The Ugly Truth About Invisible Labor

What happens when the institutions you devoted your career to building up were never actually built for you — and the only way forward is to admit the invisible labor is crushing you, the burnout is real, and rest isn't weakness, it's resistance?

In this raw and unfiltered episode of The Exit Interview | On Air, hosts Shana Ayabe and Kisha Imani Cameron sit down with Dr. Zaibis Muñoz-Isme and Dr. Alicia Bates, two scholar practitioners who built careers in higher education to change things from the inside. There struggles in higher education mirror professionals navigating today’s corporate culture. From navigating the brutal reality of being the only Latina or Black woman in senior leadership to the invisible labor of mentoring every student of color who walks through your door without it counting toward tenure or promotion, to the breaking point where you realize the institution recruited you for diversity but built zero infrastructure to retain you, this conversation unpacks what it actually costs to show up every day in spaces that weren't built for you.

This episode explores:

Why your career feels like a toxic relationship that doesn't love you back

The invisible labor of being the go-to person without recognition or compensation

How institutions spend money recruiting women of color but build no infrastructure to retain them

Why COVID exposed the true colors of colleagues and forced impossible choices between grief, work, and survival

The reality that to move up in your career you almost always have to move out

How Gen Z is teaching millennials about boundaries, rest, and redefining success

Why FMLA and rest without regret should be normalized, not stigmatized

The truth about being thanked for "coordinating" when you actually did all the work

How success shifted from climbing the ladder to investing in family, community, and a calm nervous system