The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases what they call the “employment situation summary” on the first Friday of every month. In that summary is the most recent unemployment rate. The BLS’s most recent release announced that unemployment was down to 4.6% — the lowest it’s been in nine years. 

But that number doesn’t tell us everything about what it’s like to have a job in this country and how work shapes our worldview. That’s the subject of a new series from The Atlantic called “Inside Jobs.” Adrienne Green was an editor of the series, along with Bourree Lam. After talking to funeral directors and school lunch servers, investment bankers and python wranglers, Green says she’s learned that “we can make a life that has nothing to do with our jobs or it can be everything and it can be just as fulfilling.”

Click the audio player above to hear the full interview.