Doing What you Love. . . Or Not

Lately, this article has been circulating among my friends on Facebook.  Titled, "In the Name of Love" and printed first by Jacobin Magazine and then by Slate, the article is a timely response to the job market and unemployment crises.  It traces our job angst and the exploitation of professional labor to bad job advice--namely, "do what you love."

Blaming the individual for explotation is a "blaming the victim" model.


1. Graduate and professional programs and the workforce are full of people who are in it for the money.

2. Being saitisfied with your work is an ROI for employers--and not for the reasons you think.

In HR, we focus on knowing your strengths, and helping supervisors identify talent and nurture growth. Why?  Because even if the bottom line is not your fulfillment, a satisfied employee is a productive employee.

3.  Salaried office jobs are "salaried"--that is, non-hourly--to allow for the employee to work overtime without compensation in order to get projects done.  It's not just teachers and academics.


4. Doing what we love on our own time is great in theory, but rarely practical.


5. If we don't do what we love--or at least like--we allow work to kill our souls.

What about a vocation?
Isn't it a little socialist to just do what society requires of us?

--making a job out of what you love is not necessarily the problem--the problem is how you frame "doing what you love."