The Dental Auxiliary's Job Manual

Congratulations! Throwing caution to the winds, you have chosen a career in dentistry as your personal road to happiness and early retirement. By carefully following the information given in this manual, you will be assured of achieving your goals and rapidly rising to the top of a fulfilling career.

The Interview

You have two things going for you:

* The law prevents the interviewer from asking personal questions to which you would normally have to plead the Fifth; and

* The office desperately needs you, or it wouldn't have run an ad in the first place.

As a with-it practitioner of hipness, determine quickly if black lipstick and matching two-inch nails are permitted along with big hair and four-inch spike heels. If not, maybe you don't want to work for people this retro. Be sure to ask about profit-sharing plans, when your first vacation starts, and what time morning and afternoon breaks begin.

How to Dress

Before the current infection-control mania, an assistant's garb consisted of white pants and any kind of a patterned blouse that would disguise the presence of colorful impression material and centrifugally applied prophy paste. Today, a hole cut in the bottom of an OSHA-approved 33 gallon trash bag in an attractive dark olive shade with cutouts for the arms will do nicely. Shoes, such as those worn by Michael Jordan during NBA playoffs, are preferred. These will cost upwards of $150 and resemble Mardi Gras floats.

The First Days

There are at least 100,000 practicing dentists in this country. Each one of them has his special way of doing things and covertly thinks the other 99,999 are hopelessly wrong. To make sure he is correct in this assessment of his colleagues, he will pay $295 to attend a course where another dentist shows him his way. There is no reason for you to accustom yourself to your new dentist's methods, which are subject to capricious changes anyway. Be sure to point out how things were done in the office you just left. Begin by going through the drawers and cabinets and rearranging instruments and supplies to suit yourself. This has the effect of presenting you as an industrious asset to the practice out to make the other employees look like chopped liver. It also elevates you to a power position, being the only person who knows where anything is.

Dealing With Other Personnel

In the eyes of the other people in the office, you are the New Kid on the Block and, as such, subordinate to them. To level the playing field, you must begin to ingratiate yourself with the boss immediately, otherwise the senior players will walk all over you and you'll be the New Kid forever. Calling him "Doctor" every other sentence and cleaning all the outside windows during your lunch hour will show the other personnel that you mean business and are not to be trifled with. Conduct yourself professionally, but with a certain elan; Anna Nicole Smith would be a good role model.

The Front Desk

Power corrupts and absolute power begins at the front desk. Initiate your assault on the front desk position early. Like the Maginot Line, it can be easily outflanked by any scruples-deficient underling on the way up. This is what you want to be, not somebody's handmaiden. The rest of the staff are human beings with the same needs as you and they want to get ahead just like you do, so they are not to be trusted. But there's only room at the top for one Alpha Gal and you don't want to be detained by a gaggle of overachievers jockeying for your job.

You do this by mastering the computer and the operating software for the practice so thoroughly that you can insert your own variations and delete the payroll records of the other employees. Now who is the subordinate?

Onward and Upward

Two months on the job and with perseverance and perfidy you've reached the top -- or have you? Sure, you arrange the schedules so you're out by 4:30 p.m. regardless. Insurance companies and laboratories know and respect you like Leona Helmsley. Supply people and manufacturer reps genuflect and kiss your ring. Moxie and chutzpah you've got. Is there more?

You bet your sweet hard drive!

You are an upwardly mobile person with your back to the wall, reaching for the brass ring with your ear to the ground, your nose affixed to the grindstone, and your eye on the 401(k). Uncomfortable as that may be, you recognize that your employer is in way over his head with the business end of the practice. It's not the reason he became a dentist.

Here's What You Do

You make an offer to buy him out. Yes! Do this on a day when you've overbooked him with loose bridges, denture patients who want a refund, and obnoxious kids under the age of 3. All he can think of is carpe diem. It'll be like a free all-expenses-paid three-week trip to Bora Bora, he fantasizes, and bingo! the place is yours.

Publisher's Warning

Twenty-five thousand copies of this manual have been sold. We would be remiss not to advise you to watch your back. Change the computer password daily and never leave for lunch. Beware the obsequious toadying new employee and be sure to get a signed covenant from her to not compete.