”Jag stannar för att jag älskar det!” – Vad är det som ger svenska undertextare arbetsglädje?

Research in audiovisual translation and subtitling is increasingly investigating working conditions. It does, however, so from a predominantly negative narrative, focussing on disruptive tendencies in the subtitling profession. This article examines subtitlers’ happiness at work, following up on the rise of positive psychology occurring in industrial and organizational psychology. Email interviews were conducted with ten subtitlers working for the Swedish-language subtitling market. Three themes generated from the data will be discussed as major dimensions of subtitlers’ overall happiness at work: (1) Noticed, not used – subtitling and social happiness; (2) Work that sparks – subtitling and hedonic happiness; (3) Thriving through challenge – subtitling and eudaimonic happiness. The analyses suggest that despite increasingly challenging working conditions, subtitlers experience pleasure in their work, find their job meaningful, and establish healthy relationships at work. The study can be seen as a first step towards developing recommendations for creating a happy subtitler workplace.