Practice And Theory Of Shampooing

In my former life as a college professor, I quickly became adept at computing course hours. Not like the English-101-is-a-three-hour-course calculation, but more focused on the actual clock hours necessary to teach a course. For example, that English 101 course might be worth three hours of credit, but it actually involves somewhere around 48 hours of class time (3 hours per week in class, times 16 weeks per semester), plus many additional hours of study and homework.

A rough rule of thumb was three hours outside of class for every hour in class, meaning that for those three hours credit a student was expected to spend 48 hours in class and another 144 preparing. However, for the purpose of the following discussion we can ignore the out-of-class hours. Bottom line - to get three hours of college credit you generally need to spend 48 hours in class. For convenience's sake, let's round that up to 50.

Remember that number - 50 hours.

Now a slight change of subject:

I have long been a proponent of small government. As Henry David Thoreau said, "That government is best which governs least." This is true when it comes to governing citizens, and equally true when it comes to governing small enterprises. Today, we are stuck with a leviathan that insists on extending its tentacles into the tiniest and most unlikely of places.

For example:

It Takes 300 Hours to Become a Shampooer in Tennessee

Yes, you read that right. In order to engage in an act as simple as shampooing, the state of Tennessee demands that "shampoo technicians" spend approximately 8 weeks learning the intricacies of lather-rinse-repeat.

The Tennessee Board of Cosmetology and Barber Examiners defines a shampoo technician as a “person who brushes, combs, shampoos, rinses and conditions upon the hair and scalp,” and the state began requiring shampoo technicians to attain a license in 1996.

To get a license, aspiring technicians must pay a $140 fee to the state, complete at least 300 hours of education in a course on the “practice and theory” of shampooing, and must be at least 16 years old.

“practice and theory” of shampooing - really?

Remember that "50 hours" figure discussed above? According to the state of Tennessee, it takes the equivalent of six college courses (300/50) to figure out how to wash someone's hair.

Sigh...

But it's not just shampoo technicians, and it's not just Tennessee.

According to a study released by the Obama administration in July, the percentage of the workforce covered by state licensing laws grew from less than 5 percent in the 1950s to 25 percent in 2008.

How did we ever survive the 1950s, when only 5% of the workforce was licensed?

The cherry on top of this regulatory sundae?

... licenses rarely are recognized across state lines, which disproportionately affects military spouses.

There are two primary reasons for the creep of licensing requirements: special interest groups, and power-hungry government regulators. The special interest groups - often entrenched businesses - use their influence to convince legislators to pass anti-competitive legislation. Meanwhile, government functionaries follow a basic imperative: expand, or die.

“Once you get a board in place to do something that might have commonsense value, that board has an incentive to keep broadening their power and expanding things under their control...”

Sad to say, I don't see the situation improving anytime soon. In fact, I fully expect it to get worse, no matter who gets elected in November. It's the nature of the beast.

I love my country, but I fear its government.