The Bracket Racket

Few four letter words have received as much media attention in the past few years as J-O-B-S. The U.S. went from an unemployment rate of around 5% in 2007, to a little over 10% at the end of 2009. That 5% difference represents millions of people filling out unemployment forms and scrambling for their personal or family's financial security.
We've been lucky at our house. Both my wife and I have kept our jobs, although my career in radio is a bit like that scene in the movie 300 where the Persian messengers stood on the edge of the bottomless pit; say one wrong thing to the Spartan king, and whoopsie daisy, off you go. Yet, while some semblance of job security has been in place at our place, the focus on jobs has caused me to look around at who has them and what they're doing. One gleaming gem emerged.
This unturned stone showed itself as we begin year number 3 of the wonderful world of orthodontic care. Now, you are likely wondering why we've been subjected to this financial lash for an atypical 3 years, instead of the usual 1 - 2. I know you're wondering it, because so are we! Seems the first orthodontist received his teeth-straightening degree from a community college in Kazakhstan. At the end of the two year, multi-thousand dollar process for our eldest cherub, her pearly whites were a bit like hair implants. From a distance all looked well. Not so much up close. That debacle of time and coin brings us to ortho guy number 2, who seems to have a real tooth degree and a real depth of knowledge, which all adds up to a real hefty bill that is twice as high as that from Mr. Kazakhstan Kook. But we're promised that in another two years and the price of a liver on the black market, she'll have the smile of a movie star. My cynical nature is imagining Austin Powers' smile from the first film.
This tale of woe (ever wonder if when proctologists tell a story it's called a "woe of tail?") brings us to the job gem of being an orthodontist. Observation #1: they have lots of diplomas. At least our second guy did. Observation #2: they might just have the easiest job in the world next to being the maid for clean freak Howard Hughes. I'm not sure what orthodontists do, but I can tell you what they don't do. They don't put in spacers, brackets or wires. They don't remove spacers, brackets or wires. They don't do the molds. They don't do the icky, funky cleaning. They don't help fit the retainer. They don't hold the children down as wire cutters enter their mouths to cut the 12 gauge wire that is embedded into their cheeks. They don't extract teeth because that's what the regular dentist does. And evidently they don't worry about paying their mortgage.
Rarely, unless it's from a Charlton Heston movie, have I seen so much work done by others yet the benefits reaped by so few. While being one of the "technicians" might be a good paying, stable job, they truly do all of the work. And it's not pretty work either. Have you ever looked into the mouth of a teenager? Think the New Orleans Superdome one week after Katrina. As the techs spend their days bent over into squirming, malodorous mouths, the Brains of the operation occasionally stroll by, nod approvingly, them amble back to the nether reaches of the office. Yes, yes, I know, the Brains have to come up with the plan for treatment. But for most of the chil'rens, isn't that kind of like following the protocol for a headache? Aspirin, aspirin, aspirin. My caps off to the techs.
Yet there is another important job position at the Brace Place. That of the accountant. Like the unemployment rate, they've taken an important 10% of our family's economy.