Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted and Alone

‘By pulling apart the myth that work is love, Jaffe shows us that we can reimagine futures built on care, rather than exploitation. A tremendous contribution.’ — Naomi Klein, author of On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal\n‘Wry, passionate, and at times heartrending. … Jaffe explores the “labor of love” myth … and reminds us that none of this is immovable; change is always possible.’ — Teen Vogue\nYou’re told that if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. Whether it’s working for free in exchange for ‘experience’, enduring poor treatment in the name of being ‘part of the family’, or clocking serious overtime for a good cause, more and more of us are pushed to make sacrifices for the privilege of being able to do work we enjoy.\nWork Won’t Love You Back examines how we all bought into this ‘labour of love’ myth: the idea that certain work is not really work, and should be done for the sake of passion rather than pay. Through the lives and experiences of various workers—from the unpaid intern and the overworked teacher, to the nonprofit employee, the domestic worker and even the professional athlete—this compelling book reveals how we’ve all been tricked into a new tyranny of work.\nSarah Jaffe argues that understanding the labour of love trap will empower us to work less and demand what our work is worth. Once freed, we can finally figure out what actually gives us joy, pleasure and satisfaction.