We're always told that if you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life. But what if you're being tricked or manipulated into thinking you love what you do? Or what if your "labor of love" is actually being exploited by someone who stands to gain from your work? What does loving your work actually mean, in a system that is designed to keep you devoted to your job, by any means necessarily? In this conversation we speak with Sarah Jaffe, author of Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone, published by Bold Type Books. Sarah's book is an examination, and critique, of the labor of love myth — an upstream journey on the nature of work. She reveals how all of us have been tricked into buying into a new tyranny of work, while unpacking why "doing what you love" is a recipe for exploitation, creating a new tyranny of work in which we cheerily acquiesce to doing jobs that take over our lives. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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