Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lessons from the Crematory

“Our founder, Hubert Eaton was a revolutionary!” she gushed. “Surely you’ve learned about the wonderful things he has done for the death industry. And it’s a wonderful place to work. Such good benefits—people retire from our company.”


At Cypress, the all-female representative army looked just like Evelyn Waugh had described, “that new race of exquisite, amiable, efficient young ladies” whom he had met everywhere in the United States. They wore matching gray suits and blank stares reminiscent of the Manson family. The Eaton family, if you will, here to gain recruits for the beautiful death brigade.

I filled out their massive employment application and forced myself to turn it in. I had to wait my turn while they interviewed several male students in the mortuary program, for whom they make no effort to hide their preference.

“Well, I am looking for a job as an arrangement counselor. I do have experience in that area,” I began.

“Now, we call those ‘memorial counselors,’ and we don’t have anything like that available,” the representative cooed. “You don’t want to be an embalmer?”

“Um, no.”

“Well, perhaps you would be interested in our student program, where we allow selected students to work part-time at services, giving directions to the families, et cetera. Oh! But look, it says here you are graduating this year, you wouldn’t want that.”

“Oh, well, sure I would. I really want to work for your company!” I said with as much vigor as possible, forcing the bile down the back of my throat. I felt gross the rest of the day.

Over the next month I applied everywhere, knowing where I actually wanted to be was back in the trenches, with dead bodies, with real grief and real death. I heard back from two places: a very fancy mortuary/cemetery combination, and a crematory. I decided to show up at both interviews looking well put together and let fate decide.





BODY VAN





The cemetery was Old Hollywood glamorous. It wasn’t Forest Lawn, but it was close. Turning off the road through the decorative gates was like entering Mount Olympus. A white-columned mansion sat high atop a hill, with a twelve-tiered water fountain cascading below it. It was a wonderland, where a single burial plot could run tens of thousands of dollars.

I was meeting with the general manager to interview for a job as a funeral director. After a few minutes he came sweeping into the lobby with a plate of chocolate-chip cookies. Directing me into an elevator, he said, “Here, cookies. Take one.” It felt rude to say no. Afraid to interview with chocolate on my teeth, I gracelessly held the sweet burden in my hand through the entire interview.

We got off the elevator and he led me into his office, which had floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over his death utopia. He delivered a thirty-minute monologue on the pros and cons of his establishment. I would be hired to make funeral arrangements, but, he warned, “Don’t be surprised if the family treats you like a butler—that’s the kind of people they are. Here, well, you’re the help.”

I would handle the arrangements for everyone except the celebrities. He did all the celebrity calls. “Look,” he said by way of explanation, “last month when [redacted] died, his service time leaked to the media. Of course, all the paparazzi were swarming the gates. I need that kind of publicity like I need a fist in my ass, if you get me. I handle the celebrities now.”

This wasn’t my ideal employment situation, but at least the cemetery wasn’t run by one of the big funeral corporations. Even better, he swore up and down that I wouldn’t have to upsell anything to families: more-expensive caskets, extended services, fancy golden urns. No lines like “Are you sure Mom wouldn’t have wanted the rosewood casket? Didn’t she deserve a dignified send-off?” were required to earn my bonus. It seemed like a good enough place to recover for a while, licking my wounds from mortuary school.

After telling me I was hired, making me fill out my W-9, and showing me my new office, I didn’t hear from him for a month. I had erroneously thought that his “fist in my ass” speech meant I was part of the team. Apparently there are far more intimate rungs in the funeral service ladder, because I eventually got a curt e-mail from his secretary informing me they had decided to “hire internally” instead.

My second interview was at a crematory, a Westwind of magnificent proportions, a veritable disposal factory. It cremated thousands of bodies a year in a sizeable warehouse in Orange County. It was run by Cliff, a man who spoke in the same flat monotone as Mike, leading me to believe the speech pattern is a job requirement. He also took the place very seriously, having built the business to a size sufficient to support his real passion, competition Spanish Andalusian horses. I got the job.