In this world there are many vocations: religious, musical, works of charity and then Dentistry. I realised this only after observing the dentist’s office with whom we share a floor.
They give a lot to the world and get nothing back. Last week I asked a few friends and family which professionals they hate most. Almost unanimously, lawyers came first followed closely by teachers (owing to having a large number of teenagers as respondents) and then dentists (age was irrelevant here).
Think about it, the rest of us ordinary people (except doctors) have to work hard through school but if we are smart and lucky we get our big break and the rest of life happens to us. Dentists on the other hand have the raw side of the deal. Like other doctors they go through years upon years of study and no social life when in pre-med school. Then several years of dentistry school (meanwhile the rest of us are on to our second or third jobs) so as to get their operating licences. Dentists, however, unlike their contemporaries in other medical fields are normally not referred to as ‘Dr. so and so’ and even if they are, they are not admired as much, nor glorified. I wonder if there is anyone who has ever heard a mother telling a child, “One day I want you to become a …Dentist.”
Their clients are the worst in the world. Have you ever walked into a doctor’s room smiling? If you are below the age of 14, you probably enter reluctantly, wailing your lungs out and after hours of convincing (or as my parents did) several harsh warnings you sit on the aforementioned ‘robot’ chair and shut your mouth solid! It would then take several minutes of persuasion and bribery by the dentist to get you to open up once again.
The other half of a dentist’s customers are the ever complaining degenerates, whose mouths’ smell like they hadn’t seen a brush since their service days in the Korean War. These are really the worst type. They keep misplacing their dentures or keep forgetting to use floss. The worst, however, is still to come as the eccentrics in this category carry their fallen enamel in their purses expecting it to be stuck back onto their gums as if it were a broken melanin cup.
It seems also that dentists’ clients have a lot in common: they don’t smile (for obvious reasons) and if they do it’s to check if they got their money’s worth; they are in pain (hence miserable) and they are always complaining. Yes. We complain more to our dentists than any one else, even our brokers in such tough times! If it’s not about how painful your teeth are at night, it about how you keep forgetting not to use a tooth pick!
Well you might be reading this and say,” Well at least they are well paid!” Not necessarily. Most dentists, if the rest are anything like mine, spend more time calling up insurance companies for approvals and cheques than actually making money.
The worst part about our whining and fussing is that we do it to ourselves yet we continue with our bad smoking, drinking, puking, tooth picking, sweets-eating, under/over brushing habits. After all this, dentists all around the world, just like sponges, keep absorbing the negativity and because we are his/her livelihood keep doing their jobs. Saintly!
Next time you visit your dentist, you might not afford a smile or the cost of your daughter’s braces, but just keep your mouth shut, will you?
