What Don’t People Get About Your Job?

This is Work in Progress, a newsletter by Derek Thompson about work, technology, and how to solve some of America’s biggest problems. Sign up here to get it every week.

Several years ago, I asked readers to tell me what other people didn’t understand or appreciate about their job. I got hundreds of fascinating, funny, outraged, counterintuitive, and illuminating replies. Now I want to do it again. What’s the one thing that most people don’t understand or appreciate about your job? Email me a sentence, a paragraph, or an essay—anything you want, really—to AboutMyJobWIP@gmail.com. In two weeks or so, I’ll publish my favorite replies.

I’ll default to publishing anonymously. But I’d love to include a little bit of detail (which can make for a better reading experience). So if you feel comfortable, let me know your first name, or even