Summer Jobs

Over past 2 years before I came to Vanderbilt, I worked a job at a local tennis shop. My work at the shop came down to anything as broad as keeping the tennis facility clean, to more calling all of the members at the last movement to let them know league play was canceled due to impending weather. After having worked at this position for so long, reading Braverman's assessment of the modern workplace seemed to have certain aspects that rang true through my work experiences. While my job's management was not as cut and dry as the clear ladder that Braverman seemed to allude to in his book, the de-skilling of labor was very clear in my work environment. Everything in the shop was run by the head pro Matt, and he had a pair of tennis pros under him (Chris, Dusty, Seth, and/or Bo) a shop manager under the pros (Pat) and 3 "evening managers" (me).
Matt held near absolute power in the shop, and provided all the instructions and tasks for others to do daily, much like Braverman suggested. Likewise, the tasks that he had the pros do were semi-skilled, and their position would be somewhat difficult to replace, as a teaching position isn't something that you can easily de-skill. However, the room for these pros to jockey for a raise was very small, as there seems to be an overabundance of washed up tennis players looking for work, or looking to improve from their old pro position, as I witnessed through 2 pros leaving for various reasons (quitting and going back to college) in my 2 years.
The position of shop manager was really 2 fold, one was a very deskilled process of keeping stock of the shop's merchandise and working the register, while the other was being a perky and warming welcome center for incoming customers. The job security in this post is somewhat guaranteed after a period of some success, as there are some concrete social skills necessary to succeed here, but the entire position has such a de-skilled overtone that basically anyone who was cheery and retired could probably learn the ropes that jockeying for a raise was not an easy affair.
Finally, my job was to basically be the handyman around the shop, work the register, clean the facilities and make the members feel welcome in the shop. It was certainly was mainly dominated by deskilled labor, and the ability to try and ask for more money was a slim prospect as anyone with the want to earn six bucks an hour could eventually be taught to fit the bill, but after working at the shop for so long, and watching the shop struggle to keep 3 night managers on payroll, I did recognize the nuances and social skills that were a part of the job that were impossible to remove. For example, after my time there I knew the back stories, and names of nearly all the regular tennis players and knew who needed a bag of ice for their arm, which court was their favorite, or who had an expected reservation on certain days and was able to keep a lively conversation with just about anyone who walked in, or grant semi-experienced tennis advice to new players. These social aspects, along with a variety of tricks and techniques for maintaing the courts that made the members happier such as leaving towels on the benches before matches, and taking the water cart routes that didn't disturb the players. While my workplace didn't fit Braverman's ideals perfectly, they did clearly have some aspects that could be modeled in his fashion, and I think that these ideals can basically be placed on many of today's careers and jobs in general.