What's like to work as a -----?

February 17, 2006 2:24 PM

Is there a web site that describes "A Day in the Life of..." for various occupations like auto mechanics, cosmeticians, doctors, lobbyists etc. I'd like to know the daily details of what it's like to work in these professions for a story I'm writing.
posted by storybored to Work & Money (13 answers total)

Well, there's the classic "Confessions of a Car Salesman." And Opinionistas has some amusing tales about life as a law associate. Ditto Miss Snark for editors.
posted by cribcage at 2:30 PM on February 17, 2006

find this book "Gig : Americans Talk About Their Jobs" by John Bowe
posted by tumble at 2:30 PM on February 17, 2006

Also, Studs Terkel's Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do in which Terkel interviews a number of people, each in a different profession, about what they do and how they do it.
posted by Clay201 at 2:45 PM on February 17, 2006

Slate has a Diary feature that has been running for a few years now. Someone writes up what they do for a week.
posted by smackfu at 3:04 PM on February 17, 2006

Native Access to Engineering has a flash-based feature called "A Day in the Life of an Engineer". (Full disclosure: I did some work on the interface and graphics.) (Warning: theme music on the main site.)
posted by zadcat at 3:46 PM on February 17, 2006

The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook manages to make every job in the world sound dead boring.
posted by meehawl at 4:56 PM on February 17, 2006

A day in the Life of a Designer
posted by nimsey lou at 5:25 PM on February 17, 2006

Vault has a good site with Day in the Life profiles. Princeton Review also has a lot of Day in the Life descriptions.
I remember seeing a site about a year ago where you could watch videos of people working in various odd jobs. However, I can't see to find it now.
posted by JuliaKM at 5:39 PM on February 17, 2006

Miss Snark is an literary agent not an editor. Making Light is run by two editors employed at Tor. However, they usually blog about meta issues in publishing industry, science fiction, and current events not day to day details of their editors job. But you may be able to find details by browsing their posts.
posted by nooneyouknow at 5:48 PM on February 17, 2006

The Career Cookbook features interviews of people with various jobs. Their profile page lists the different jobs.
posted by Korou at 5:56 PM on February 17, 2006

Working at Penguin has short informational interviews of employees in several different departments at Penguin Publishers UK.
posted by nooneyouknow at 8:51 PM on February 17, 2006

How about McSweeney's "Interviews with People Who Have Interesting or Unusual Jobs"?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 7:46 AM on February 18, 2006

Response by poster: Ooo, those are great suggestions.

I've just got a hold of Studs Terkel's book. And now i'm running over to the all these websites you folks have listed. This is terrific!
posted by storybored at 6:52 PM on February 20, 2006