So, I warned you earlier in the week that I would be doing a column on what was happening with Starbucks and why I thought there was enough general information in what I had heard that it would be useful to people who operate businesses in the death care realm. To refresh you, I had told you that last Friday I had heard Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson be interviewed by CNBC’s Jim Cramer on his morning show. Johnson went through […]
This isn’t what I was planning to write about an hour ago. It’s Friday as I write this and earlier this morning I was on the treadmill watching CNBC with Jim Cramer as he was interviewing Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson. I thought the interview was very informative on how Starbucks was using the pandemic, that they had no control over, to analyze and pivot their business model to a structure that would be even better post-pandemic than it was prior […]
In today’s Afternoon Edition we will provide you with some articles that came out over the weekend. There is probably something for everybody’s interest in these articles as we always find that it is interesting to catch up with what is going on in other parts of the United States or in other parts of the world. Here’s what we have today: North Carolina among the last states to make death records electronic. North Carolina has, according to this article […]
For almost 35 years I went about doing my job as an owner/operator of a mortuary. I answered calls, I did some embalmings, I met with families, and I conducted thousands of funerals. I know that by my nature that I am a “people pleaser” and I always strived to please everyone whom I was working for. If that meant staying late for a visitation. . fine. . . if it meant missing watching a Vikings game on a Sunday […]
I believe that I’m now in my 8th month of living in the COVID world. And, in that world a lot has changed about how I do things. Even with the change, however, things seem to be slowly returning to normal in my state of Minnesota. Our students are in school, our high school football team started play last Friday night, and I noticed business, almost as usual, when I was on the campus of the University of Minnesota for […]
There is no doubt that one of the costs that funeral homes have encountered in the past six months of the COVID world we find ourselves living in is cleaning and disinfecting the funeral home real estate. We’ve been told that sometimes it is even hard to find a commercial service that has an opening to do your cleaning and disinfecting unless you had a prior pre-COVID arrangement with them. If you find yourself in that latter situation maybe this […]
We’ve got plenty of stories to tell you this afternoon, however, we felt that “topping our charts” was this article from ESPN.com that that chronicles a Tuesday night game in which WNBA player Sylvia Fowles became the all-time leading rebounder in the history of that basketball league. Sports leading Funeral Director Daily headlines?? The fact is that the 34-year old Fowles has used her off-season time to study mortuary science and intends to work as a funeral director once her […]
As we head into this Father’s Day weekend we share some information on a webinar for NFDA members next week, an article from Smithsonian Magazine dealing with a lost African American cemetery discovered under a development in Florida, and some perspective from Caleb Wilde entitled “12 things my Father taught me about being a funeral director” that makes for a good Father’s Day weekend perspective. Webinar: Security Practices to Protect your Families. This webinar is being brought to us by […]
It was in church this morning – yes, I’m writing this on Sunday and I was in church attendance today for the third consecutive week – that I caught an idea for a blog article. We live in Minnesota and church attendance, with certain rules, has been in effect for three weeks. The spiritual realm is a big part of our life, so this has been an uplifting part of June for Angie and I. Today when sitting in church […]
As I dwell on what is going on currently – such as the market rebounding to its past level, businesses opening up across the country, and school administrators deciding on how to safely open up for classes in the Fall, I cannot help but wonder if the funeral profession will have ramifications because of the three month period we have just went through. Let’s see, across the country we have had mass layoffs bordering on the unemployment statistics of the […]
