EP 474: Making Non-Obvious Choices at Work with Samhita Mukhopadhyay

For justice-minded people, navigating the world of work in the 21st-century economy can feel... impossible. A real no-win scenario. There's a constant tension between what's good for the communities we inhabit and what's good (and necessary) for us as individuals. But it's in this tension that we find a "margin of maneuverability"—a source of hope, possibility, and creativity.

That's the theme of a new book called The Myth of Making It by Samhita Mukhopadhyay, a feminist writer and editor, and the former executive editor of Teen Vogue. I sat down with Samhita to talk about the book and explore our margins of maneuverability.

Footnotes:

• Grab your copy of The Myth of Making It by Samhita Mukhopadhyay
• Find out more about Samhita
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and more on the Kobayashi Maru in Star Trek lore
• The Politics of Affect by Brian Massumi
• "At 20, Teen Vogue knows its readers contain multitudes" by Annie Aguiar for Poynter

Related episodes:

• 466: Making Room for Others with Leonie Smith
• 455: The Case for Uncertainty (and How to Navigate It)
• 457: How to Define Hard-to-Define Work Stress
• 450: The Will to Share Power with Tania Luna

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What is What Works?

"Work" is broken. We're overcommitted, underutilized, and out of whack. But it doesn't have to be this way. What Works is a podcast about rethinking work, business, and leadership as we navigate the 21st-century economy. When you're an entrepreneur, independent worker, or employee who doesn't want to lose yourself to the whims of late-stage capitalism, this show is for you. Host Tara McMullin covers money, management, culture, media, philosophy, and more to figure out what's working (and what's not) today. Tara offers a distinctly interdisciplinary approach to deep-dive analysis of how we work and how work shapes us.