The World Health Organization characterizes "burnout" as feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion, increased mental distance from one's job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job and reduced professional efficacy. Such a definition of course assumes that one had mental connection to one's job and positive feelings about it to begin with, only the exhaustion part applies equally to all workers. Burnout in other words is a problem of the age of the labor of love and it's no surprise it is often discussed in the context of nonprofit or political workers. These workers are expected, like Ashley Brink was, to give their lives over to the work because they believe in the cause, but it becomes harder and harder to believe in the cause when the cause is the thing mistreating you.

This part really stuck out to me, because as a librarian who is in the weird liminal space of nonprofit + political work, burnout has been on the library profession quota for many, many years. While I could talk about what causes burnout for my occupation all day and can assume some similarities to related occupations, I would love to ask to others comfortable to share: what is something that has caused burnout in your job, that maybe the collective wouldn't know or think about? Feels very open-ended here, but what I'm learning while reading this is that systems partly succeed in our inaction in discussing and being transparent with one another about our work.

For myself and probably for most libraries (though I'll speak to public), our burnout is really related to being the end-all-be-all place for things that are beyond our scope of abilities, funding, staffing, education, etc. We are constantly inundated with people saying "they went to {X} and they said go to the library, so help me with this thing!", which like... no, 1) we don't do X and 2) i bet that person has never been to a library. Yes, we are a great central point to help the community find other resources, but we cannot be every resource.

Absolutely more than I was expecting so far! Less "self-help" book and more of a leftist, reframing of the history and modality of different kinds of work. Honestly loving Jaffe's writing. It's informative and engaging, while still being personal to the workers for each chapter and infuriating in why the concept of work has led us here. Here are some thoughts so far, by chapter. Sorry for the long post lmaoo 😅

Chapter 1: Nuclear Fallout: The Family Right out the gate, discussing how "work" came to be through the societal oppression on women, but expanding on how the true clash of women's rights is partly due to class and white feminism. In the meantime that white women were fighting for their subjective empowerment through work, when other women—particularly lower-class and non-white—didn't see work as liberating, these white women became destructive towards the other. Immediately comes to mind bell hooks Ain't I Woman when discussing how white feminism fell in line with white supremacy to perpetuate the class and race divide all for capitalism and the "right to work."

The new myth as work as liberation grew up around it. The clash between these two narratives fueled clashes between women. The class division between women became the fault line for other clashes, particularly over abortion and so-called welfare reform.

They are the curdled side of the unfinished feminists revolution. Frustrated with career prospects and a shredded social safety net, they retreat to the home and blame feminism, and non-white people, for their plight.

Chapter 3: We Strike We Care: Teaching Jaffe's discussion on the historical and modern-day issues our teachers experience, not only through underpaid and undervalued lens, but dissecting how society perpetuates an anti-feminist assumption that it's all okay because they [teachers] love what they do. All I could think about during this chapter was the abysmal harm teachers experienced during the height of Covid-19 and still facing today. While the helicopter-parent trope is ridiculous/fun to make fun of, there is actual, tangible harm these parents create. The arguments when parents are upset they have to help their kids with lessons because it's "not their job", yet devalue teachers in every capacity possible, especially through compensation. Yes, that means taxes. No, I don't care.

I also couldn't help but think about how teachers are one, if not the most attacked occupations in the US, whether parental, societal, financial, and/or political. It's disheartening, and teachers deserve so much respect. More actually.

Like the work done in the home, paid or unpaid, teachers work is considered as necessary and not really work at all. Teachers thus occupy an uneasy place in our understanding of the world, expected to be a reservoir of emotional and intellectual support for new generations, they become a recetical for all the blame when their teaching does not manage to overcome all the obstacles placed in their students way.

Chapter 5: Suffer For the Cause: Nonprofits And the real plight, nonprofits. It makes sense being the last chapter of the "What We Might Call Love" section because it's the one that immediately comes to mind. So much of us were taught as kids, "do what you love!!" and capitalist buzz-phrase, cousin adjacent: "do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life!". god we were all played.

Apologies for any misspellings for a few names mentioned in quotes as I'm listening to the audiobook (very accessible/easy to listen to btw).

While Jaffe does discuss nonprofit work, I think her approach to deconstructing charity and philanthropy is so important. Especially during the holiday season, but just in general, learning that corporations and big businesses receive profit (aka tax breaks) when we (the collective) give money back, either by rounding up or donating, is so fucking disgusting and just shows the disparting ethos capitalism preys upon. The cycle of harm that big businesses create to communities creating some nonprofit to mitigate said harm to then businesses "collaborating" for donations to then repeating the same fucking harm RAHHHHH!!!! And then you think about the virtue signally big companies do, all for the sake of branding, I"M STARING AT YOU TARGET

The charitable ethic is based on hierarchy and dependency on the recipient. It responds only to immediate material needs and relocates collective concerns into a realm of private benevolence, wrote Amy Shiller (not sure of spelling),"Donors came to black organizations not out of solidarity, but because they were trying to connect the inherent progressive character of social movements in their brand.*

Additionally, Jaffe discussing how white supremacy, class, and white feminism again continues the same cycle by spinning the stupid tale that people in power are the only ones who truly (sarcasm) know how to help.

These women were able to do abolitionist work because they did not need to work for money, because their husbands or fathers had enough of it to allow them to take up the unpaid work of the movement. White women like Anthony and Elizabeth Katie Stanton turned from abolitionism to making the case for women's rights inexplicitly racist language, they believed their education levels qualified them for the vote and to speak for others. They were thus, despite their opposition to one oppressive system, as Angela Davis pointed out, reliant on the inequality of another one, industrial capitalism.

Even when I feel like I've done deconstruction on work and capitalism, I'm just heavily-reminded just how rooted it is in our daily being. It's disheartening, but the book is a nice wakeup call.