Hey everyone, it's Yasmin Khan. I've been guest hosting What Next while Mary is away. Today, it's

Labor Day, and that means these hardworking professionals are taking a break. But in the

meantime, I wanted to bring you a recent episode of Slate's Narrative Advice podcast, How To,

a show about how to get things done, even when it hurts.

This one really resonated with me.

And if you're like the millions of Americans who've had a toxic job, it'll resonate with you too.

So while you're hopefully taking a little break from work, listen to this and consider

rethinking your relationship to work.

All right.

Here's the show.

My dominant takeaway from this experience was that I was never given a chance.

I see.

It feels like at a certain point, they just decided I wasn't a good investment and cut their losses and didn't tell me.

So I feel like all these people who were around me who were saying they were supporting me were, in fact, biding their time until I would make the decision for them.

Welcome to how to. I'm Carvel Wallace. Some of you may know that long before I started writing, long before I started podcasting, I worked in nonprofit.

For 15 years, in fact, I dealt with clients in underserved communities,

kids in detention facilities, kids in foster care. It was hard work, but not for the reasons

you think. Working with clients was sometimes challenging, but almost always manageable.

The real difficulty was usually the agency I was working for.

The executives and the funders and the stress of metrics and bad training,

disrespectful supervisors and impossible outcomes.

Working with people in your community was rewarding, but doing it for a business was less so.

...