On Saturday at the Writers at the Beach conference in Rehoboth, Delaware, a panel called "A Hard Day’s Work", featured two Park Slopers, a writer from Washington, DC and a journalist from Baltimore. Here was the panel description.

Once upon a time, the 8-hour work day and the forty-hour work week was
the norm. No more. Study after study shows that Americans are
increasingly working longer days and working more days. In this sense,
who we are is increasingly a matter of what we do.

Much of our unique
knowledge, our way of looking at the world, our individual experiences
,are deeply embedded in our working lives. At the same time, ways of
working and entire stores of knowledge are being lost as the kind of
work we do continually changes. Writing about work, then, is another
way of writing about the times and culture in which one lives.

But how
can we translate this often very specific experience into compelling
narratives that will appeal to a wide audience? In this discussion,
writers will talk about how to write about the work experience, in
either fiction or nonfictioin, in a compelling and dynamic way no
matter what kind of work is involved: working in a steel mill, acting
in Hollywood or fishing for a living, being a full-time mom, even
designing refrigerators.

Park Slope’s Rob Spillman edits Tin House, the acclaimed literary magazine, which had a special issue about work, featuring "Seven Times Seven", a masterful story by Dorothy Allison about a baker.

Mary Kay Zuravleff is the author of award-winning novel, The Frequency of Souls, which has just been rereleased by Picador.
That book follows George Mahoney, a refrigerator designer gone stale,
and his new office mate, Niagara Spense. While George considers
electricity a useful tool, about as complicated as a hammer, Niagara
sees it as a mysterious animating force; in her spare time, Niagara is
hoping to locate electrical evidence of life after death.

Mark Reutter, a  newspaper journalist and author of the book, Making Steel, writes about the steel industry and what is happening to American manufacturing. His articles can be found on his website,  Making Steel.

I was there because of Smartmom and I read a piece about the day Hepcat lost his job at the Edgy Start Up for the second time.

The discussion touched on good writing about work, ways to illuminate character through specific work descriptions, and how to research various occupations for use in fiction and non-fiction.