You’ve probably heard this advice before: “Find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” But missing from that laughably quaint maxim is the promise of a job ever loving you back. The “labor of love” myth sits at the heart of some of our most core beliefs about work. But the expectation that the place cutting our paychecks should be the same place giving our lives meaning isn’t an old one; it’s a pretty new conceit that’s come into focus as the shape of work itself has changed—demanding more of our time and emotional capacity while providing us with less pay and security. Independent journalist and labor reporter Sarah Jaffe traces this history in her most recent book, Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone, and speaks with us about how perhaps the pandemic has imploded the “labor of love” myth for good.

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