You may have seen a strange shop assignment enter your email inbox recently. Likely you did a double-take as you read the shop details. Yes, this “shop” requires you to actually visit a specific gravesite and perform maintenance. While this may sound like a strange way to make a few extra bucks, you can rest assured that you have accomplished a good deed for the day. In addition to padding your wallet with some extra cash, you are also helping a family ensure that the final resting place of their loved one is well cared for and clean, even when the family is too far way to do it themselves.
What Are The Details? As with other kinds of shops, the details of a gravesite shop may vary from shop to shop. However, generally speaking, you will be given the name of the deceased as well as the cemetery in which to locate the gravesite. It will be your job to first locate the gravesite within that cemetery, using the resources available at the cemetery. Then, the shop requirements may ask that you ensure the gravesite is well cared for by performing small maintenance items such as pulling weeds and such.
Your job may also be to deliver flowers to the gravesite on behalf of the distant family members. You may be required to purchases these flowers yourself with the funds reimbursed to you with your shop pay, or the flowers may be shipped directly to your house on the day you are to perform the shop.
To ensure the shop has been completed, you will be asked to take several photos of the gravesite. The photos should show that you have located the correct gravesite, any flowers have been placed in front of the gravesite, and proper maintenance of the gravesite has taken place. So you will typically need a digital camera to complete a gravesite shop.
What’s In It For You? This type of shop may pay slightly better than your typical shop. And, in many cases, a cemetery may be located off the beaten path and you may be able to request travel pay if it is not already provided. So while the type of shop itself may seem like a depressing way to spend your day, it may be financially rewarding.
In addition to financial compensation, though, you may find a graveyard shop has more personal satisfaction in it than your normal shop. In most cases, the person ordering the shop is a distant family member of the deceased, someone who cared about the deceased immensely but is too far away from the gravesite to ensure regular maintenance is being performed. By performing this shop, you are giving that person the knowledge that their beloved family member is being cared for even in death.
Your first impulse on receiving this type of shop in your inbox may be to instantly pass on it. It is, after all, an unusual request. However, give the shop a second thought and you may just find that it will be both financially and personally rewarding to you.