This past summer was my third year to work as a lifeguard at a local pool close to my house. I've been with three different pool companies each summer, the most recent being Greater Nashville Pool Management Company. Having worked at this pool longer than any other guard that applied this summer, I was appointed the position of Head Lifeguard, that is, the lifeguard in charge of all the others. I had to do many other extra tasks that the other lifeguards weren't responsible for, yet I did get paid more than the others.
In Labor and Monopoly Capital by Harry Braverman, the author discusses the concept of division of labor. This involves the separation of the conception of tasks from the execution of the actual tasks. I would say that my job as head lifeguard followed Braverman's outline of the workplace fairly well. I was in charge of making sure tasks were carried out. In doing so, I assigned various jobs to the other lifeguards daily yet I myself did not always participate. I would be considered Braverman's "professional" and the other lifeguards "nonprofessionals." For example, we had to check chlorine levels hourly. I usually kept tabs on what the level was at so that it could be adjusted accordingly. If I observed the level was too high, I would send another lifeguard to turn down the chlorinator. If I observed the level was too low, I would send another lifeguard to add shock to the deep end. This agrees with the first Taylorist principle "dissociation of the labor process from the skills of the workers" in the reading. Also, our labor was divided in that I assigned different tasks to different guards based on my knowledge of what they were able to do. This agrees with Braverman's description of "division of labor in detail." It is interesting how my summer job parallels Braverman's take on jobs.
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Interesting, I had never thought of the way that a lifeguard could parallel the ideals that braverman put forward in his essay. I'm sure just about all of the summer jobs that a high schooler or even most college students take could really be done by just about any trained monkey. I mean if you look at the degree of trust that any of us were given at our posts it's pretty clear that we're really just warm bodies filling in a chair. I mean you had a larger trust as a lifeguard with people's lives on the line that I did behind a tennis shop, but I know I always had a manager around somewhere 90% of the time incase I screwed up. It is so interesting how at the primal levels of most jobs we can find the deskilled essences and management hierarchies that braverman described in his book.
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