The Passion of the Career

 Some thoughts on trying to do what you love for work.

Working in the talent acquisition space I think a lot about the nature of working for a living. I work closely with a lot of young professionals just starting out in their careers, whether they work for me directly or I work with them in their job search. I often witness this crisis - or rather I recognize it as the same one I went through at their age - where these former students watch their free time completely disappear at the same time they're devoting themselves to the very sterile, bottom-line-driven mission of their employer.

It's with this massive hit to free time and values that I watch these young people go into panic mode. Shortly into their career, they decide to "hack" this system by taking something they love doing or are passionate about and making it their full-time job. The logic being if you have to do something for 40 hours a week that's going to cut into your free time with some boring, unimportant mission you should try to transform at least the latter half of those variables. 

There are a lot of people who talk about this; doing what you love has become almost a famous platitude. Nevermind the fact that it would be impossible for everyone to follow their dreams - not many people have longed to be an HVAC technician or a logistics coordinator and yet these are essential jobs in our modern world - the conversation lacks the nuances of the sacrifices you're making when you try to make your passion your career. 

The exploitative nature of the American work life is going to be present everywhere you look. Non-profits notoriously pay awful and have terrible work/life balance, the same can be said of creative jobs. Is helping people your passion? It doesn't take much reading to find that nurses and social workers have been (especially lately) horrifically exploited. Are you passionate about education? The nation's teachers are under attack and people are flocking out of the position faster than they're going in, academia is harder and harder to break into without enduring an endless barrage of shit. Even if you love technology or learning a trade, tech workers are not immune from employer exploitation despite being one of the most lucrative types of workers in the market.

This is not to disparage any of these jobs or discourage entering any of these fields. The issue at heart is the nature of work can be oppressive across any field and there is no avoiding it. Rather than finding a job, you love, finding a job that allows you maximum free time while balancing adequate compensation is an alternative some don't consider. Which of course is only a short-term fix. The larger, more systemic change needs to be increased worker power. This can take many forms; legislative fixes like a four-day work week or federally subsidized leave programs, more worker representation in the form of unions and worker co-determination, and a great re-imagining of what work means in this country.