As a former employee of SCI and now an owner, (with my wonderful wife), of a small funeral and cremation service in Northern California I can say that my experience with SCI would lead me to tell all independent owners to stay that way. The nicest way I can say this is they come into a community and proceed to overwhelm the employees, turning them from a caring professional into a salesperson that basically needs to produce the numbers or get fired. The employees are allowed very little compassionate discretion, if any.