It took a bit of time for my vocational flower to bloom. I was 18, and at law school.
I'd had casual labouring jobs, but my first regular part-time job--you know, with responsibility, people-skills and typing--was to answer the phone for an undertaker.
Undertaking, as you know, is usually a live-in job. When the undertaker wanted to take his kids to little-league, he'd call me in to mind the office. Though still a family concern, it had several branches and quite a few employees---a really great bunch of people. Undertakers really know how to party. I miss those guys. And having teh run of a quiet, luxury office for hours on end allowed me to do lots of reading and writing.
Before you ask, the answer is NO. I didn't get involved in the nuts-and-bolts side of the business. Though I introduced my brother, a medical student, for a summer job. Most med students have seen more dead bodies than live ones, anyway.
And no, I never actually had to comfort hysterical relatives on the phone--most ask cooler heads to make the call. More often than not, the call ran something like, "Um, my great-uncle just died, and my great aunt's very upset..."
As you would expect, company policy dictated that my first question should be..."Has the doctor been?"
I did the job for several years, and experienced only one close relative who made The Phone Call. It was a woman whose husband had died . She wasn't in hysterical tears, or even sad. She was a grumpy old bitch.
Cops who visited the office always cracked the same joke, oddly. "How's business?" they would ask, rhetorically, and answer. " I guess it's pretty DEAD, eh?" And then they'd laugh hysterically. Company policy was to reply, "No, business is looking up." It generally took them a minute or two to get it.