Can a funeral be a performance? In a funeral home, a place of business, I quite agree. To believe owners and employees of a funeral home sincerely grieve for each deceased "star of the show" would be quite mitigating. We'd like to be comforted by the fact that the establishment, in its funeral proceedings, is driven by genuine sympathy. A humane approach. But can their undertakings, or exhibited feelings, in a way, be feigned? Can they be staged?
I believe so. During peak hours of work, office employees dazedly stamp envelopes and robotically hand out building permits. With long lines of customers, grocery store clerks frantically scan items and the world around them turns into a mad whirl. Do these employees notice their clients much? Do they show compassion for the weary face, do they care about who the customer is, care about his troubles and woes? No. They just want to get on with it, scan the milk, print the receipt, and take on the next. This might be harsh, but the undertakings of funeral home establishments could function in the same way. Especially, as noted in Goffman's case, if there are two (or more) funerals concurrently taking place.
In all routine, repetition, and constant exposure to something even as weighty as a funeral, even the tenebrous tones of the ceremony and its significance of the end of a human life can be lost. It is possible for the employee to detach himself from the proceedings, mentally, emotionally, and treat all events, tears of the bereaved, as part of a regular work day. Hence, his attentiveness, grief, self-effacement, could be aspects of a well-practiced act.
As grim as this appears, such distant behavior does not strike me as cruel, cold-blooded. There is good, amity, left. Just try walking into a grocery at off-peak hours. The cashier will notice a face, and if chatty, he/she might make pleasant small talk, comment on the rain. Or those carrots you're buying. Without rush, people gain a state of awareness of their surroundings. Perhaps their perception is improved, and with less automation, events and situations gain relevance, the workers' focus, attention.
And in case of the funeral establishment "team", it acquires, just perhaps... a deep respect for the deceased, the circumstance, an unfeigned mournfulness. Solemnity.
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2 comments:
In your second paragraph you relay that those who work are often uninterested in their clients. However, I tend to disagree with this observation due to a personal experience. I worked at a clothing store over the summer, and I did not "robotically" perform my job because I wanted to ensure that the customer was satisfied. Maybe I do not completely agree because I was doing more one- on- one work with people, like helping them find the article of clothing they wanted to purchase, or just being polite by asking how they were doing, but I still believe that people can be personally invested in their work. After all, don't we all wish to find a career that we are passionate about? Aren't we in the Explorations course to open our eyes to experiences that may spark a new interest? Not everyone in this world separates emotion from work, and people, like me, who may only work at a summer job, still express concern for the customers that they are serving.
I am just as idealistic as you are. :) Unfortunately, being passionate about one's job is not the case for most people, who show up at their workplace to ensure a living. But ditto. Loving what you do is a beautiful thing. I, too, want to run, not walk, to work, out of sheer enthusiasm to start my day.
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