mortuary megabytes

Sammy Oakey, President, Oakey's Funeral Service & Crematory

“They’re fried!” came the somewhat exasperated voice from our dispatcher’s office, booming down the hallway and into my office. No, the staff were not preparing eggs for a company breakfast. While not a technological expert, I knew in an instant Dale was speaking of the computers in our dispatch office. Not to overstate the importance of these devices in our company’s nerve center, but they’re to Oakey’s what the fry machine is to McDonald’s. Or, every bit as significant as the drummer in a rock band. Think Taubman Museum of Art without the paintings.

 Knowing next to nothing about computers, much less computer repair, I found myself watching as Dale and Tracy did all they could to resurrect this apparently deceased hunk of metal. I could tell by the hushed tones this was something pretty serious, akin to your car’s water pump busting on the way to the beach. When this happened on a family vacation when I was young, my dad’s tones were anything but hushed. Since you can’t dial 911 when your computer is breathing it’s last sigh, our call to Entre Computer was the next best thing. And just as paramedics come running after the three digit cry for help, our man Todd from Entre flew over to inspect the carnage.

 Todd’s initial assessment was every bit as grave (funeral profession pun intended) as we feared, and he hauled two hard drives back to his shop with him, leaving our company is a state of semi-paralysis. Our templates for making memorial records and our ability to craft DVD’s have been the two biggest impacts so far in this first week of computeritis. While not every family usually wants a DVD to be created for playing at the visitation or funeral service, it seems as if EVERY family since our ‘puters went down are now requesting DVD’s! Thanks to some backed up files and very talented employees, Oakey’s has been able to weather this storm. Of course I still haven’t received the bills from Entre for the new computers and the repair attempts on the old ones, so I’ll probably go into cardiac arrest when those babies arrive. At least by then, Dale and Tracy will be able to use Oakey’s computers to produce a glitzy DVD tribute of my life for playing at the visitation!

how to stay busy when you’re not busy

Sammy Oakey, President, Oakey’s Funeral Service & Crematory, Roanoke, VA

While I certainly don’t claim to know much of anything about what goes on in a fire station, I’ve talked to enough firemen to know there are a lot of similarities between firefighters and funeral workers. Nope, you’ll never catch this “afraid of heights” guy on a ladder or roof, and I wouldn’t know how to operate a fire hose if you paid me to do so. Where I believe a kinship exists between these two drastically different professions is the unpredictability of our workloads. Just as firemen may have multiple fire calls they have to go on for days in a row, so also must funeral directors and attendants be ready to work funerals, go on decedent removals, and interact with families for hours on end. But as busy as those days are when we don’t even have time for a bite of lunch, there are also days for both firefighters and morticians when things are relatively quiet and some well earned ”down time” is in order.

 A good example came this week. On Monday, which is traditionally a heavy funeral day, Oakey’s was involved with seven funerals. Needless to say, all staff members were hopping and active during their hours at work. Yesterday, though, our firm had only one funeral. And that’s including all five chapels. Since we did not receive many new death calls that same day, you could sayt there was either a shortage of work or an overabundance of employees yesterday! On such days, working crossword puzzles seems to be a high volume activity within the Oakey offices. But like the men and women at fire departments across our valley, we have to be ready to jump into action within minutes. All it takes is a few rings of the telephone to send our people to a hospital, nursing home, or residence where someone has just passed away.

 Crossword puzzles aren’t the only spare time activity at Roanoke’s oldest existing business. I can remember one summer evening back in the seventies when my father stopped by the funeral home and saw the men on duty tossing a Frisbee on the parking lot. Never one to pass up some fun, my dad joined in for awhile. On the following Monday morning, Mr. Arrington (the manager at that time) had issued a memorandum saying there would be “no throwing of balls or discs” on the Oakey parking lot at any time! Reading is also a well practiced slow time interest here, and you can find books and magazines tucked into almost any nook and cranny in the building. For several years, I thought that “The Upper Room” devotional guides were mandatory reading for our hostesses during slack times!

 The firehouse and the funeral home. Two buildings with entirely different purposes, yet a connection exists between the two.

Mortuary Cuisine

Sammy Oakey, President, Oakey's Funeral Service & Crematory

As the saying goes ”the only two sure things in life are death and taxes,” both topics are indeed guaranteed, but kinda depressing to think about. Let’s throw another item into the mix that’s equally essential but a bit more fun to talk about: food!

 I don’t know where other businesses prioritize eating on lists of importance, but at Oakey’s, it’s  high up there on our “to do” list! Walk into our South Chapel any morning and you’ll know whether or not Mac McKinney is working based on whether or not a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts is laying on the kitchen table. And I can usually tell whether or not the night crew at our downtown chapel has made a Texas Tavern run during the night…the pungent smell of chili and onions wafts thru the dispatcher’s office as workers come on duty in the morning. Hey, I just said “food.” I never claimed we were training for the Olympics around here!

 While many of us bring our own lunches to work each day, the contingent sending out for “to go” orders begin plotting their culinary strategy around 9:30 A.M. Talk of which restaurant to go to, what the specials are, prices, and menu content pick up in frequency until they reach a fever pitch around 11:00. Then, it’s onto the process of gathering orders (and money!) from everyone and taking flak from those not liking the ultimate choice of where their sustenance is going to be coming from. Next is deciding what patsy, I mean volunteer, will be going to fetch the viddles. I’m sure valley citizens just love coming in behind one of our staff at a cafe’s cash register as they pay for ten separate lunch orders!

 Of course getting lunch is just a small part of chowing down at Oakey’s. The best cooks in Roanoke work here, and it’s not unusual for one of our talented staff to bring in a dish or two they whipped up at home for our at-work dining experience. Covered dish luncheons in our company kitchen should be televised by the Food Network! Sometimes we do hot dog (vegi dogs for me) or baked potato days, and the firm provides lunch for all the staff. During the holidays, our consumption of cookies, cake, pies, and chocolate would cause a dietician to pass out.

silence your cell

Sammy Oakey, President, Oakey's Funeral Service & Crematory

I’ll be the first one to admit not feeling entirely at ease with today’s technological world. Growing up being only able to watch Channels 7, 10, and 13; using a rotary dial telephone; feeling mighty cool listening to WROV (AM!) on a transistor radio . . . . I could go on, but each mention would only date me closer and closer to the Mesozoic Era! My point is, I sometimes have difficulty with how this generation’s gadgets and gizmos have changed everyday life. Take the cell phone. Yeah, I know that I have one in my pocket right this very minute and I try to be as inconspicuous as possible whilst using the device, instead of carrying on loud conversations for the world to hear. I even have the ringer turned to low and to the simplest ring tone available. But the melding of the cell phone to the world of funeral service has certainly had several bumps along the way. I only wish I had a dollar for each time a cell phone has gone off during a funeral service; I could have purchased McCartney tickets to Atlanta and Dallas as well as the one I have to the D.C. concert! We at Oakey’s have even posted tasteful notices at the front of each of our chapels advising attendees to please silence their mobile phones and pagers. But no sooner does the funeral or memorial service get going when the grating sounds of a doorbell, the marimba, a duck quacking or Sinatra belting out “My Way” come wafting out of a careless individual’s cellular telephone. Of course the first one is a great reminder for other mourners to check their phones as well; very rarely do we have more than one interruption per service. And while most offenders embarrassingly cut the shrill noise off and pretend it wasn’t them, I swear I have seen folks carry on a conversation right smack in the middle of a funeral service! Of course it starts with a semi-whispered “I’m in a funeral at Oakey’s,” but can continue for another five minutes or so, as if they think no one else can hear them (we can). I have yet to have the decedent’s cell phone go off from the inner recesses of a suit or garment in the casket, but I do remember one time before a visitation started an alarm on the corpse’s wristwatch sounded! Fortunately, one of our crack electronic aces at the funeral home was able to figure out how to shut the thing off before the family came in for their private viewing. And then there was the time the nervous family member was apparently playing with his pocketed car keys during a funeral at the downtown Roanoke Chapel and accidentally (I guess!) set off the car alarm on his vehicle, which was right beside the family room! Over my first twenty years in funeral service, the most offending noise to come out of a man’s pocket or a woman’s purse was the jingling of coins or the unwrapping of cellophane from around a peppermint. Oh, for the good old days! My have times changed!

Yes, we have conventions too!

Sammy Oakey's, President of Oakey's Funeral Service & Crematory

 

 

Visitors to Hotel Roanoke on Monday morning this week may have been a bit dismayed to see two hearses backed up near the doors to the conference center. A glance thru the doors of the hotel would have revealed cases of embalming fluid, caskets and urns of every variety, and burial suits and gowns. Nope, there were no mass fatalities (thankfully) involved, just the 121st annual meeting of the Virginia Funeral Directors Association. Just as car dealers, bankers, and insurance agents have conventions for their respective occupations, so too does the death care profession have get-togethers for funeral directors and embalmers. While good fellowship and renewing old ties are pretty high on the ”to do” list at such events, so too is continuing education, honouring the memories of deceased colleagues, and seeing what new products the funeral vendors are showcasing. Oh yeah, eating is usually tied to each and every area of the convention!

 

 I can remember going to these meetings as a youngster and teenager in the sixties and seventies, usually with one goal in mind: to fill up a bag with as many novelties, knick-knacks, and pieces of candy as I could possibly cram in there! Think of it as Halloween in June. Each sales booth at the convention usually has something attractive to get prospective buyers over to hear their spiel. Since the pitch is only about three to five minutes, I always thought it was a great trade-off to hear some smooth talking salesman tout the advantages of his product as long as I received a yardstick, ink pen, flashlight, or other trinket in return. Even better, if the salesperson was tied up talking to someone else, my grubby little thirteen year old hands would just slide whatever they had to offer into my (complimentary!) bag. Some of the stuff they handed out was pretty bigtime: bags of pecans, fingernail clippers, and even seedlings to take home and plant.

 Of course now I am less interested in the freebies and more interested in how any new products the salespeople have can help better the Oakey organization. Still, when I saw co-workers walking around eating from little bags of M & M’s, I was tempted to yell “Where did you get those?!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Little Service

As a pretty easygoing guy, it takes a lot to cause me to become irate. And the things causing “irateness” in me are probably the same events ticking off the vast majority of the population: people zooming past a line of cars and then trying to force their way in near the front.  Other examples include water fountains and clocks that don’t work, an eyelash getting in my eye (drives me batty!), and spilling something on my clothes.  These are just some of the things leading my list of life irritations. But number one on the list would have to be a lack of customer service in a store or restaurant.

 I jokingly asked for “a little service” at my favorite dry cleaners when I walked in the other day.  The counter staff was busy in the cleaning section and one of the attendants stated “a little service” was exactly what I would get. We were both kidding and I always get top notch treatment from the folks at Wheeler’s Fast Service, but his comment would fit well at some of the establishments in our region. Or instead of “a little service,” maybe “no service” would be an accurate description.

 While I know that Oakey’s is not perfect and we have “dropped the ball” on occasion, our staff attempts to blanket each family served with kindness, compassion, and detail. This is what we have been known for and what we still strive to give on a daily basis. So I think what really irks me is giving 110% all day at work and then venturing out to other businesses in town that ignore and neglect me, as well as other patrons walking through their doors. Sometimes I actually feel as if I am bothering the waiter or person behind the counter. Case in point: I needed a new pair of good shoes on Saturday and began making my way into various shoe stores in our community. Now it is certainly not the fault of Rack Room, Joseph Banks, or anyplace else that I require a size seven and a half shoe; in fact, even though I did not find a pair to buy in those two stores, they both gave good customer service. However, my visit to one of the “anchor” stores at Tanglewood Mall was just the opposite. After perusing the men’s shoes for ten minutes and waiting for someone (anyone!) to help me, I approached a male employee who was doing nothing in the ladies shoe department and asked for some help. By the pained look on his face, you would have thought that I was asking him to blacktop and line the parking lot outside. His poor attitude and unwillingness to look for a pair of shoes in my size had me back in my car on the way out to Valley View in a matter of minutes. A big “thank you” to the guy at the Macy’s shoe area, who was knowledgeable, courteous, and put a smile on my face even as I forked over $70 for a snazzy looking pair of seven and a half’s! Think I’ll go back into the Tanglewood store anytime soon?

 Lessons such as this reinforce the core value in my chosen profession…service. It’s nice to have shiny limousines and hearses, modern and well kept funeral chapels, and finely, manicured grounds at the each of Oakey’s five chapels.  However, all of these amenities are worthless if each and every person entering our doors are not made to feel welcome, appreciated, and properly taken care of. As long as I’m part of the team at Oakey’s, families will not get “a little service.”  They will get a lot.

what’s in a name?

Sammy Oakey, President, Oakey's Funeral Service & Crematory

“Oakey & Woolwine Undertaking”. “Oakey’s Funeral Home”. “Oakey’s Funeral Service”. “Oakey’s Funeral Service & Crematory“. Yeah, I know our company has gone under many monikers over the years, but there were valid reasons for each name change. Just as my profession has evolved from “undertaker” to “mortician” to “funeral director” to “funeral service professional” over the years (and that’s not counting the ones that I may not know or want to know about!), the title that Oakey’s goes by should synopsize what we are all about. While I was not around the “& Woolwine” incarnation back in the 1890’s (I know I have white hair, but I’m not THAT old!), I have been around long enough to witness the other name changes during my thirty-three years here and offer up some guesses as to the reasoning behind each one.

“Mortuary” was the safe and all purpose title for many years. As funerals began occuring in our buildings (as opposed to the homes and churches that they used to be conducted in during the early days), emphasis was placed on the spacious chapels and parlours that transformed “mortuaries” to “funeral homes.” That title lasted until the 1970’s, when we decided that although we were proud of our buildings and furnishings, the most important aspect of Oakey’s was the service that we provided. Therefore, we became ”Oakey’s Funeral Service”. 

 With more and more families selecting cremation as a method of final disposition, our firm installed a crematory in 1997 and added the suffix “and Crematory” to our name. We actually added a second retort chamber to our crematory in 2006, but I thought ”Oakey’s Funeral Service & Crematory & Crematory” was a bit unweldy and might not be able to fit onto the ink pens we provide families! To really complicate matters, our actual corporate name is “John M. Oakey, Inc.”! Speaking of names, I can remember about thirty years ago when we had a great guy working for us whose name was Mike Lotts. His last name sounded far too similiar to that of another funeral home in Roanoke named “Lotz,” and my grandfather forbade him from using his full name when answering the telephone here! 

 Our pet funeral home and crematory is scheduled to open this summer, and we brainstormed about what to call it. Lots of “cute” names were considered, with various combinations of “heaven’s,” “furry,” ”angels,” ”feathers” and “paws” being tossed about. Eventually we settled on the somewhat unoriginal “Oakey’s Pet Funeral Home & Crematory.” Yeah, I know it’s a tad boring and bland, but it describes better than anything else just what that chapel will be about. 

 There’s a funeral home in the Tidewater area that goes by “Funeral Apartments”. Now there’s a unique title, but I can’t change our name again until we finish giving out the tens of thousands of maps of Roanoke with “Oakey’s Funeral Service & Crematory” on them!   

The Balancing Act

Sammy Oakey, President, Oakey's Funeral Service & Crematory

Traditional funerals vs. contemporary services. That seems to be the two sides drawn up by society that we as funeral professionals find ourselves in the middle of. It’s not that we can’t serve both groups, because we can and do. It’s trying to distinguish who wants what when a family comes in to make arrangements after a loss.

First, a little background: Traditional funerals can be defined as end of life events containing a metal or wood casket with burial or entombment of the casket after religous rites. These funerals would be more likely to contain piano or organ music, plenty of flowers, a visitation with the casket present, and the body garbed in a suit (men) or a dress/gown (ladies). Most everyone has been to a traditional funeral at one time or another.

Contemporary services comprise all else: memorial services without the body being present, “green” funerals, parties or gatherings that take the place of any service, private family scatterings of cremains, etc. As I mentioned before, most funeral homes offer great service, whether the family wants a funeral like their ancestors had in the 1950’s or a 2009 Power Point presentation with the long version of “Freebird” cranked up at high volume. It’s just trying to market yourself to both groups and convince everyone that you would have no problem in carrying out their final wishes.

It’s never obvious what a consumer wants just by looking at him or her. It’s only thru conversations with the family that we can begin to grasp what kind of ceremony (if any) they are envisioning. Even then, there are bound to be some awkward moments.

Oakey’s offers complimentary white bird releases at each cemetery service we are involved with. I’ll never forget the pained look I got from a recently widowed lady when I asked her if she wanted a dove released after the graveside  The grimace I received pretty much said it all! So whether you want a memorial service in Wasena Park with five bagpipers and a balloon for each attendee to let go at the end OR “How Great Thou Art” eminating from the organ at our downtown chapel, there’s no right or wrong way of honoring a life that was lived.

The phrase, “It’s not done that way,” should never be in the vocabulary of a caring funeral director.

“Recession-proof? Not quite!”

Sammy Oakey, President, Oakey's Funeral Service & Crematory

“It must be nice to work in a recession-proof business!” Oh, if I had a quarter for each time I have heard that comment in these times of economic uncertainty. Whether the statement is made with humor, jealousy, or a goading intent to engage me in the profit margins of the funeral industry, it’s something that has been directed my way for the past year or two in steadily increasing numbers. And trying to educate these folks about the economics of the death care business is tantamount to attempting to empty the Atlantic Ocean with a teaspoon.

 

 

Sure, it is a given that people will continue to die during an economic downturn. But the decisions that family members of those decedents make often are dictated by the funds (or lack thereof) that are available for end of life expenses. Even during the best of times, I’ve seen families unable to pay for funeral or memorial services as a result of having their finances exhausted by hospitals and/or nursing homes. With nearly everyone’s net worth taking a hit in the past year, this problem is increasing exponentially.

 

While I cannot speak for other funeral homes, at Oakey’s we are seeing a number of families selecting lower cost alternatives due to their limited buying power. While we already had a package plan in place (say that one three times fast!) with a significant compassionate discount, we have added an even lower cost choice for those who might need it. Cremations, which can be less expensive than traditional funerals, are a rapidly growing market share here in the valley. And all of this still does not take into consideration the perpetual problem at most funeral homes of high levels of accounts receivable. 

 

Yep, death and taxes are two givens in this world. But funeral homes being recession-proof? Hardly! 

putting together the birdbath

Sammy Oakey, President, Oakey's Funeral Service & Crematory

Not too long ago I was searching our downtown location for one of our funeral directors, Tom Hornbaker. When I asked someone where he was, “He’s in the lounge putting the birdbath together” was the unaffected reply! Despite this seemingly random response, no one batted an eye as Tom was assembling a special birdbath which has a hollow cavity that holds cremated remains. Sure enough, as I turned the corner and entered our employee lounge, there was Tom with his coat off with a mostly put together birdbath on the floor in front of him.

As a fifth generation funeral director with conservative ancestors, I couldn’t help but smile as I tried to imagine what my late grandfather’s reaction would have been had he seen one of his morticians creating a birdbath in the lounge! And what would he have thought of the various jewelery we offer that affords families the opportunity to place a small portion of cremains in bracelets and necklaces?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 To say that funeral service has come a long way from the days that my forefathers used horse-drawn carriages to take caskets to the cemetery would be the understatement of the century. I can still remember my father questioning the need for a fax machine in the early nineties! With him being a former bird hunter, I only wish that he could have lived to see the day that Oakey’s offers each family we serve a complimentary white bird release at the conclusion of graveside services!