when the phone is going to ring again,” Krentz says.

Like Kretz, Gale is also an avid fisherman and finds the peace and serenity of being out on the water help him restore his state of mind and return to the funeral home with a clearer perspective. He also believes that surrounding yourself with other community members is invaluable to never losing sight of the reason you do your work.

According to Gale, “You’ll become a better person, a better funeral director and just a better over all servant to the people around you if you can care for yourself.”

A change of scenery is also a vital ingredient for maintaining a balanced lifestyle. Apart from the time spent away, physical space acts as a barrier between the mind and the stress agent, in this case, the funeral home office. No one can consistently give 100 percent day in and day out. Regular breaks provide the rest necessary to renew motivation for returning to work.

Last year, Gale took a vacation to spend time with his family in Virginia Beach, VA. For the first time ever, he wanted to free his mind and pretend for one straight week that the funeral home did not exist. At first, the time apart was excruciating. He spent the first 24 hours fighting the urge to check his messages, unable to break decade-old habits of remaining on top of all business, no matter the time or day.

Eventually, he was able to settle in and truly enjoy his break.

“Even the greatest of engines can’t run all of the time without being serviced,” Gale says.

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