vocational awe
“Before the pandemic, I was thinking a lot about how jobs with vocational awe — from librarians to teachers, from pastors to zookeepers — ironically expose the workers with those jobs to exploitation. Complain about pay? You don’t love the job enough. Attempt to unionize to advocate for a better safety net? You don’t love the job enough. Complain about systemic sexism, racism, or other exclusionary practices at your institution? You don’t love the job enough.”
Petersen continues to be one of the best writers about work and jobs and capitalism and burnout today. This piece points out how there are so many professions where you are expected to work until you burn yourself out, because you love the job. And because you love the job, you may be asked to do way more than just that job. This past week during a crisis in my town, we were in the library and it was amazing what people were asking the librarians, it was all information they should've been asking emergency authorities, but the library is where they went.