Your Passion Is Not a Resource to Be Mined
The low hum of the projector is the only thing moving in the room. That, and the slow drain of life from the 15 people staring at the screen. The air is thick with the ghosts of stale coffee and takeout from two nights ago. It’s 8:15 PM on a Thursday, the capstone on a week that’s already clocked in at over 65 hours. Mark, the team lead, clicks to his final slide. It’s a stock photo of a mountain climber reaching a summit.
“I know everyone’s tired,” he says, his voice attempting a rally it can’t quite sustain. “But we’re doing this because we’re all so passionate about the mission.”
And your passion means we don’t have to compensate you for the pieces of your life you sacrificed this week.
“
The quiet part, the unspoken clause in the modern workplace contract.
A few people nod, the slow, heavy nod of the truly exhausted. But what he’s really saying, the subtext humming right alongside the projector, is: And your passion means we don’t have to compensate you for the pieces of your life you sacrificed this week. It’s the quiet part, the unspoken clause in the social contract of the modern workplace. Your passion has been annexed. It is now a corporate asset, a line item on a balance sheet you never get to see, an infinitely renewable energy