A vocation is an individual's sense of being called to pursue a given profession. Vocations are typified by passion, absorption in work, a desire for prosocial work, and a tendency to sacrifice for the vocation. Vocations have been linked to both advantageous and adverse effects, including the propensity for vocational workers to suffer workplace exploitation. As work in higher education is easily interpreted as a vocation, this qualitative, hermeneutic phenomenological study investigated how academic workers with vocations described their lived experiences of vocation and workplace exploitation within American higher education. This study used a 16-question, semi-structured interview protocol to collect the experiences of vocation and workplace exploitation of 14 academic workers with vocations within student affairs. Data were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) profiles to reveal five themes. These themes described the experience of the vocation, the factors that motivate vocations, the experience and consequences of workplace exploitation in higher education, and the connections between vocation and workplace exploitation. Overall, vocations were described as positive, motivated by the desire to serve students and humanity at large. However, vocations were also described as vulnerabilities, with employers weaponizing the vocation to exploit academic workers, causing them mental, physical, and professional harm. Vocation thus emerged as a personally and professionally desirable trait, though one that carries the risk of inviting exploitation. These findings imply that academic workers should intentionally reduce their vulnerability to exploitation and that higher education institutions should review their practices to avoid exploiting this vocational vulnerability. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]