Pros
As a family counselor there is a lot of flexibility re. your work schedule. The offices at the cemetary's are often open from 9-4. Generally one can come and go as they please - unless they are not "selling" or meeting with an appropriate number of families. The coworkers at the particular cemetary which I worked at were all pleasant and wonderful people. Those were typically the groundskeepers, who were paid in accordance with what their union had negotiated. It is a congenial, friendly work environment.
Cons
As the title of this indicates, what was advertised as a "service" orientated job, was in fact a sales oriented job. Family counselors are not at all paid a base rate, draw against commission or anything like that. It is 100% commission. The job was to take existing client files, which were comprised of those families entering to win 10,000$ draw at our trade/mall/exhibition shows and get face time. During that appointment we would cover any of the questions the families had regarding making pre-arrangements. Pre-arrangements, for those not at all familiar with the term, is when one registers with a cemetary and essentially purchases their plot, and/or cremation services. The clincer is that we would also have to pressure these families, if they were only seeking information, to purchase arrangements during this appointment. As you may imagine, this was an exceedingly difficult job & 75% + of the time people would simply shoot you down. We would be paying our own gas to get to a persons house & of course if they did not register their wishes and decide on arrangements we would not get a paychque. For those who did do their arrangements with us, average takehome from an appointment was approximately 100$. In the interview, I was told the average first year pay was 40,000. In fact all other counsellors who were hired (total of 5) we made approx 1500 our first month. That is 18,000/annually, less than half what we were led to believe the start rate would be. The bulk of what we made was from people who were not prospected by us, but families who had a death occur & therefore needed to make arrangements. We were "given" these families, when our schedule would allow. ie If we were running around the city booking appointments, that likly would not lead anywhere, we would not have a chance to meet with these families who had an immediate need. Absolutely terrible, though not a total waste of my time. I decided that I would leave & complete a degree to ultimately work with families in crisis situations, as that element of the job I excelled at.
