Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to okay f Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet Your Girl Danielle Moody, recording not so live from
Speaker 1: the Podstream studios here in Times Square. Folks. I'm really
Speaker 1: excited to bring on today's guest because for the longest
Speaker 1: time I have been thinking about my relationship to work
Speaker 1: as my work has shifted and evolved over the past
Speaker 1: couple of years. And author and sociologist Aaron Seck, who
Speaker 1: wrote the book The Trouble with Passion, How searching for
Speaker 1: fulfillment at work fosters inequality, brings up some really interesting questions.
Speaker 1: For the longest time, we've always been taught or told right,
Speaker 1: love what you do, and then it won't feel like work.
Speaker 1: Follow your passion right to do all of these grand things. One,
Speaker 1: I think we need to acknowledge the place of privilege
Speaker 1: that those sentiments come from, because there are plenty of
Speaker 1: people who work in service oriented industries where there is
Speaker 1: anything but passion or joy. Right, it is a means
Speaker 1: to an end and an opportunity for them to put
Speaker 1: food on their table, pay their bills, you know, and
Speaker 1: simply adult. But for those of us who are in
Speaker 1: more white collar professional spaces, I think that the past
Speaker 1: year plus has offered us an opportunity to really think
Speaker 1: about how it is that we work and what we
Speaker 1: want our relationship to work to be. A couple of
Speaker 1: years ago, I decided after I had been working in
Speaker 1: policy in Washington, d C. For many years, and then
Speaker 1: had transitioned into doing more media work, then transitioned out
Speaker 1: of both of those things, and then wanted to make
Speaker 1: a move from Washington, DC to New York. I was
Speaker 1: working at a very well known PR and communications firm,
Speaker 1: and my relationship to work changed dramatically. I was working
Speaker 1: roughly on average, sixty to eighty hours a week. My
Speaker 1: phone was attached to my hip. It went off all
Speaker 1: the time, anytime, morning, noon, or night, holidays. It didn't
Speaker 1: matter because part of my work was PR, the other
Speaker 1: part was crisis PR right, and so you just need
Speaker 1: to be on all the time and the client is
Speaker 1: always right. That was the sentiment my relationship to work,
Speaker 1: where I had always oriented myself with organizations and spaces
Speaker 1: where I had and felt shared mission and value, and
Speaker 1: I was just exhausted. On top of which I was
Speaker 1: making an obscene commute because I had just moved back
Speaker 1: to New York and I didn't have a place of
Speaker 1: my own yet, and so I was staying with my
Speaker 1: family on Long Island. I was making an obscene commute
Speaker 1: into the city every day. It was a three hour
Speaker 1: round trip commute, every single day, five days a week.
Speaker 1: Everything was weighing on me. The job was weighing on me,
Speaker 1: the commute was weighing on me, and it showed. It
Speaker 1: showed up because everything for me, when it pertains to stress,
Speaker 1: manifests itself Physically. I was starting to look really ashy,
Speaker 1: lose color, I was gaining tons of weight. I just
Speaker 1: felt like shit, and so I made a really tough decision,
Speaker 1: And it was a similar decision that I had made
Speaker 1: a couple of years prior. There are moments in my
Speaker 1: life where either tragedy or just burnout requires me to
Speaker 1: make adjustments and realign myself. When I had left a
Speaker 1: nonprofit back in DC, I left in the midst of tragedy.
Speaker 1: One of my closest friends had died in a motorcycle
Speaker 1: accident outside of the country, and it had me wondering
Speaker 1: what the fuck I was doing with my life. If
Speaker 1: everything can be up in smoke and gone in an instant,
Speaker 1: then what does it mean to really live, and I
Speaker 1: recognized that at that time I was working at an
Speaker 1: organization that was doing really great work, working on environmental education,
Speaker 1: working on saving the planet and the environment, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't my passion and it didn't feel like my purpose.
Speaker 1: I was getting promoted and I was good at what
Speaker 1: I was doing, but I didn't love it. And for me,
Speaker 1: loving what I'd do was more important than anything else,
Speaker 1: And in the moment of tragedy and loss, it had
Speaker 1: me reassess what I was doing and how I wanted
Speaker 1: my time. Whatever time I did have left to be
Speaker 1: of service, but what kind of service? So I left
Speaker 1: my job and I replaced my energy, realigned my energy
Speaker 1: into building out my first podcast and my first media platform.
Speaker 1: That was in the early twenty tens. Then fast forward
Speaker 1: to a couple of years later when I would enter
Speaker 1: into a completely different industry working in PR. Because everything
Speaker 1: in media at that point I had learned. I taught myself,
Speaker 1: but the hours were ridiculous. My body, my mind, my
Speaker 1: spirit just could not keep pace. So after a couple
Speaker 1: of years, I decided to pull the plug and thought
Speaker 1: that I wanted to go and work at a startup.
Speaker 1: But after a couple of months there, I realized that
Speaker 1: this wasn't a good fit either. So I did the
Speaker 1: ultimate thing. I took a risk and a bet on myself,
Speaker 1: and I said, I'm going to take a handful of
Speaker 1: clients that I have, I'm going to take the media
Speaker 1: work that I do, and I'm going to create. Essentially,
Speaker 1: if I were in college, they would call it an
Speaker 1: independent study. I created my own path, design my own
Speaker 1: work and how I wanted to work and the things
Speaker 1: that allow me to do what it is that I
Speaker 1: do is one All of you who are so supportive,
Speaker 1: both financially and emotionally and spiritually with your you know,
Speaker 1: keep going and keep pushing and keep speaking out sis.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how much your comments and your
Speaker 1: thumbs up and your likes and your shares really do
Speaker 1: bolster me, particularly when our political climate gets me down.
Speaker 1: But I say all that to say that I decided
Speaker 1: to design my life around how I wanted to feel
Speaker 1: and how I wanted to be of service. And again
Speaker 1: understanding that that's a privilege, I knew that if I
Speaker 1: wanted to take this risk on myself, and God forbid
Speaker 1: I failed, I wasn't going to be out on the street.
Speaker 1: I didn't have kids, you know, so I don't have
Speaker 1: to worry about mouth to feed other than my own.
Speaker 1: And you know, I know that I have family and
Speaker 1: friends that act as emotional support and if I needed
Speaker 1: to lean on them in another way could also float
Speaker 1: me as well. Again understanding those points of privilege. But
Speaker 1: the reality is is that we do have the ability
Speaker 1: to design the kind of lives that we want. And
Speaker 1: I think that the questions and the tools that Erin
Speaker 1: provides in her book really allow us to kind of
Speaker 1: think about how do I want to feel right? Knowing
Speaker 1: that we all, unless you're some type of heiress, will
Speaker 1: need to work, right, but what is our relationship to
Speaker 1: work and how do we create a relationship that is healthy.
Speaker 1: One of the questions that you will hear me ask
Speaker 1: Aaron is about, you know, whether or not we're asking
Speaker 1: or expecting too much of work? Right? Well, we know
Speaker 1: that work expects too much of us, But because we
Speaker 1: are there for forty fifty sixty and plus hours a week,
Speaker 1: are we looking at work in the way that if
Speaker 1: we had more time or could reorient our time, we
Speaker 1: would be able to put towards hobbies. Does work or
Speaker 1: should work be a passion project, when in fact, we
Speaker 1: should never be pouring all of ourselves into one thing,
Speaker 1: one person, or one space or place. And so what
Speaker 1: does it look like to diversify, right, what is meaningful
Speaker 1: to us and where we find that meaning? Aaron will
Speaker 1: unpack this in our conversation, which I hope that you
Speaker 1: guys enjoy, because it really was incredibly illuminating. You know.
Speaker 1: I can remember in high school one hundred moons ago
Speaker 1: going in to sit down with my guidance counselor. I
Speaker 1: think it was approaching. I was in eleventh grade, right,
Speaker 1: so you're starting to really think about college and where
Speaker 1: you want to go and what you want to do.
Speaker 1: And it's so crazy to me now as an adult,
Speaker 1: thinking that we expect people at sixteen and seventeen years
Speaker 1: old to put a stake in the ground and decide, Yeah,
Speaker 1: for the next four years, I'm going to concentrate on
Speaker 1: this thing, and then I'm going to go get this
Speaker 1: job and I'm going to live this life. And we
Speaker 1: expect people to be able to make that decision at
Speaker 1: sixteen and seventeen years old, but then don't allow people
Speaker 1: to drink until twenty one. It's very odd, what we like,
Speaker 1: the pressures and the expectations that we have, and what
Speaker 1: we're socialized to believe is normal. And then in hindsight
Speaker 1: you're like, yeah, that's a terrible idea because for me,
Speaker 1: I would have if I could go back in time,
Speaker 1: I would have wanted to take a gap year. I
Speaker 1: believe in a gap year, I would have taken the
Speaker 1: year between high school and going to college and go
Speaker 1: and volunteer, do AmeriCorps, do Peace Corps, do something that
Speaker 1: allowed me to actually see and experience the world and
Speaker 1: feel and understand what I wanted my role to be
Speaker 1: before I would then dive into anybody's studies. I also think,
Speaker 1: you know, regardless of what kind of student that you are,
Speaker 1: those twelve years, right, those you know from K through
Speaker 1: twelve or isn't aggressive time of learning and growing and
Speaker 1: experiencing life. And so really you should take a break,
Speaker 1: right so that when you were showing up on campus
Speaker 1: or at your vocational you know place that you are
Speaker 1: ready and prepared and refreshed to be able to align
Speaker 1: yourself and really like have an open mind and are
Speaker 1: ready to grow and experience. Because I'll tell you that
Speaker 1: I remember walking into my Guidance Counselor's office. I took
Speaker 1: some type of test that was going to tell me
Speaker 1: what kind of career that I should have, and if
Speaker 1: funny enough, I believe God, I wish I had saved
Speaker 1: that paper because that would be like wild to see.
Speaker 1: But I want to say that some of the things
Speaker 1: that were like pushed out after this test were journalists
Speaker 1: I want to say was one of them. Lawyer was
Speaker 1: another one. Something anything that had to do with like research, investigation,
Speaker 1: asking lots of questions were the things. And you know,
Speaker 1: if you know me, and obviously you do because you
Speaker 1: listen to OKAYEF, you know that I pretty much kind
Speaker 1: of hit the nail on the head, but not without
Speaker 1: a lot of, you know, trial and error along the way.
Speaker 1: But I think that it's really interesting that instead of
Speaker 1: asking young people what do you want to do, we
Speaker 1: should start asking them how do you want to feel?
Speaker 1: So that you can then learn to create a life
Speaker 1: and a work life balance around that. Right. And I
Speaker 1: think that these next generations are understanding their relationship to themselves,
Speaker 1: their identities, and the kind of alignment that they want.
Speaker 1: And I think, honestly it's from watching their parents and
Speaker 1: their grandparents work out of alignment and work in a
Speaker 1: way that it's just like, well, this is just the grind,
Speaker 1: this is the hustle, this is what you do, and
Speaker 1: recognizing that they are pausing their happiness for forty hours
Speaker 1: a week right in and hoping that the weekend or
Speaker 1: that day and a half that we get is going
Speaker 1: to be enough to fill all of the other gaps.
Speaker 1: So this is a really exciting conversation that I have
Speaker 1: with sociologists Aaron Seck and tell me in the comment
Speaker 1: sections what you guys think about your relation to work.
Speaker 1: Has it changed, you know, during the great pause that
Speaker 1: many of us had in twenty twenty. Did you leave
Speaker 1: a job? J did you start a new job? Are
Speaker 1: you in between spaces? Are you going into a totally
Speaker 1: new industry? Let us know in the comment section below,
Speaker 1: because I think it's in the conversation at least I
Speaker 1: know that I've been having with my friends and family,
Speaker 1: and I'm certain that you all are having it with yours.
Speaker 1: So coming up next is my conversation with sociologist and
Speaker 1: author Aron sek Folks. I am very excited to welcome
Speaker 1: to woka F for the first time, sociologist Aron Seck,
Speaker 1: who is the author of The Trouble with Passion, how
Speaker 1: searching for fulfillment at work fosters inequality er I feel
Speaker 1: like I have been telling people and providing people with
Speaker 1: the wrong advice after reading your book. The thing that
Speaker 1: we've always been told that if you love what you do,
Speaker 1: it won't feel like work, that if you just go
Speaker 1: after your passion, then you know, all will be Well,
Speaker 1: what are we getting wrong about this? Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: it's a natural response to the complexity of the labor market. Right.
Speaker 1: We see the labor market out there. We know that
Speaker 1: people are working not forty hours a week, but fifty
Speaker 1: or sixty or seventy hours a week, and so the
Speaker 1: idea of saying, well, I might as well love when
Speaker 1: I do if that's going to be the labor force
Speaker 1: I'm going into, seems like a pretty rational response. So
Speaker 1: what we're getting wrong is the recognition that passion seeking
Speaker 1: is based in privilege. So it's based in having safety
Speaker 1: nets and springboards that can be able to support people
Speaker 1: to be able to manage the kind of precarity of
Speaker 1: searching out jobs that they might be passionate about, or
Speaker 1: changing up what they're doing in their career to find
Speaker 1: a brand new field where they don't have a whole
Speaker 1: lot of experience and kind of retool having the social
Speaker 1: networks to get those kinds of connections. Ultimately, the sense
Speaker 1: that we tell people that they can do whatever they
Speaker 1: like as long as they're passionate about it and work
Speaker 1: hard enough is precisely in line with the idea of
Speaker 1: the meritocratic ideology, which we know doesn't exactly describe the
Speaker 1: way that the labor market is structured. You know, it's
Speaker 1: funny because right now, you know, we keep seeing articles, right,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure that you are paying attention to all
Speaker 1: of them. There is a mass what do they call it?
Speaker 1: The Wall Street Journal I think did an article and
Speaker 1: they called it the mass resignation, right, that over eleven
Speaker 1: million people have left the workforce. And you know, we
Speaker 1: keep talking about our listening in mainstream media and on
Speaker 1: cable news about there being a labor shortage, and my
Speaker 1: response to that is that there isn't actually a labor shortage.
Speaker 1: There's a shortage of good quality jobs. There's a shortage
Speaker 1: of jobs that you know, allow for people to be
Speaker 1: able to not only put food on their table, but
Speaker 1: by medicine at the same time, provide them with the
Speaker 1: health benefits that they need, the childcare credits that they need,
Speaker 1: and so on and so forth. And so why do
Speaker 1: you think that, you know, aside from the things that
Speaker 1: I listed, when you see those headlines about, you know,
Speaker 1: the work industry right now and the fact that across
Speaker 1: industries there are thousands of people on strike right why
Speaker 1: do you think that that is happening? And was it
Speaker 1: a shock to you? It's not a shock to me.
Speaker 1: And I think in part the quote unquote labor shortage
Speaker 1: or the great resignation is in part due to all
Speaker 1: of a sudden there is a competition of employers for workers,
Speaker 1: and so they're put in competition and having to elevate
Speaker 1: things like pay and benefits in a way that they
Speaker 1: weren't pressured to before. So part of it is structural,
Speaker 1: but there's also this huge cultural part of it. So
Speaker 1: what I talk about in the book is the way
Speaker 1: that understanding our experiences with the labor market is not
Speaker 1: just an economic consideration. It's also a moral one. It's
Speaker 1: also an existential one. The labor force, regardless of where
Speaker 1: we are in it is a site of meaning making
Speaker 1: in our lives that can be fantastic or can be
Speaker 1: drudgerous and full of dread. And so what happens with
Speaker 1: the great resignation is for especially the college educated folks
Speaker 1: that sort of have a potential ability to step back
Speaker 1: and say, what do I want from my work? What
Speaker 1: does being a worker mean to me? These questions about
Speaker 1: wanting to find meaning fulfillment and work come to be
Speaker 1: front and center. And in fact, some of the research
Speaker 1: I did that is beyond this Trouble with Passion book
Speaker 1: with my graduate student Sophia Hiltner, we actually looked at
Speaker 1: workers during a pandemic, so this is October twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: and we surveyed college educated workers and compared the commitments
Speaker 1: to different labor market priorities of people who had kept
Speaker 1: their jobs the same over the course of the pandemic
Speaker 1: and people who had lost a job or refurloughed. And
Speaker 1: we found that people who had lost a job and
Speaker 1: referlowed were more invested in seeking passion than people who
Speaker 1: had kept a stable job. And that is in part
Speaker 1: related to the kinds of existential instability insecurity that comes
Speaker 1: with this context of a global pandemic, alongside the kind
Speaker 1: of immediate experience of losing or potentially losing one's one
Speaker 1: sense of economic stability. And so it's not just necessarily
Speaker 1: people looking for the highest income or the most stability,
Speaker 1: but rather how kind how can I align my work
Speaker 1: with who I want to be or what I want
Speaker 1: so to look like it? Is it now? Right? And
Speaker 1: is this? Are we privileged in this sense? Right? That
Speaker 1: we are in a space where I mean, for me
Speaker 1: and and i'll and I'll say this for me, the
Speaker 1: height of the pandemic provided an opportunity for me to
Speaker 1: take a pause, right when when we were in quarantine
Speaker 1: and when you know, the world slowed down, it provided
Speaker 1: an opportunity for me to have a pause and really
Speaker 1: think about what is the kind of content that I'm
Speaker 1: putting out into the world. How is it that I
Speaker 1: want to be aligned with my work? Um? How is
Speaker 1: it that I want to show up? And I found
Speaker 1: I understood in that moment that that indeed was a privilege, right,
Speaker 1: It was a deep privilege to be able to do that.
Speaker 1: I was not an essential worker, right, So I understand
Speaker 1: it from that vantage point. But is it also you know,
Speaker 1: are we looking for passion or are we looking for
Speaker 1: alignment and is there a difference between those those two things?
Speaker 1: Great question. So I would say we are looking for
Speaker 1: alignment in our paid work in a way that's really risky.
Speaker 1: So there's the risk of financial ruin potentially if someone
Speaker 1: follows their passion and don't doesn't have the privilege or
Speaker 1: of some form of savings or other things they can
Speaker 1: rely upon. But it's also an existential risk in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways to try and align our work with
Speaker 1: our sense of self. And the reason I say that
Speaker 1: is because even if you're in a job that you
Speaker 1: find deeply fulfilling and meaningful, it's very likely that the
Speaker 1: people that you're working for, the organization that you're working with,
Speaker 1: is benefiting far more from the passion based labor that
Speaker 1: you are providing to them than you are getting paid for.
Speaker 1: One of the things I find in the book is
Speaker 1: through an experiment, an experiment that employers really light job
Speaker 1: applicants who express passion for their work, and it's not
Speaker 1: just that they like them because they think that they'll
Speaker 1: be fun colleagues or you know, bring a good vibe
Speaker 1: to the community, but that they'll be able to get
Speaker 1: more labor out of them without an increase in pay.
Speaker 1: So right, so there's a knowing exploitation of passion. And
Speaker 1: so if we hand ourselves over hand our meaning making
Speaker 1: over to the labor market, something that is so precarious
Speaker 1: and unstable and certainly is not designed to support our
Speaker 1: meaning making goals, that puts us at risk our deep
Speaker 1: sense of self. And so it's so interesting because this
Speaker 1: moment where people are taking stock of their work, the
Speaker 1: content of their work exactly as you described, in this moment,
Speaker 1: if they find a misalignment in that, there's one solution
Speaker 1: that let me fire the work, let me find something
Speaker 1: about work that I like more. Another thing is, let
Speaker 1: me find meaning outside of work. Let me let me
Speaker 1: shrink the space of work in my life and expand
Speaker 1: the space of work outside of my life so I
Speaker 1: can find that meaning fulfillment that's missing in my life
Speaker 1: outside of my paid employment. You know, it's it's so
Speaker 1: interesting because it's like, do we work so much that
Speaker 1: we have a lack of hobbies that we're looking for
Speaker 1: everything to be in this one space and place right, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, if you are putting in on average, forty
Speaker 1: plus hours a week at a job, it's and then
Speaker 1: you sleep and then you eat, and if you care
Speaker 1: for kids or an elderly parent or what have you,
Speaker 1: like that's your time, right Like, that's that's your life
Speaker 1: in a nutshell. And so it's like are we putting
Speaker 1: are we as workers placing too much value in what
Speaker 1: it is that we're doing because we're looking forward to
Speaker 1: fill all of the other avenues of our life that
Speaker 1: we may have gaps. Yeah, absolutely, And I think it's
Speaker 1: really tricky because the labor force is not set up
Speaker 1: to help us get out of that trap either. So
Speaker 1: the difficulty, So the reason that that that passion seeking
Speaker 1: is so risky financially is because we don't have the
Speaker 1: same social safety nets and protections as other post industrialized nations.
Speaker 1: So if one says, you know what, I just want
Speaker 1: to work part time so that I can invest in
Speaker 1: myself and invest in my own meaning making, there's very
Speaker 1: little support for someone who is in that kind of position,
Speaker 1: or who might be in some kind of precarious work
Speaker 1: and loses their job or is furloughed to some respect.
Speaker 1: So the riskiness involved is part of the kind of
Speaker 1: structure of the American labor force, but it's also tied
Speaker 1: into culturally what we think of as as being a
Speaker 1: good worker. So it is very unusual for somebody who says,
Speaker 1: I'm going to come in and I'm going to do
Speaker 1: my work and I'm going to leave after him where
Speaker 1: my forty hours are done. I'm gonna put my effort in,
Speaker 1: but then I'm going to leave and not have a
Speaker 1: sense of personal dedication to that work to be coded
Speaker 1: as a good worker. The idea of an ideal worker
Speaker 1: in the United States is, and has been for over
Speaker 1: half a century, the sense of you are devoted to
Speaker 1: the work that you do, and so breaking from that
Speaker 1: not only risks potential sanctions from one's employer, but people
Speaker 1: thinking that one is not morally aligned with expectations of
Speaker 1: being a worker, especially for professional workers. Why do we
Speaker 1: think that this is the case? Now? What is it
Speaker 1: about these younger generations that is shifting how we are
Speaker 1: thinking and looking at work right like? What what? What
Speaker 1: is what is it about our society right now and
Speaker 1: the people that it is producing that we are that
Speaker 1: we are in this moment. So I think it's a
Speaker 1: confluence of two historical processes. One is a cultural process.
Speaker 1: One is related to the ex huge explosion of the
Speaker 1: expectation for self expression and an identity formation sense about
Speaker 1: the late nineteen eighties early nineteen nineties, right, everything that
Speaker 1: we have in our lives we expect to be connected
Speaker 1: to a sense of self expression. One of my favorite
Speaker 1: favorite examples is the little the Firefox web browser has
Speaker 1: at the very top of it. You can change the
Speaker 1: skin on it to be something that aligns with something
Speaker 1: that's self expressive to you, whether that's like a color
Speaker 1: or a sports team, or you know, a particular form
Speaker 1: of architecture or something. So there's this giant expectation, this
Speaker 1: ubiquitous expectation that everything in our life we should be
Speaker 1: able to do self expressively, and so our work is
Speaker 1: certainly no exception to that. But then alongside of that
Speaker 1: is this huge shift in precarity in a labor market
Speaker 1: since the nineteen seventies, So even for those who have
Speaker 1: a college degree, the expectation that you can get a
Speaker 1: job in a company and that company will sort of
Speaker 1: take care of you as long as you do your
Speaker 1: work and put your time in just doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 1: And so one solution to that kind of procurity might
Speaker 1: have been a big growth, a big swell in collective
Speaker 1: action of pushing back on expectations for overwork, pushing back
Speaker 1: on the kind of precarity that exists in a labor force.
Speaker 1: But what has happened instead, the kind of general reaction,
Speaker 1: in part because of the lack of structural support for
Speaker 1: kind of collective solutions, is people saying, well, if I
Speaker 1: need to work sixty seventy eight hours a week, and
Speaker 1: I and that's my path as a college educated worker,
Speaker 1: I might as well do something that I like, I
Speaker 1: might as well have it align with my sense of self.
Speaker 1: And so part of it is the lack of other
Speaker 1: alternatives for individual workers to seem to see ways out
Speaker 1: of the issue of precurity and overwork. You know, is
Speaker 1: there a way too? Like how how does this? How
Speaker 1: does this connect to our understanding of burnout? And also
Speaker 1: it's burnout a privileged term as well. Like again, like
Speaker 1: I asked these questions because I realized that, you know,
Speaker 1: I have only ever work, only ever had white collar
Speaker 1: work experiences, right, like outside of being a teenager and
Speaker 1: working in a grocery store when I was a teenager,
Speaker 1: and that was really for fun, right, that was not
Speaker 1: to put food on the table. It was to like
Speaker 1: buy what my parents wouldn't buy me right, um, and
Speaker 1: and wasn't like you were forced to work. It was
Speaker 1: just like I wanted to because I want this extra
Speaker 1: thing outside of that. My entire career is in white
Speaker 1: collar type of work. Is burnout? Right? And this word
Speaker 1: that we use we see everywhere, we see memed, we
Speaker 1: see quoted, we see self care. Now you know as
Speaker 1: as as prevalent as ever. Is that also one privilege?
Speaker 1: And then two? Is there a way to set up
Speaker 1: your life where you don't have burnout? Or is burnout
Speaker 1: just a product of having to work? Right? And and
Speaker 1: that like when you have to work and you have
Speaker 1: to work a lot because you're adulting, and as much
Speaker 1: as you know, we may not like it, like that's
Speaker 1: part of life. It is burnout just a part of life?
Speaker 1: Or is that the way in which we have been
Speaker 1: socialized to understand work. That's a really great question. So
Speaker 1: my sense is that burnout is a way is a
Speaker 1: language that's been utilized to try and claw back some
Speaker 1: pushback on the expectations of the labor market. But it
Speaker 1: is a privileged term. Any time workers have the opportunity
Speaker 1: to think about adjusting the quality of their work, their
Speaker 1: work circumstances the environment in which they work to find
Speaker 1: a better option for them. That in itself is a
Speaker 1: privilege and usually something that's that's only reserved for those
Speaker 1: with the college degree. Because of the kind of precarity
Speaker 1: and the bifurcation of good jobs and bad jobs. In
Speaker 1: the United States, people with out of college degree, those
Speaker 1: in the service sector blue collar work increasingly have more
Speaker 1: precarious hours, less advantageous kind of work, more deskilled kind
Speaker 1: of work, where even thinking about does this give me
Speaker 1: burnout or not? Or is this something that aligns with
Speaker 1: their passion or not is really outside of the realm
Speaker 1: of what is often available to them structurally because of
Speaker 1: how work is organized in the United States, and so
Speaker 1: with burnout is aligned the idea of passion seeking. It's
Speaker 1: sort of the contrast of one another. People often want
Speaker 1: to seek out their passion if they feel burnt out,
Speaker 1: but burnout is attached to a sense of overwork in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. So one can seek passion because
Speaker 1: they feel burnt out. One can seek passion because they
Speaker 1: don't feel connected to the work that they do, but
Speaker 1: burnout is often attached to the sense of I am
Speaker 1: working more than I want to and it is bleeding
Speaker 1: over into other areas of my life, and that that
Speaker 1: sentiment of work affecting our non work lives is something
Speaker 1: that all work will have an impact on. It's sort
Speaker 1: of that's the characteristic of labor, of giving our labor
Speaker 1: over to somebody else in a capitalist economy, but the
Speaker 1: expectations that the labor force has of us are extreme
Speaker 1: in many ways. That leads the kind of burnout. So
Speaker 1: we can think about burnout on an individual level, what
Speaker 1: we can think about the kinds of structural practices and
Speaker 1: processes that lead to this overwhelming amount of burnout that
Speaker 1: I think we've seen grow over the last couple of
Speaker 1: decades is a burnout unique to America because of the
Speaker 1: way in which we overwork, the way in which we
Speaker 1: have the least vacation time of any other industrialized nation.
Speaker 1: You know the joke every summer always comes around where
Speaker 1: you know, if you send a if you send an
Speaker 1: email to somebody in Europe between like July and September,
Speaker 1: it's like I'm off for the next six weeks, you know,
Speaker 1: wish you will like. And in the United States, US
Speaker 1: even taking the two weeks standard vacation time and taking
Speaker 1: that as a block is seen as crazy. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: is burnout something that is unique to America because of
Speaker 1: how we're because of our culture and how we're socialized.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's certainly not unique in terms of
Speaker 1: the experience of right, there's many other countries where that,
Speaker 1: you know that happens. But I think it's unique in
Speaker 1: the extent that particularly professional workers experience burnout because of
Speaker 1: these intensive hours, compared to European nations, for example. But
Speaker 1: I think it's also unique in the utilization of burnout
Speaker 1: as a concept to interpret people's experiences. And I think
Speaker 1: in other places the same experience of the characteristics that
Speaker 1: feeling burnt out may be more likely to be identified
Speaker 1: as exploitation, something that is structural, something that is not
Speaker 1: at the individual level. But in the United States, because
Speaker 1: of neuroliberal norms about us being responsible for our own
Speaker 1: lives and our own work, there's more likely that we
Speaker 1: interpret the experiences of our workplace as something that is
Speaker 1: that is connected to us and call it burnout rather
Speaker 1: than exploitation. So what is what should we be thinking
Speaker 1: about when we think about work eron? Like, you know,
Speaker 1: I know that for myself, I left traditional firms. I
Speaker 1: you know, came from a policy background, a political background,
Speaker 1: you know, left traditional nonprofits, left firm life in order
Speaker 1: to work for myself. Why did I make that decision?
Speaker 1: Because I wanted to own my own hours, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to decide who and when and how I wanted
Speaker 1: to work right And I understood that to be the
Speaker 1: privilege of the experience that I've had, the degrees that
Speaker 1: I've had, and the ability to build a brand in
Speaker 1: a certain way that has allowed me to, you know,
Speaker 1: so far, continue to be success full. But how is
Speaker 1: it everybody can't be an entrepreneur, nor does everybody want
Speaker 1: to be an entrepreneur, right, because that is a different
Speaker 1: type of hustle and a whole different type of burnout,
Speaker 1: you know, to be honest, But how should we be
Speaker 1: looking at work? How should we be looking at work's
Speaker 1: role in our life? Is it just that, you know, look,
Speaker 1: it's a means to an end, which I've heard a
Speaker 1: number of my friends start to say now where I
Speaker 1: never heard them say those things before, But again this time,
Speaker 1: in this very you know, black mirror world that we're
Speaker 1: living in is having us think in different ways. So
Speaker 1: is it a means to an end is that our
Speaker 1: passion project. Do we need more hobbies so that we
Speaker 1: create more of a balance. How should we be how
Speaker 1: should our relationship with work be growing, and how should
Speaker 1: we be engaging moving forward? Sure, there are individual solutions,
Speaker 1: and I think there's collective solutions. So at the individual level,
Speaker 1: I think we need to see what ways we can
Speaker 1: shrink the footprint of work on our lives, regardless of
Speaker 1: if we're passionate about our work or not, just to
Speaker 1: allow ourselves to reclaim as much time as we can
Speaker 1: outside of our paid employment with the intense pressures of overwork.
Speaker 1: And for everyone, regardless of if they're in their passion
Speaker 1: or not, but especially people who are following their passion
Speaker 1: or in their passion. As I talk about in the book,
Speaker 1: we should diversify our meaning making portfolios. By that, I
Speaker 1: mean finding places outside of work to anchor our identity
Speaker 1: and our sense of self, to protect that sense of
Speaker 1: self from the vagaries of the instability of the labor market.
Speaker 1: And that's hard. If you work a lot. That's hard.
Speaker 1: It's work to find space for that other meaning making
Speaker 1: in our lives. It takes practice, it takes scheduling. We
Speaker 1: have to think about it and do it very explicitly,
Speaker 1: but then at more general at the kind of collective level,
Speaker 1: I think we have to really question how we talk
Speaker 1: to young adults about career decision making. So I was
Speaker 1: a passion principle evangelist I told students for this research,
Speaker 1: so like, oh, you're passion figure out the job stuff later,
Speaker 1: And that's not the way that we should be approaching
Speaker 1: career decision making. I think we have a much more
Speaker 1: holistic way of talking to young adults about the role
Speaker 1: of work in their lives, the kinds of goals that
Speaker 1: they have, and if they say I want to spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time with my family and I don't
Speaker 1: want to be working a whole lot, how can we
Speaker 1: help them think about engaging in work that furthers those goals.
Speaker 1: And then we also want to think about the way
Speaker 1: that we're communicating expectations to blue collar and service workers,
Speaker 1: people who are in jobs that may have very little
Speaker 1: option for the expression of passion. I think there's a
Speaker 1: sentiment where there's more more and more of an expectation
Speaker 1: of the performance of being passionate about one's job. For
Speaker 1: baristas and hotel clerks and things. If you go and
Speaker 1: you look at sort of plaquards for coffee shops and things,
Speaker 1: they will often use the language of passion. And it's
Speaker 1: an additional burden we place onto service workers if we
Speaker 1: expect them to perform making a coffee for us as
Speaker 1: though it was their passion, as well as being nice
Speaker 1: and kind to us and performing the emotional labor that's
Speaker 1: always been there. And then beyond that, we need to
Speaker 1: really champion the kinds of legislation and kinds of changes
Speaker 1: in our own workplaces that help reduce things like overwork,
Speaker 1: that allow for more work life balance and give access
Speaker 1: to a wider array of people to benefits and social
Speaker 1: safety nets, and things that can engagement in the labor
Speaker 1: force less risky, less precurious in general. I have one
Speaker 1: one more question for you too, that came up as
Speaker 1: you were answering the last question, which is, so should
Speaker 1: we then be if I am a high school guidance
Speaker 1: counselor right and A and and you know my students
Speaker 1: are coming in and they're should I be tapping into
Speaker 1: how they want to feel as opposed to what they
Speaker 1: want to do? Because what I'm hearing from you and
Speaker 1: what I what I think that the message of your
Speaker 1: book is is that it isn't just about the doing
Speaker 1: of the thing or the being passionate about the doing
Speaker 1: of the thing. It's about how do I want to
Speaker 1: feel in my life? Right? Like it? Am? I? Right?
Speaker 1: Should we be? Is it more about us tapping into
Speaker 1: that which is very different than how we work in
Speaker 1: this country, and I think how we work in general.
Speaker 1: You know, the joke was always work as a four
Speaker 1: letter word, like all of these kinds of things, you know,
Speaker 1: should we be tapping into the feeling and then building
Speaker 1: our work around that. I think it's a two part.
Speaker 1: One is more pragmatic. One is trying to see how
Speaker 1: we can encourage them to have a wide variety of skills.
Speaker 1: So if someone is really interested in anthropology, have them
Speaker 1: get a computer science minor, for example, something that can
Speaker 1: actually be give them more options on the labor market
Speaker 1: to help the reduce the potential for procurity. But also
Speaker 1: aligned with that sense of feeling, asking essentially what kind
Speaker 1: of human do they want to be in the world,
Speaker 1: and allowing that to be one of the guiding principles
Speaker 1: they take into account, and really making sure that we
Speaker 1: are not moralizing passion as the most valuable way to
Speaker 1: think about career decision making. When I interviewed career counsel
Speaker 1: and coaches for the book, I was really struck by
Speaker 1: how many of them were willing to tell the people
Speaker 1: that they advise students and workers not to worry about money,
Speaker 1: that they shouldn't care so much about money, that they
Speaker 1: really should find work that aligns with their sense of
Speaker 1: self and their sense of identity. And this is These
Speaker 1: are the professions that are given permission to give us advice,
Speaker 1: that we trust to give us advice, and if even
Speaker 1: they are not able to move outside of the trap
Speaker 1: of passion, I think it's more and more important that
Speaker 1: we think about how to do that, folks. The book
Speaker 1: is how the book is, I'm sorry, The Trouble with Passion,
Speaker 1: How searching for fulfillment at work fosters inequality by sociologists
Speaker 1: Aaron Sik Aaron, thank you so much. This was such
Speaker 1: an illuminating conversation and one that I think that we
Speaker 1: all are finding ourselves having right in you know, at
Speaker 1: our at our brunches, at our offices, you know, on zooms,
Speaker 1: in the private chats and all of these spaces to
Speaker 1: figure out what it is that we're all doing so
Speaker 1: your book is more timely than ever. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for making the time to join Woke. F thank you.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today. Folks on woke app
Speaker 1: as always, Power to the people and to all the people. Power,
Speaker 1: get woke and stay woke as fuck.