Anubis Drives a Tan
Suzuki Week 3
Friday: I spoke
to a few people at the National Funeral Directors Association and at the
Funeral Service Foundation. Everyone seemed very receptive of my idea, but the
woman I spoke to at the Funeral Service Foundation said that they don’t
normally sponsor individuals, which is completely understandable.
So, that’s all
I have for updates this week. I could try and tell you that it was the last
week before fall quarter at school, so I wanted to spend time with friends before
all the chaos began and that I worked a lot this week, but, really, I know it’s
no excuse.
But, hey,
this means I get to bore you with more autobiographical information that you
didn’t want or even ask for! Isn’t it exciting?!
How I ended up in
Funeral Service:
It all
started back in early 2008. The economy was booming. Home prices just kept
going up and up and seemed like they’d never stop. And why shouldn’t they? The
idea of “flipping” a house was so popular that there were a dozen reality shows
on TV dedicated solely to following people who flipped houses. (needs citation)
But that’s enough sarcastic 20/20 hindsight-ness. No one could have predicted the
bursting of the housing bubble (other than a Nobel Prize winning economist,
*cough* Paul Krugman). About that time I was turning 25 and it was time to stop
being a bum, jumping from job to job and start thinking about what I was going
to do with the rest of my life.
Both of my
parents had spent their whole careers as Letter Carriers for the USPS, or
United States Postal Service, The only government agency that made money. And
still would have if the government hadn’t made it prefund its retirement
program for an extra 10 years (I’m not going to say which party was mostly
responsible for this simply because I promised myself I’d keep politics out of
this blog. Silly self-promises, always getting in the way). I keep getting
side-tracked. Anyway, both parents being successful postal workers (meaning
they stayed postal workers their whole lives and were never fired, not that they
earned awards or made huge sacks of money doing it) made me think that, from a
genetic predisposition standpoint, I might make a good postal worker as well.
At the time,
the way you became a postal worker was to sign up to take a multiple choice entrance
exam. Exams were given at certain times during the year in each region, regions
being large chunks of each state. The score you received on this exam
determined where you landed on a call list. The higher the score, the higher on
the list. Extra points for being a veteran of the US military, can’t argue with
that. If you had the highest score you were the first person they called when
there was a job opening.
I, not
wanting to spend any more time than I had to in the Tri-cities where I was born
and raised, signed up for exams in every region in Washington state except for the
ones east of the Cascades and south of Moses Lake. This meant I spent most of the
spring and summer of 2008 traveling around all the parts of Washington that
were actually evergreen taking the same exam over and over again. I never got
more than an 87%. Meh.
For those of you not from ‘round here, there’s a large chunk
of Washington, The Evergreen State, that’s just all desert and sagebrush and
not particularly ‘Evergreen’. The Tricities is in the middle of that part.
Then the
economy took a header, Lehman Brothers, Fannie and Freddie, blah blah blah, stuff
we all remember, and the USPS initiated a hiring freeze. Well darn, what to do
now?
One day I
was lamenting my sad predicament in my own sardonic way in my mother’s kitchen
while she sat on the couch in the other room watching TV and listened to me
whine. She just happened to be watching an episode of Modern Marvels on Funeral
Tech and said “Why not look into becoming a Funeral Director?” and, just as she
suggested, I thought ‘Why not?’
So, look
into it I did. In Washington State, like most, you needed a license to be a Funeral
Director and a separate license to embalm. You were more marketable if you had
both. To get those licenses you needed a 2 year degree, a degree in Mortuary Sciences
for embalming specifically, and you had to serve an apprenticeship (since then
the term has been to Internship because in Washington we just have to be
different), 2 years for embalming and 1 year for funeral directing, but both can
be served concurrently.
I was
already familiar with apprenticeships from my experience with Trade Unions (I’ll
explain later), and the 2 year degree, which normally would have thrown me
given that I dropped out of high school, didn’t seem like much of a challenge
because it was something that interested me. I figured that the only way that
could get a degree was if it was something that really interested me.
Turns out I was right, or wrong given that I’m now in school
for Business Management, or right again given that I’m now really interested in
the field of Business Management.
Funeral
Directing was also a very practical field, in the way that it is relatively
recession proof. And in the fall of 2008 that seemed, and still seems, like a
really good thing. I’m also from a hearty German stock and I was raised with
the philosophy: Why follow your dreams if it means you’re going to starve to
death before you achieve them? Do something that will allow you to feed
yourself even if it’s soul-crushingly tedious and/or boring. You can pursue
your silly flights-of-fancy in the few minutes you have at home before you collapse
into bed at night.
I may be over-exaggerating a bit, but you get the idea.
I looked
into local colleges that offered a 2 year Mortuary Sciences degree. At the time
there was only one that had an accredited program, Mount Hood Community College
in Gresham, OR. 2 more have since sprung up in Washington and, I’m pretty sure
they’re both now accredited, but neither of them have Doug Ferrin as their
Program Director and until that changes they will both be inferior in my book.
I found out
what was required, I took the entrance exam, bombed the math portion, but that
was workable, got all my shots (hep. B, TB titers and something else I can’t
remember were required) and submitted my application. And miracle of miracles,
I got in for academic year 2009.
At this
point all I needed to do was figure out how I was going to feed and house
myself for the 2 years needed to complete the degree. I first considered buying
some sort of motorhome or RV and park in some RV park near the school, but all I
could find in anything resembling my price range was something akin to a small Ford
Econoline van with a tiny kitchen, sleeping area in the back. I don’t think the
thing even had a bathroom. Lot rents in the area of Gresham were also too high,
so that idea was scrapped. In hindsight, I could have probably parked it in the
back parking lot of MHCC (Mount Hood Community College) by the gym and used the
showers and bathrooms there when the doors were unlocked. This, of course, would
have probably made me quite the campus creeper and would have, most likely,
seriously affected my love life.
Luckily, I
had contacted the Oregon Funeral Directors Association and they had passed my
resume off to Columbia Funeral Home in St. Helens, OR and John Potter, the
owner of Columbia Funeral Home (and a Saint of the highest order for not firing
me at any point during my 2 years there), called me up, gave me an interview, and
then gave me a job and a place to stay for the 2 years I went to school. I am
forever grateful, as you might have guessed.
This brings
up a good point. If you are a Funeral Director, Apprentice Funeral Director or
are an aspiring Funeral Director, for the love of God, join your State
Association. The benefits are incalculable. Sure, it might cost a little bit of
money, but think of that as an investment. The OFDA got me a job while I was in
school and the WSFDA posted my resume on their website back in May and I’ve
gotten at least one call a month from someone who saw it offering me a job. I
had to turn them all down because they were in other parts of the state or country
and I want to finish my Bachelors, but still! At least once a month! Most also
provide continuing education, which is required in some (if not all, I’m not
sure about that part) states. Just join, you’ll thank me for it later.
That’s it
for now, more to come in the following weeks and months. Probably much more if
I don’t get off my lazy, working-full-time-and-just-started-school-again-full-time
butt and start doing something update worthy.
Like last
time, if you have any questions, concerns, suggestions, spelling or grammatical
corrections (how will I ever learn if no one ever says anything), words of
support or encouragement, confessions of love, hate-filled rantings of utter
distain, or anything else for me, do not hesitate to email me at funhomeambo@gmail.com.
Here are links to the NFDA: http://nfda.org/
And to the Funeral Service Foundation.
Check out their scholarships if you are planning on attending school to become
a Funeral Director: http://www.funeralservicefoundation.org/
And to FAMIC, a great program run
by the Funeral Service Foundation: http://famic.org/
I’ll post a new one of these every week. Feel free to e-mail
me and call me a loser if I don’t live up to my self-imposed deadline.
There’ll be
a little bonus this week to those of you who’ve joined my Facebook group. If you’re not a member yet, join.
Hope you enjoyed it and I thank you
for reading all of this or skipping to the end, whichever is the case.
Johnathan Hove
No comments:
Post a Comment