10 Questions Catherine Mundy 1-28-14 English 1102 Bass-Smith Funeral Home Employees: The Effect of Death on the Living

1. Does your job affect the way you deal with people on a daily bases? a. Dealing with people who have been through a tragedy and need comforting could change the way the worker reacts in certain situations. For example, because they console people daily the worker might treat people with more kindness and affection. 2. Does your work strengthen/ weaken your religion? a. Because these people deal with death on a daily bases, it would be interesting to see if their profession has brought them closer to the idea of a higher power or if it has made them question their religion. 3. Is it harder to have younger bodies come through your funeral home? a. It would be interesting to see if younger, healthy bodies whose lives were cut short would have a greater impact on the workers. It could make them realize that no one is promised another day and to not take life for granted. 4. Is it hard to leave work at work and to not take it home with you? a. Because the profession requires its workers to deal with death, it seems impossible for them to leave their emotions at work. There is a connection to sadness and the funeral home. 5. Is it hard to be around death/ loved ones of the deceased everyday or are you immune to the emotions? a. I have this as a question because it would be interesting to see if working in a funeral home has increased the workers feelings on death or if it has desensitized them to the concept. 6. Have you ever experienced any obvious negative repercussions to working in a funeral home? a. A lot of people think that there are psychological effects such as depression linked to working in a funeral home. It would be interesting to see if these workers have experienced any negative effects. 7. After you started in this profession do you value death more? a. It would be interesting to find out if the workers value death more now that they see it everyday and see first hand that it can happen at any point. 8. Have you found that over the years dealing with people/ death has gotten any easier? a. I asked this question because it would be neat to see if the employees think that working with families has gotten easier or if each case is just as hard as the last.

9. Is it difficult to deal with people who are dealing with a death of a loved one? a. I asked this question because it seems that it would be hard to deal with family members while they are still in mourning. It also must be hard to always be nice to people no matter what and keep your composure. 10. Do you find your job rewarding? a. Even though dealing with death is hard, helping/comforting people must be a rewarding experience.