guest service agent

service assistant

maintenance person

planner

customer service representative

Forest Lawn Memorial-Park Association

A typical day at work starts at 6AM. I wake up, take a shower, get myself ready. At 7am sharp, I wake the girls in my cabin up, and the girls signed up for morning showers get their shower things and line up at the showers. Then we time and regulate the showers to make sure everybody gets a turn. Meanwhile, we also have to supervise the other girls, and tell them how to dress appropriately for what they're going to be doing, and what to bring  for their day. At 7:50, we line the girls up to hike them down to the cafeteria for breakfast. When we hike them down, we seat them and supervise. When everyone in camp has arrived at the cafeteria, tables are dismissed for breakfast. We eat, then have the kids clean up, then line up in trail groups for the first activity. Then we hike to the first activity, and do the activity, whether it be a game, an obstacle course, or a science presentation/activity. Then trail groups rotate to the second activity. Then we hike up for lunch by noon. Then we go for a third activity. We are responsible for providing each child with a snack at the third activity. After that we do a camp-wide group activity or presentation. Then the whole camp goes up to their cabins for afternoon showers, and getting warm clothes on for night activities. Then we hike down for dinner. After dinner, the teachers watch the kids for 45 minutes while we counselors go to have a staff meeting and our break. 
Then we go up and take the kids for their night activities. After night activities, we hike back up to the cabins to take night showers and get ready for bed. Lights out is usually at 930 pm, and the counselors go to bed around 10pm. During the night, we are responsible for kids waking up, getting sick, being loud or disruptive, or getting hurt.

It is an upright, good company with great, long history (111 years), a good place to work but the Planning Advisor (sales) is a very challenging position, although it is hard but it is rewarding, you feel like you are helping others, doing something important that may impact their future.  Although it is a cemetery/memorial park, they held great party/events and community services. My job as an advisor basically is no different than running own business, I do not need to report to the office except the mandatory meetings, training, etc., otherwise, you manage your own time and they are good reimbursing the expenses and help you with the event cost you are attending.  The hardest part of the job is the sustainability, it is one of the oldest industry but the industry fail to change/educate general public's mindset about taking care of the very important event - the final wishes.  It is not Forest Lawn fault along's, but the overall our society culture and how people still wear tinted color glasses viewing this business.  The most enjoyable part of the job is to service the families, when they understand the importance of pre planning and taking action to complete it, knowing that they are protected by pre-planning, and I have saved them a lot of money for the future, inevitable event.  I recommend Forest Lawn to job seekers, even as a Planning Advisor(sales) but keep in mind, it is very challenging with the current culture, you must have the right perspective knowing it will be a roller coaster ride, it certainly has it's share of highs and lows.

So far this company is okay. The pay can be A LOT better. Be prepared to have basically no social life (seriously). Work-life balance is terrible because you never have a set schedule, it changes weekly and you WILL work weekends, no matter what location you work at. Forest Lawn prides itself on being top of line, "Spirit of Service" but the pay is so low for the amount of stress, work and demand that you will encounter. There are many people in my department that are very unhappy deep down inside, and it's mainly because of the pennies that they pay us. However, the benefits are really good, and that is why people stay here for so long. But be prepared to barely make it by financially if you do decide to work here. The top employers (executive staff, VPs, Supervisors) are the ones that make the good cheddar. Every one else is paid basically crumbs. Seriously. Considering Forest Lawn's annual revenue is upwards of $100 million, and their tax status lists themselves as a nonprofit organization (meaning tax-exempt), the pay could be much much better for the lower (but very important) departments. But it is a "good company" to work for in the sense that there's 401(k) with company match and after three years they do start to pay for a Cash Balance (pension) Plan for your retirement. I love what I do, but I just wish they would compensate us better for the heavy and stressful amounts of work that we do daily.

The company itself is private but feels as a corporation with all the policies and procedures. Because Forest Lawn pays  decent and along with encouragement  to “ move-up “ in the company you will find that everyone has knives in their backs along climbing the latter . If you enjoy being in a departmentalized company then this might be the place for you, if you like to be crossed trained as the funeral profession requires then look elsewhere. You are not allowed to affiliate with other mortuaries ex: trade embalming or service directing, also you cannot attend any NFDA conventions in the area. Management by fear is the feeling you get after seeing so manny dismissals witch contributes to a high turn over rate of people either getting terminated or quitting because of the lack of respect certain supervisors may have with the employees. You will find this place to be cut throat any day could be your last.

Pros
- Commission based so if you're good at your job you could earn a decent living
- Beautiful park
- 1 hr lunch
- Get to work with beautiful flowers
- Full benefit for F/T
- Make you appreciate life because of job nature

Cons
- Constantly and seems to be permanently understaffed making it impossible to provide decent service that families who are going through a tough time deserve (It was not uncommon that I was left in the office alone with long line in the store fronts, multiple phone calls on hold, and families in meeting room waiting, while my coworkers were all occupied with their also multiple tasks)
- Work weekends
- Uniforms

Working to bring staff to optimum level of sales was a challenge since they had not had formal training. I immediately started to train staff and they increased sales by five times annual sales in 10 months. I learned by being careful to listen to what the staff lacked that I was able to provide the balance for them to have a successful sales year. The hardest part of the job was to dig deep enough to get each and everyone to tell me what their needs were so i could provide the best I could, provide the education, training and necessary items for them to proceed to the successful year that they worked toward. My enjoyable part of the job was to see their faces when they reached their goals.

The funeral industry is an interesting industry to work in. In my opinion, it takes a certain kind of person to succeed in this industry: compassion, empathy, organization, a "can do" attitude, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to get the job done. This company has great benefits: medical, dental, vision, 401k, life insurance, and even tuition reimbursement. What the company is lacking in is opportunities for advancement. During the orientation, it is made to believe that anyone is a candidate to move up, and that it is easy to do so. This is not the case. There are people in the company that have the drive to promote, and yet they stay in their positions for many years, overlooked and forgotten about.

Some people like cemeteries, some don't. I do, and Forest Lawn is one of the most beautiful in the nation. They are also the industry leader, innovators of many concepts now widely adopted, and their standard of customer care in unmatched. I was an advance planner, and at FL that meant I was dealing with folks who were just fine, thanks, nobody going anywhere, they just wanted to get things taken care of ahead of time, as one should. But it was commission only, and that's a tough road, one at which I ultimately decided to leave. They still have a warm spot in my heart, though, and my old name badge is now an ornament on my Christmas tree.

Took care of First call, death certificate processing, funeral arrangements, interment clearing, confidentiality, records keeping, customer service, mortuary assistance/personal effects handling. I learned the importance of empathy and how to function in a HIGH stress environment. I loved working at Forest Lawn and all the staff within the various departments and locations. Hardest part of my job was dealing with media inquiries on high profile internments. They can be pretty relentless. Most enjoyable was helping families through one of the most difficult time in their life.

While at Forest Lawn Memorial Park I learned all about budgeting, forecasting and variance analysis. I generated monthly dashboard reports and an annual Power Point presentation that was shown to the Board of Directors highlighting past years business as compared to budget and the forecast for the upcoming year. The management was great to work with and very knowledgeable. The department was adequately staffed. The most challenging part of the job was finalizing the annual budget before the deadline but once that was completed it was very fun to analyze the monthly figures, compare them to budget and research and variances to try and explain what the cause was.

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