Unfortunately my grandmother passed away a few days ago and we had her funeral today. The funeral home was nice and from what I can tell did a fantastic job. They were very respectful and in general did an excellent job. Being a stout young male I was impressed into being a Pallbearer. After paying our respects and after the rest of the families went to the car the Pallbearers gathered in a hallway to go over instructions. Before beginning the instructions the funeral director hands us all pens with the funeral homes name and address on them.
[John Stewart] Whaaaa? [/John Stewart]
After the funeral director left I turned to another Pallbearer and gave him a ‘WTF’ look and said ‘isn’t this kind of tacky’. He responded in the affirmitive and also pointed out that adding to the tackiness was the fact that the pens light up.
So I turn to the dopers am I the only one who thinks this is weird? Did he want to give us something to remember our Grandmas funeral? Advertising for the inevitible demise of our parents?
Undertaker’s daughter here. Almost all of the pens in my home have the names of funeral homes on them-it’s an extremely common form of advertising-I grew up with it. In fact, when I was in first grade, my dad supplied my classroom with a year’s supply of pencils from the funeral home where he worked.
However, handing you pens with the name of the funeral home that at a funeral like that is pretty tacky. And I’ve NEVER seen any of them that light up. Normally, they’re just average, everyday pens.
Was it the light-up kind one buys at Sharper Image? If the funeral’s address was not on it, would it be a pretty cool pen?
I think he just wanted to give you guys a little something extra for volunteering to be paulbearers. Heck, I’d like to have one of those.
If the pens were really cheap and silly, then I have no clue what he was doing.
Funeral homes operate on a tight margin. Because of the nature of their business, they’re limited in how they can advertise. They can’t undercut their competitors too much either. Customers come in when they need the services, not because the company is having a weekend sale. The idea is to ingrain the funeral home’s name into people’s consciousness, so they’ll remember it when they need to. Really, I think the most successful ones are the ones whose names begin with ‘A’, because that’s the first one people see when they look in the yellow pages.
The fact that the pens lit up is somewhat disconcerting, but perhaps that’s the only kind they could get. Apart from that, I don’t think the pen itself is a tacky concept. All funeral homes strive to be discreet and tasteful. I’d forgive them one advertising misstep, if it even is a misstep.
I wanted (first wrote as “have,” which I consequently found inappropriate) to say, with all due respect, sympathy and good will to the OP, that had the thread title not included “(funeral related)” I would have pegged the OP as someone who had just seen Say Anything for the first time.
Really? That surprises me. I just expect to use the same funeral homes my family has been using for years. It’s either the one or the other. Never will deal with one other one, because when my neighbor died in his sleep at home, it was hours and hours after they were called and they still hadn’t come and picked him up or called to say why they were delayed. They called another, and they were there within an hour after the call.
My in-laws are big on pomp and circumstance with their dead. They always go to the same place, and are quick to mention it should anyone wonder where to go with their dead.
It’s always weird for me to go to funerals there, because I grew up with the family that used to own the house, and we always went to the most faaabulous parties there. This was the 60s. They had a pool and enormous grounds and all the people were partying their brains out. My dad and the man of the house were musicians, so they’d get a jam session going and we’d party til the wee small hours.
I always looked at it as a place full of life…not someone’s last stop on their way to a dirt nap.
Re: the pens, I wouldn’t pass them out, but I don’t find the pen idea itself tacky.
Ok, now, a pen that lights up emblazoned with the name, address and phone number of the funeral home. That’s interesting. I can, however, top that. I was a pallbearer a couple of years ago and the funeral director gave me one of those cheap address book things with the name, address and phone number of the funeral home emblazoned upon it. Yep. I got a little black book from a funeral home. Talk about your WTF moments! Was I supposed to fill it up with… errr… prospects and send it back? Use it to keep track of men I considered to be hot numbers? I still have it. It’s unused and lives in a dresser drawer. I just don’t know what to do with it.
Here in the south it’s common for the local funeral home to give out advertising trinkets. A few I’ve picked up at our local “U Plug’em We Plant’em”:
Pens - always cheap ballpoints.
Folding fans - for those hot Georgia funerals.
Thermometer - not oral or rectal (though that would be a hoot) but the kind that you affix to an outside wall at the house.
Personally, when I die, I want one of those thermometers stuck under my arm with a post it note saying “If this registers more than room temperature, GET ME OUTTA HERE!”.
I have a collection of funeral home fans. I especially like the ones with Jesus looking down from the sky on em.
Doctor Jackson don’t forget the calendars. Everybody’s lil ol’ southern grandma had a “U Plug Em We Plant Em” Funeral Home calendar in her kitchen when I was growing up.
Yep, those are pretty common too-you can use them as datebooks, or address books.
How is this any different from any other business, which gives out advertising junk like pens and notepads?
You wanna try the one upmanship, my family always got to keep some of the flowers leftover from the funerals. Sometimes, the families didn’t want the arrangements and offered them to the funeral directors.
Bear_Nenno, being a paulbearer is considered an honor, and usually reserved for those close to the diseased. Trying to give someone a cheap trinket as a payment or a show of appreciation is tacky.
:smack: Sorry, I live in a large city, and my family doesn’t. I would have to look in the yellow pages. But what you said is what I’m getting at: name recognition and wod of mouth. Sorry to hear about your neighbor.
People, please don’t get so skeeved out by this. Funeral homes don’t want people to die. They’re in the business of comforting the bereaved and giving the departed a nice sendoff. And not that this has anything to do with the OP, but I think they deserve a lot of credit for dealing with the inevitable outbursts when families channel their grief into arguing over what kind of display and so on.
I was a pallbearer for both of my maternal grandparents, and there were no souvenirs. Then again, it was the funeral home that had served both sides of our family forever. Heck, my mom used to date the funeral director when they were in high school.
Its a pretty cool pen even with the funeral homes info on it and I plan to use it. I am not complaining about getting a pen but it just made me say ‘WTF’ to myself.
Its not but are 19-24 year olds really the target auidence of funeral homes?
Thanks for the condolences but it was her time and really for the best. She had a myriad of health problems and pretty advanced dementia and althemiers.
Swampbear, I envy you your collection. I didn’t even know such things existed.
Tell me if this is tacky. Here in Stockton, across from the cemetery, is a little shop called OK Monuments. Every time I drive by, my mind insists on making up jingles for them.
When you don’t care enough to buy the very best . . OK Monuments.
When Great Aunt Mabel didn’t leave you as much as you were expecting . . . OK Monuments.
When you don’t want to look like you’re getting above yourself. . . OK Monuments.
Now I’m starting to wonder if they have pens with their names on it.
treis, I agree, I’m just addressing people who think this stuff is weird.
I asked my father about the incident. He said that sometimes pens will be given to paulbearers (though he personally doesn’t do this), the fact that they light up is really over the top.
The main places for advertisement of funeral homes seems to be:
-trinkets (calenders, datebooks, notepads, pens, etc. We have a mess of those little rubber grips for opening jars and bottles-but these were ordered before my father took over the place)
-church bulletins
-word of mouth. (I hope you don’t mind my bragging in saying that lately, my dad has gotten a LOT of business, simply by word of mouth-people are constantly reccomending hm!)
treis, I’m sorry for your loss. Please don’t think all funeral directors are like this.