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Topic: Collective knowledge of Film Tech members

Stephen Furley
Film God

Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002

posted 08-27-2003 12:06 PM

Leo wrote:

quote:

After the last funeral I attended (very sad: a colleague in my last cinema job who committed suicide aged 32) I did find myself asking how, exactly, one gets into the crematorium business.

Leo, that's an interesting question, that I have wondered about in the past, though not specifically in relation to crematoria. Do you remember that some time ago, there was a television programme, or it may even have been a short series, about people who do what are generally considered to be unpleasant jobs? I only saw a few minutes of it, the part I saw was about something, I can't remember what, unpleasant enough to put me off the meal I was eating at the time! I did see a list of the jobs, some of them were just things that most people would not want to do, e.g. public lavatory cleaner, but a few were really unpleasant things that you wouldn't even want to think about.

I've never seen jobs at places such as crematoria, diseased animal carcass incinerators, rendering plants etc., advertised, and it's difficult to imagine that people would think of these sort of jobs when selecting a career. I doubt if any small child has ever said 'Daddy, I want to be a diseased animal carcass incineration plant operative when I grow up'!

Do job centres hand out cards for these sort of jobs to people? I can imagine that some of the more sensitive people would be quite ill at the thought of being sent to one. Could someone be denied unemployment benefit if they refused to be sent to such a job? Could they object on moral or religious grounds?

There was another television programme, several years ago, about various aspects of death, and they interviewed some crematorium staff, who didn't seem to mind the job. I think that, in time, you could get used to doing most things, but it's difficult to understand how anyone would get into it in the first place.

I'm just grateful that there are people who are prepared to do jobs that very few of us would want to do, but which need to be done.

Somebody I was at school with did go to work in a mortuary at one of the large hospitals; they had been there for several years when I last saw them, about twenty years ago now, but I never asked them why they chose to do it.

[ 08-27-2003, 03:27 PM: Message edited by: Stephen Furley ]

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William Hooper
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1879
From: Mobile, AL USA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-28-2003 01:37 AM

Stephen, most of the health care professions are the same way, but folks don't find out until they start to get more acquainted with them. Many very socially-inclined people are attracted to the health care professions by the interesting problems & opportunities to meet different people. But as studies progress, it becomes plain that basically they'll just be meeting new sick, miserable people every day, & that's too much of a downer for most people. There are some great people with interesting mixes of personality traits in the health care professions, but you'll find that the reason so many have poor "bedside manner" is because they aren't very socially attuned. Typically, for studies which go to a doctoral level in those professions, the most likely to finish up are those motivated to achieve the title for social status or higher monetary gain. Another point of disillusionment is for folks like RN's & psych PHD's - more often these days, they don't *see* many people, but go into administrative positions & others actually work with patients. The best-paying jobs for psych PHD's actually require greatest concentration on statistics, which they just grind in an office.

I used to think it would be hard to be someone like an automobile paint & body guy who would come in and roll up that door on yet another cold February morning & have to look out on another yard of banged up & mangled cars to patch up or pronounce beyond help, but if you've ever walked into the waiting room of an orthopedic's office & looked at those folks...and more the next day, and more the next day...

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 08-28-2003 02:01 AM

quote:
I've never seen jobs at places such as crematoria, diseased animal carcass incinerators, rendering plants etc., advertised, and it's difficult to imagine that people would think of these sort of jobs when selecting a career.

As I said, my guess would be that they end up there from a similar sort of job but in a different setting. For example, someone leaves school, trains as a gas engineer and starts work with the council, maintaining the boilers in an office block. A few years later an internal vacancy at the crematorium comes up with higher pay and less antisocial hours...

I can well understand why such jobs are not advertised publically, though - think of the risk of attracting the wrong kind of people. I once applied for an archive cataloguer's job, and at the interview it was made clear to me that the position would involve dealing extensively with concentration camp footage. 'We didn't put that in the job spec sheet for obvious reasons,' commented the interviewer. At the time I thought that by 'obvious reasons' she meant that it might deter suitable candidates from applying: I later found out that in fact they were afraid it would encourage unsuitable candidates. According to a Sunday paper article I once read, the same principle is applied by the railway companies, which use sophisticated screening, interview questions and psychometric tests to make sure that they don't end up employing any train spotters (they're afraid that train spotters would spend too mucb time looking at the trains rather than working on them).

quote:
Do job centres hand out cards for these sort of jobs to people? I can imagine that some of the more sensitive people would be quite ill at the thought of being sent to one. Could someone be denied unemployment benefit if they refused to be sent to such a job? Could they object on moral or religious grounds?

Given that recent story about the vegetarian who successfully took the government to the Euro-court after his local job centre suggested McDonald's, I would guess that the answer to that question is almost certainly yes. Besides, who needs to force people to work in these places if they don't want to? That's what we've got asylum seekers for! [evil]

quote:
There was another television programme, several years ago, about various aspects of death, and they interviewed some crematorium staff, who didn't seem to mind the job. I think that, in time, you could get used to doing most things, but it's difficult to understand how anyone would get into it in the first place.

Interesting: a friend became interested in these issues (specifically, the way official procedures deal with death) following the sudden death of her father, and as a result ended up researching and writing this novel. She assures me that pretty much all the 'humour' in the scenes involving pathologists and mortuary technicians is completely true. I dread to think what sort of jokes I'll be the butt of if I ever end up on the slab.

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