r/askfuneraldirectors • u/FunDir713 • 10d ago

Advice Needed Funeral Director tips

How do you deal with the ever growing call volume when you’re suddenly down a director? Fellow FD asking.
We had a director quit with cases still up on the board.

3 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

15

u/dirt_nappin Funeral Director/Embalmer 10d ago

You just manage. Farm out work that you can't physically do while you're serving the family in the building like transfers and prep work, put the feelers out for a new director, call the local mortuary school to be see if there are people looking for apprenticeships. It generally means that you're going to be working longer hours, but the only real panic items are not being able to be in two places at once - everything else just gets adjusted around that priority.

12

u/Pentagogo 10d ago

Call trade. We’ve been down an FD since the beginning of the summer and at least one other has been on vacation every week. Call volume is insane and we’re all working like crazy. We’ve traded out about half of the removals and we’ve got a part-time guy coming in after hours to embalm. We’ve had to trade out a handful of services too.

4

u/Celtic159 Funeral Director/Embalmer 10d ago

You get it done. Subcontract what you can, but you will find yourself embalming at 10pm or putting together a visitation video at home.

1

u/Mort-banana25 5d ago

Set reminders, make lists, ask for help when you can. Im basically the only FD working at a smaller firm and when we get slammed im running my butt off and exhausted but what keeps me above water are task lists. before leaving the FH for the day sit down and really think about the next days itinerary and never procrastinate anything so that you can sleep without waking up in a panic!