A dead-end job

A story of a French grave digger.

The town hall of a small town in the suburbs of Paris had the surprising idea to help financially young people if they contribute to a community service, not by helping children nor the homeless, but by having them remove the gravel paths in a graveyard.

Working in a cemetery, what an uncommon job. Pascal, the grave digger, surprisingly chose to work there : “the job was vacant so I took the opportunity because I was sick of my job and I really wanted to be independent without a manager.” Obviously, being independent has a price, we cannot have everything and at least, he did not have to fight with anyone for this job. Many people are apprehensive about visiting a cemetery, and in fact it’s quite rare to meet someone under 60. A single employee facing 4800 graves for seven years, it is enough to experience loneliness. “It was very strange at the beginning to see so many coffins but I got used to it.” Says Pascal who is in fact the human evidence that we can absolutely adapt ourselves to anything, he apparently needs more than a wild zombie attack to cry out fearfully. It is actually surprising to see someone working in a graveyard talking about his job as if he was doing a “normal” job while he spends his days to bury dead people. All the more so as 2020 has been particularly trying for his profession.

Pascal, who worked for 10 years in this cemetery, had never seen this before: “there were twice as many burials as usual during this first wave”. Pascal explains that during this very intense period of the first lockdown, several weeks were tough for the watchman ; “my colleague was working while we were all off so he definitely had tough days.” and the anger of families unsatisfied of having to bury quickly a member of their family. Although the cemetery was closed at that time, it was open to the public for funerals. Knowing that a maximum of 15 people were allowed per burial, this produced human situations that were quite difficult to manage. The most common moments of tension were when people were forced to organise the funeral as quickly as possible and that “people usually blame us when the hearse was late” admits the grave digger, which created a lot of frustration for the families who in the end turned their anger against the cemetery employees.

Mélanie, 24, who worked at the cemetery as part of a community service, does not share the same opinion: “It certainly took me a while to get used to it and to work there, courage and motivation are needed.” She admits. Although the work she describes “was quite exhausting, removing stones and carrying a full wheelbarrow, I found that there was actually a good atmosphere, with very nice and helpful colleagues”. She didn’t have to suffer from the morbidity of the cemetery because “I felt good from the third week because I liked the staff and especially because I started working with other people, before that it was sad, long and exhausting”. “As a human being, the place where we work is not the only thing that counts, the most important thing to feel good somewhere is to work with friendly and kind people. But not for too long. “Thank God I only had to work 40 hours”. Says Mélanie.

“It would seem that it is possible to lose our sensitivity for the dead while having a lot for the living.”

It would seem that it is possible to lose our sensitivity for the dead while having a lot for the living. However, let us also remain sensitive to our precarious status here below, by meditating once again on the warning of the writer Ismail Kadare: “the living are only the dead on leave in this life “*.

*Ismail Kadare. Broken April, Vintage Edition, 1978.