Morticians

Someone who wants to help people in their hardest moments.

A person who prefers quiet, meaningful work over fast-paced environments.

People who are drawn to service-oriented careers with deep emotional value.

My name is Jack…I’m a necrophiliac 😉

A person who enjoys touching the dead.

[quote] What kind of person could become a mortician?

People with the last name of Pfeiffer but with the “p” not silent.

Actually if you want to read a first-hand account, Caitlin Doughty’s first book is very entertaining.

To be honest, the audiobook is even better — she reads it herself. It’s amazing.

[quote] My name is Jack…I’m a necrophiliac 😉

People who are drawn to sex-oriented careers without deep emotional value.

I worked with someone who did hair and makeup part time at a mortuary. She was punk style but I assume she just did regular hair and makeup on the dead.

Family business owners

Thank you, ChatGPT @ R1.

R9, you're welcome.

R1 - what a lovely, thoughtful answer. Morticians pick up where the doctors and nurses ended, but in my opinion, their job is just as important.

R4 - I know what you meant. However, in my city, all the funeral homes have names like Scharff and Lohmeyer. Perhaps it's an ethnic thing. 😉

People with a relentless appetite... and an indiscriminate palete.

Old women with strong southern accents that you rarely hear anymore say "mawtishens."

When Whoppi Goldberg was Caryn Johnson, she did hair and make up at funeral homes.

If a family member or friend is curious or expresses interest .....

support them and get resources to them.... for a segment of the population it is a very good fit career wise.

My uncle. He was witty and had a dry sense of humor. His brothers were in the bakery business and he said he was too.

They can make a pretty good buck - it's expensive to have a funeral. I think the last one I had to setup was $18k-$20K.

But dealing with people while they're in shock or grief EVERY DAMN DAY and constant reminders of death must be weird.

Doctors see everything - but funeral directors see it too and have to deal with the family more after the passing.

Every murder, suicide, drunk driving homicide, child cancer - ugh. Although I know the majority are older people. Even seeing older people and only 1 or 2 people show up must be awful.

Cremation and a party with good food and liquor - that's a much better way to go. Who needs the solemnity, minister, bible passages, hanging out at the gravesite - it feels like grief porn.

It takes a really special person to do it.

I know Six Feet Under was only a TV show but, the episode where the baby died due to SIDS was really moving. Poor Rico had to embalm an infant. That and some of more gruesome deaths were shocking. Like the woman who had her head out the limo sunroof and got hit by the traffic light square in the face. I know I couldn't do it.

steady work. job security. always in demand.

R19 - you ain't kidding! COVID was HUGE for business - best years EVER! We've had to turn DOWN business - LOL! We were just soo busy and booked out.

According to our industry research, the anti-vax movement could also increase sales significantly.

I advise people to make reservations while your loved one is still in the hospital. That way you can send a Save the Date note to all expected attendees.

You can never start planning too early - we'll even throw in a 5% discount. However, there is a $5000 fee for no-shows or reschedules.

One of my younger cousins is just starting out in this line of work.

I think she’s a practical and reasoned enough person to know full well it’s about as close to a recession-proof line of work as one can get.

A pragmatic one.

R21 - I would say it all depends on the profit mix. Embalming, caskets, viewing, makeup, transporting the body in a hearse - that's where a lot of money is made.

But if people switch to cremations - that's going to kill a lot of business.

Simple cremation - $1500 to $3000. Traditional burial funeral with viewing - up to $12,000 or more, depending on the casket. Caskets can be VERY expensive.

The whole burial thing seems archaic - back before photos, videos, memories, when it was your last time to see that person again. Now, who wants their last image of a person to be in their coffin?

Of course the churches make money off of it, too - that's part of their business - weddings and funerals.

I say fuck all of that - light a match, bring my ashes to the after-party and smoke 'em if you have 'em! Cemeteries are chock full of neglected graves and headstones of people nobody remembers.

When I was in high school I dated a mortician’s son. Funeral home attached to their house. Some of the nicest people I ever met. I got over the creepiness quickly. His dad gave me a tour of the embalming room and explained the process, which allowed me to see it as just a type of service industry.

R5, I can’t thank you enough for the recommendation! I just added it to my library. I’ll start it tonight!

R11, thanks. I wanted to define this thread. I could see it going (or maybe implied to go) in a different direction.

Weirdos; people who can't do hair and makeup or dressing on real life people.

Someone who couldn't get into Medical School. Instead of working with the living, can now practice on the dead.

A lot of folks are just dying to get in the biz. Good money in it.

R23, in New York we don't have to buy casket from the funeral home. This has cut into their revenue.

My ex's family were in the Mortuary and Cemetery business. As often recognized community figures where they work/live, they have to be 100% dignified and reserved at all times. Let me tell you, when out of town, those people party HARD.

Today thousands of funeral homes are owned by two companies. "60 Minutes" did a feature on their tactics. Buy one in town, approach second funeral home. If they decline the purchase, conglomerate is able to get suppliers to stop doing business with them, so they cave and sell.

🫖 🍰 🧵

R23 - agreed 100% how so much of the ritualistic aspect of this tradition seems outdated and archaic. Morbid even.

I appreciate the more modern take of getting together for a party or “celebration of life” and sharing stories. It’s kind of in the vein of old Irish celebrations regarding paying tribute to the deceased.

As with so much of the American economy, the funeral industrial complex is there to get our money. We are in a post-modern hellscape of profit-making money extraction everywhere we turn. It’s tiresome and draining.

The same people who are nail salon workers now become "morticians." It's all warehoused and most funeral homes send the bodies out to the rapid-spray-paint crews.

What's your damage, OP, that you are living in 1950 and making jokes about people who at one time made corpses presentable so family members could bear the sight of them?

What next for you? Hate speaking about people who work in meat packing houses and nursing homes?

I was about to recommend Caitlin Doughty, but someone beat me to it. Her YouTube channel is interesting.

Adding to R32 ... Service Corporation International operates 1,471 funeral homes and 488 cemeteries in the US. In Manhattan, Frank E. Campbell, Riverside, Gramercy Park, Walter B. Cooke and Charles Peter Nagel, plus twelve others in Brooklyn and Queens. When you see "Dignity" logo with obits, it's SCI.

R34 - agreed - who looks forward to a wake, viewing, funeral procession and burial? I get that it is 'paying respects' - but even if you looked down from it as the deceased person, I don't think you'd like what you'd see. And it's REALLY hard on the family.

It's also hard on the old folks to attend - what are you left with except the feeling, welp - looks like I'm next?

And somehow if you don't do all of that, it's disrespectful? It's just feels like a money grab and unnecessary for all the ceremony.

And why was cremation not more common and frequently banned by many religions and denominations - albeit with some reforming it in the last few decades?

It's weird how we just accept things as the way to do stuff. Weddings are similar.

R27, that's exactly what I was told by a gay funeral director I met at a dinner party. He told me a lot of gay men who into the funeral business because it gives them the chance to do hair and makeup!

There's an incredibly beautiful Japanese film about this. It's called Departures in English. This occupation is regarded as the lowest of the low in Japanese culture. However, as people above mentioned, the process is so important to the families. The protagonist, who comes to this profession accidentally and reluctantly, finally understands at the end what a crucial and necessary service he is providing - one which allows families to grieve. He comes to peace with his profession.

Speaking of Caitlin (the person behind Ask A Mortician, mentioned at R5) I don't know what's funnier......the drag parody of her

....or her reaction to it which is hilarious

Of the three closest funeral homes to my hometown, all three have been family run homes for generations, so I think it's often something that is......well, passed down through generations.

R34 What we used to call a "Wake," is now a "Gathering."

I chatted a few times with a gay guy who worked for a local funeral home. We met at our local gay bar. He really changed my perspective on it, which I saw as a kind of gruesome profession. As was mentioned before in this thread, his job as he saw it was for the living, making things as easy and compassionate as possible for the family and friends. He also said that he goes to funerals pretty often where he and the priest are the only people there. The person is old, no immediate family or no family nearby, the family makes the arrangements but don't take the time to attend. He said he didn't have to stay in the church but always did out of a kind respect for the life that had ended.

Obviously, he was a very sensitive and special guy, very handsome, but I got the impression he drank a lot.

R7 - my friend who’s a hairdresser does it too, but she’s an old lady hairdresser. I have a feeling she does some of her clients’ hair to the bitter end.

It creeps me out just to skim this thread, I can't fathom going into this line of work.

I never gave it much thought, even when confronted with the deaths of family & friends. Then I read something about Natalie Wood's death and how her corpse would have the benefit of Hollywood's best makeup artists.

in lieu of flowers

[quote] It creeps me out just to skim this thread

I don't say this to scold r47, but it's a shame so many people are uncomfortable with death and death rituals. I mean, I don't necessarily want to go deep into thought about embalming either, but I do wish people were more comfortable discussing death and the way they'd like theirs to go. Too many of us die in a hospital attached to tubes and wires.

It can be unsettling to see a dead body in a casket, for sure.

For 30 years my father worked for a company that manufactured caskets and vaults. His customers were the funeral homes in our region and his closest friends were the funeral directors who owned or managed these funeral homes. Both my older brothers at one point worked in a funeral home during high school doing maintenance work.

When I was growing up, funeral homes were usually family owned businesses, passed down generation to generation. And that's all they were - a business. The people who worked there had to have a certain level of detachment. It was a job that had to be done. Most funeral homes today are owned my conglomerates.

When it first aired, my family and I all commented how accurate Six Feet Under was.

I know a mortician named VINCENT PRICE. No joke. Sweet guy.

Morticians (or funeral directors as a more modern term) must not only handle the situations where the body dies in a sanitary setting (home with caregivers or in a hospital), but also have to handle remains that might have decomposed or been in much grizzlier circumstances (car wrecks of fires). I think I could handle the recent dead. I've been by the bedside of people who have passed away and it doesn't freak me out. But I'd be out of there like a flash if there were strong decomp smells or if I picked up an arm and it broke off in my hand.........EEEK

Trade secret. For the death smells you put a dab of Vicks VapoRub™️ under your nose and you don't smell a thing except for the Vicks.

"the family makes the arrangements but don't take the time to attend"

WTF? I can't believe it but I can at the same time. Some people's families are just beyond fucked up - stuff happens that I could never imagine.

Why go through all the bother for a funeral for someone and not attend? Just a complete and total insult before being put into the ground.

^^^Sometimes people pre-arrange their own funeral years before.

R47 Same, but I do respect those who can. All I can think of are the smells (never mind the sights). I couldn’t do it.

I would. It’s like being a cop or a fireman. Somebody has to do it. I also would treat the dead with respect and kindness.

One of the most handsome men I ever cruised turned out to be a mortuary student. When I learned he had the exact same birthdate as me, I backed out of the hookup. I regret that.

Actually R54 that’s a fallacy.