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Based on an ethnographic fieldwork in two stores of a DIY retail chain and many interviews, this article deals with the labour experience of managers directly in charge of salesmen teams. Low-cost, as business model, transforms the middle management, in several ways. Downsized effectives, including hierarchies, work rationalisation, a power of decision mostly centralized, closeness to subaltern work and low wages distinguish those managers from the most legitimous figures of the category. Managers have a positive appreciation of the contents of their job, due to social dispositions that make them closer to subordinated worlds. However, the blurring of hierarchical borders does not mean that hierarchy disappears. The activity, their title (“cadre” in French) and the ascension trajectories that made it possible also constitute distinction sources, turning positive their relation to the job.