# Ever read a novel where your job is a central topic?



## mestrin (Aug 27, 2012)

I'm currently reading Scarecrow by Michael Connelly.
It's about a newspaper reporter. While the main character covers the murder beat (something I've never done), it's interesting to see an author take apart the mundane details of a reporter's day. On that level, it's incredibly familiar. But it's not boring because Connelly puts those details into perspective and he locks you in with a jaded/cynical tone that you might expect from a crime reporter. 
Wondering if you've ever had the experience of reading about your profession in a work of fiction? Did the author get it right?


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## history_lover (Aug 9, 2010)

I would not be surprised if the author was/is a journalist himself. If he already writes for a living, it's not such a stretch to write a novel too. So I'm not surprised he got it right.

But to answer your question, no, I don't think I have ever read a novel where the main character works in my profession. I have read novels that include skills that I do have though, just not professionally. Horseback riding, for example, since I read a lot of historical fiction, there's usually horses involved. I find that when the author choose to go into detail about horses and riding, it is always accurate because often, the author is a rider themselves. Frequently, if the author is not a rider, I tend to find the detail is simply not included. If the characters and/or plot are very good though, it's not a big deal to be lacking such detail.


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## Geoffrey (Jun 20, 2009)

The closest I've come to this a Max Barry and his corporate satires.  Few authors create chacters who are cogs in a corporate machine - and fewer still write characters who specifically do support for reverse logistics order management software.


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## tamborine (May 16, 2009)

Most of the medical novels I've read have doctors as the central characters. But as an RN, it never ceases to amaze me how, in books (and on tv and in movies, too), it's the DOCTORS who are with the patients 24/7, give them their medications, start IVs, change their dressings, help them with meals, etc. They do it all! Housekeeping & dietary duties, too!    Nurses just seem to be included as either some kind of evil gatekeepers, stammering obsequious servants, or nymphomaniacs.


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## bordercollielady (Nov 21, 2008)

For me - its always been Dilbert...  not a book but the comic series is right on about software developers.. and the people that work with them.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Far too many books, movies, and TV shows portray high school teachers as having only one class of students to keep track of. It really ticks me off. Sure, these fictional high school teachers have all the time in the world to get involved in their students' lives -- because they only have 25 students!

Reality check: Real high school teachers have five or more classes, each with 20 or more students. On average, they have 150 students, and they get new students every semester.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

I've read a few novels with translator or interpreter heroines (for some reason they're always women) and none of them got it right. Sometimes it's comparatively harmless, e.g. the translator heroine of a Harlequin/Mills & Boon romance getting hired by a hunky billionaire on terms that no freelance translator would ever get. Sometimes, it's flat out silly. For example, one of Anne Stuart's _Ice_ novels has a translator heroine who gets embroiled in an illicit arms deal, nearly assassinated by the bad guys and captured/rescued by a hunky spy who keeps debating whether he ought to kill the heroine or not. And don't even get me started on the movie _The Interpreter_ with Nicole Kidman.

Now I have translated all sorts of documents about military equipment. I have interpreted at negotiations about military projects. If you do technical translation, it's very difficult to avoid military stuff. Once I even had a translation customer whom I strongly suspected was involved in illegal activities. I couldn't have proved anything, but I was very glad when the customer in question retired.

But none of the negotiations ever took place at secluded French chateaus, none of my customers has ever tried to kill me (least of all Mr Illegal Activity, who was a solid churchgoing citizen and pillar of his community otherwise), nor did I ever have a hunky spy show up to kidnap/rescue me. Plus, trying to kidnap or kill me for something that I might know would be useless, because most of the time I don't know very much. Most of the time, my customer will only handle a small part of a big project and that's all I see, too. Sometimes, I don't even know what the finished project is, let alone who the customer is. So it's really quite unexciting.

Another profession that frequently gets misrepresented are chefs. Now I've never been a chef, but two of my cousins used to be, so I have some insight into the job. And believe me, all of those novels with hotshot young chefs who run the hippest restaurant in town, are incredibly wealthy and nonetheless have time to court the novel's heroine (for romances) or solve crimes (for mysteries of the cozy variety) are pure fantasy. Because in real life, chefs are not paid well, the working hours put a huge strain on relationships, so the divorce rate is high, if they find a partner in the first place. The job is also very stressful, so the rate of addiction (mainly alcoholism) and stress-related illnesses is extremely high as well. My cousins got hit by all of the disadvantages of being a chef to varying degrees. Both of them are in their early 40s and both can't work in their chosen profession anymore for health related reasons.


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## Greg Clarkin (Apr 26, 2012)

Having been a newspaper reporter before going into TV, I've always been entertained with the way Carl Hiaasen portrays reporters, and their editors. And for that matter, newspaper management. 
His books _Basket Case_, with reporter Jack Tagger, and _Lucky You_, with reporter, Tom Krome, are absolutely spot on in capturing the day-to-day drudgery of some reporting jobs. He also nails the absurdity of some newspapers in this cost-cutting environment newspapers are locked into these days. Very, very funny books.


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## cheriereich (Feb 12, 2011)

There are plenty of librarians out there in books, especially in cozy mysteries. I sometimes wish my library job was as exciting.


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## Zoe Cannon (Sep 2, 2012)

I'm one of the few writers I know who actually enjoys reading novels with writer main characters. Sometimes they include details that feel like inside jokes meant for the other writers who are reading, and it always amuses me when they get it wrong (and bewilders me a bit, because how do you get your own job wrong?).


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## Seleya (Feb 25, 2011)

> Ever read a novel where your job is a central topic?


Not yet, but my job is newish and not well-known to people at large: I am a cultural mediator. I tought about writing one myself, but it's a bit too close for confort.


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## Steve D Palmer (Jun 28, 2012)

I'm in IT and I've read quite a few books where technology has been central to the story, but never one where the main character is a realistic systems admin or C# programmer. Any suggestions?

Authors/writers seem to get real-world technology wrong all the time. I wonder if the assumption is taken that the average reader doesn't know or care about the basics of cryptography or firewalls so there's that extra room for artistic license.


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## me3boyz (Jan 10, 2010)

I've never come across a lunch lady as the main character before.


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## Bob Mayer (Feb 20, 2011)

I sometimes feel that having that experience is a detractor.  As a former Special Forces soldier, I shake my head at the depictions of most Special Ops in fiction.  In reality:  99% boredom, 1% absolute terror/horror/excitement.  But that makes for poor fiction.

Tom Clancy:  former insurance salesman.
James Rollins:  former vetenarian.
Lee Child:  former reporter.  I asked Lee how he learned to write about the military and he said he read Tom Clancy and Nelson DeMille.  At least the latter served in Vietnam.

It's fiction.


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## vikiana (Oct 5, 2012)

Since I have become a designer i was dreaming to read some book in which the main character has the same profession like mine! Although I communicate with lots of other designers in the real life I was tempted to feel the passion of the book on the very same theme. I still haven't found the right book to read so if you  can offer me some suggestions I'm open for them!


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## vikiana (Oct 5, 2012)

bordercollielady said:


> For me - its always been Dilbert... not a book but the comic series is right on about software developers.. and the people that work with them.


 Quite interesting for me although it is not my profession. I have been wondering how these people succeed to win these battles of life and death...I'm a designer and something like this profession is very far from me but I realy do admire professionals like these..


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## Carrie Rubin (Nov 19, 2012)

tamborine said:


> Most of the medical novels I've read have doctors as the central characters. But as an RN, it never ceases to amaze me how, in books (and on tv and in movies, too), it's the DOCTORS who are with the patients 24/7, give them their medications, start IVs, change their dressings, help them with meals, etc. They do it all! Housekeeping & dietary duties, too!   Nurses just seem to be included as either some kind of evil gatekeepers, stammering obsequious servants, or nymphomaniacs.


Haha--isn't that the truth? I'm a physician, and I've written a medical thriller, but like you, I've noticed this as well. I've also noticed how medical novels (and movies or TV shows) fail to show the true team effort that goes on in a hospital setting. One would think the 'saintly' fictional doctor never needs the help of dietitians, pharmacists, physical therapists, nurses and nurse practitioners, etc. It takes all of the above and more to keep that hospital or clinic running.


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

Carrie Rubin said:


> Haha--isn't that the truth? I'm a physician, and I've written a medical thriller, but like you, I've noticed this as well. I've also noticed how medical novels (and movies or TV shows) fail to show the true team effort that goes on in a hospital setting. One would think the 'saintly' fictional doctor never needs the help of dietitians, pharmacists, physical therapists, nurses and nurse practitioners, etc. It takes all of the above and more to keep that hospital or clinic running.


For that matter, just to have my appendix removed, I was treated by at least 4 different doctors, no 2 of which were ever in my room at the same time: surgeon, anesthetist, infectious disease specialist (they generously gave me a staph infection), and one other whose specialty I don't recall. But they were only in my room for minutes at a time: mostly it was the same half dozen nurses and aides I saw every day, and came to know much better than any of the doctors.

As for me, I work as a software developer, and while a few of the people in that line whom I've worked with over the past 2 or more decades fit some of the nerdy stereotypes, most were socially functional, often married with kids, and pretty much no different than any other employees (except for that strange trait of actually enjoying trying to solve logic puzzles and analyze problems with computers, which are stupider than your favorite house pet and way too literal).


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

I work in environmental regulation--Not for the Environmental Protection Agency, but for a similar agency. Unfortunately, the only depiction of my job in popular entertainment that lots of people have seen is the EPA man in the movie Ghostbusters who foolishly released all the ghosts at once into New York! When people ask me for an example of what I do, I'm not usually eager to mention it! 

In novels, Harry Turtledove wrote a book about an EPA bureaucrat in a universe similar to ours where magic works, called "The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump." Not on Kindle, but available from Baen Books here:

http://www.baenebooks.com/p-59-the-case-of-the-toxic-spell-dump.aspx

Few bureaucrats have such a broad portfolio and wide freedom of action as Turtledove's character has in the book, but it is a much better role model than the guy from Ghostbusters! Plus, I really enjoy the book for itself, as well as the depiction of my profession.


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## Carrie Rubin (Nov 19, 2012)

NogDog said:


> As for me, I work as a software developer, and while a few of the people in that line whom I've worked with over the past 2 or more decades fit some of the nerdy stereotypes, most were socially functional, often married with kids, and pretty much no different than any other employees


It's like the IT folks I've worked with--none would fit a 'nerdy' stereotype. In fact, they fit that description much less than some of my colleagues.


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## intinst (Dec 23, 2008)

Having worked in the corporate aircraft industry, both production and maintenance for forty years, I find very few books, movies or television shows that accurately depict what goes on with airplanes as they are built, as they fly or as they are flown by pilots. Action movies are the worst at being true to life.


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## gljones (Nov 6, 2012)

Absolutely not.  I read books so i don't have to think about my job.


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## Guest (Dec 17, 2012)

Working in IT, I've done a few malpractice investigations, and in real life there's more log files and coffee and log files (and more log files...), and fewer bullets, spies, and clandestine meetings.



Steve D Palmer said:


> Authors/writers seem to get real-world technology wrong all the time. I wonder if the assumption is taken that the average reader doesn't know or care about the basics of cryptography or firewalls so there's that extra room for artistic license.


I've always hoped it was because the authors didn't want to write a how-to manual their readers could use to get away with it.


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## amishromanceauthor (Sep 27, 2012)

Connelly used to be a crime beat reporter for the LA Times before becoming a novelist.  

I'm in food service and have gobbled up a number of restaurant related books.  Kitchen Confidential was spot on.


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## Geemont (Nov 18, 2008)

Currently I'm a programmer analyst in the IT department for an insurance company and many times I've been required to fly to Europe under an assumed name and forced to make love in secret to a beautiful but deadly heiress.  Claim files don't transfer themselves from one database to another without the aid of naked, horny women holding a gun to my head, you know. I haven't read many novels like that.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

Geemont said:


> Currently I'm a programmer analyst in the IT department for an insurance company and many times I've been required to fly to Europe under an assumed name and forced to make love in secret to a beautiful but deadly heiress. Claim files don't transfer themselves from one database to another without the aid of naked, horny women holding a gun to my head, you know. I haven't read many novels like that.


LOL

Clearly, I chose the wrong career field.


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## KenIsaacson (May 27, 2011)

I'm a lawyer. Thus, tons of novels...  Some of them even get stuff right.


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## trixycae (Oct 23, 2011)

I'm constantly frustrated when I read books or watch series that have Architects in them. We're always depicted as really cool "artists" who have idealistic visions of reshaping the built environment as we sit at our drawings boards (in this decade!) and attend trendy parties with beautiful people and drive lush cars because we're so, so rich. Okay maybe I'm getting a little carried away...my point is that 90% of what I've read about the profession in novels is so unreal, it's laughable. But I guess that's why the books are labeled fiction and not non-fiction.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

tamborine said:


> Most of the medical novels I've read have doctors as the central characters. But as an RN, it never ceases to amaze me how, in books (and on tv and in movies, too), it's the DOCTORS who are with the patients 24/7, give them their medications, start IVs, change their dressings, help them with meals, etc. They do it all! Housekeeping & dietary duties, too!   Nurses just seem to be included as either some kind of evil gatekeepers, stammering obsequious servants, or nymphomaniacs.


I read one book where a respiratory therapist was mentioned. I even highlighted it and posted the passage on my FB wall. lol. I'm not surprised that resp. therapists aren't in books, movies, TV shows, etc though, because even in real life we're the red-headed stepchildren of the hospital hierarchy. We are forgotten about until a patient is about to code than it's all, "Call Respiratory!".


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## Carrie Rubin (Nov 19, 2012)

Geemont said:


> Currently I'm a programmer analyst in the IT department for an insurance company and many times I've been required to fly to Europe under an assumed name and forced to make love in secret to a beautiful but deadly heiress. Claim files don't transfer themselves from one database to another without the aid of naked, horny women holding a gun to my head, you know. I haven't read many novels like that.


Haha. I knew it!


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## Dakota Franklin (Dec 16, 2011)

mestrin said:


> Wondering if you've ever had the experience of reading about your profession in a work of fiction? Did the author get it right?


There aren't all that many books about my profession, engineering, but most of them aren't too exciting, and the authors turn away from the engineering as quickly as they can. That's a mistake, I think, because large civil engineering projects (bridges, dams, tunnels) can be very dangerous and exciting, and my own field of high performance vehicles is by definition dangerous.


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## lcharnes (Dec 19, 2012)

An awful lot of novels with a military setting or servicemembers as characters get it spectacularly wrong -- 30YO colonels, fashion-model female junior officers with flowing long hair (in uniform!), gibberish dialog, ridiculous environments, no concept of which ranks go with which positions. Then again, I'm always amused by movies and TV shows that feature servicemen without haircuts or insist on putting military characters in their service-dress uniforms while performing their daily jobs.


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## Neil Ostroff (Mar 25, 2011)

Haha sure have. Kitchen Confidential. I work in a restaurant.


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## Geoffrey (Jun 20, 2009)

Being a software specialist for after sales support applications doesn't really lend itself well to fiction ....


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## neaughea (Dec 15, 2012)

wow, talk about boring!!!


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## Andrew McCoy (Sep 17, 2011)

neaughea said:


> wow, talk about boring!!!


No, just lacking in imagination. Any job can be made exciting by focussing on the people in it, giving them needs and wants and urges and lusts. I can't think of an intrinsically duller job than being an actuary, sitting in an office at Insurance HQ, Inc, drawing up L tables.* But it is also one of the highest paid jobs you can have. I bet the competition to get such a job can be vicious, even murderous.

* Here's a challenge: Think of a duller job description than that! Hell, even undertakers, beneficiaries of the actuary's L tables, must have more exciting jobs.


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## billie hinton (Jan 30, 2011)

I've read a few novels where the main character is a psychotherapist and even one where the main character utilized sandplay therapy, which is pretty specific! I enjoyed and appreciated the details that had obviously been carefully researched but integrated seamlessly into the story. Which as a writer, I know is not always easy to do.


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## Tris (Oct 30, 2008)

I used to work in processing foreclosures and getting the proper documents for auction for different banks (people no death threats and screaming...had enough of that when in my old office), and the closest book would have to be another Michael Connelly's book,  "The Fifth Witness".  

Now I work in more of a legal field of drafting, researching, and analyzing contracts...and working with Sales department, legal department, and other departments.  I haven't found any book that applies to that job.

I used to work on Capitol Hill (DC)...there are tons of books for that one!  Just like for lawyers and doctors. 

Tris


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## Neil Ostroff (Mar 25, 2011)

Kitchen Confidential... haha, I work in a restaurant.


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## Shadowraven (May 7, 2009)

tamborine said:


> Most of the medical novels I've read have doctors as the central characters. But as an RN, it never ceases to amaze me how, in books (and on tv and in movies, too), it's the DOCTORS who are with the patients 24/7, give them their medications, start IVs, change their dressings, help them with meals, etc. They do it all! Housekeeping & dietary duties, too!   Nurses just seem to be included as either some kind of evil gatekeepers, stammering obsequious servants, or nymphomaniacs.


This is hilarious! You totally rock for noticing them being used as the bad people. I never noticed on my own, but now that you brought it up, I totally see it. I've only been in the hospital 5 times in my life, four of those being childbirth. Having dealt with GREAT nurses nearly every time I laugh at your comment regarding how doctors do everything in books/movies. I had to repeatedly beg each time to see a doctor just so I could check out, they were never around! And I only dealt with one horrible nurse out of like 20. She STERNLY WARNED me after my THIRD child that if I attempted to have sex after that I would get pregnant. I realize I live in an area of HIGH teen birth rate... but I was 33 at the time. Yah, I know what I'm doing.


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## Shadowraven (May 7, 2009)

Cherise Kelley said:


> Far too many books, movies, and TV shows portray high school teachers as having only one class of students to keep track of. It really ticks me off. Sure, these fictional high school teachers have all the time in the world to get involved in their students' lives -- because they only have 25 students!
> 
> Reality check: Real high school teachers have five or more classes, each with 20 or more students. On average, they have 150 students, and they get new students every semester.


I remember the days of 20 in a class period  My school has averaged 35 for years now  THAT is what makes me so mad about all the movies that get rave reviews made of teachers. Freedom Writers stands out as my recent number one complaint and is AWFUL! She had one class, a SECOND JOB (how do you have time for that with all the grading?), and left teaching after a few years BEFORE standardized testing. I have colleagues who praise that book. What a crock. She even came to our area to speak... the venue that she presented at is a site we've tried to host our prom at but they refuse to work with children. I wrote a scathing editorial to the newspaper.


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## Shadowraven (May 7, 2009)

intinst said:


> Having worked in the corporate aircraft industry, both production and maintenance for forty years, I find very few books, movies or television shows that accurately depict what goes on with airplanes as they are built, as they fly or as they are flown by pilots. Action movies are the worst at being true to life.


Have you read Airframe by Crichton? Was that accurate? I loved it but I'm a total laymen when it comes to technical stuff.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

I'm reading a memoir right now about a man who had Guillain-Barre in the early 80s. I became a respiratory therapist in the mid-80s and so reading about his experience being awake an alert on a ventilator but unable to communicate except with eye movements is very informative for me as a respiratory therapist. One of my first ventilator patients involved a woman with ALS, aka Lou Gehrig's Disease. She at least had a device that allowed her to speak around the vent. (Like Christopher Reeve had).

I am learning a lot about my job from the patient's pov and it's really eye-opening. It's called Blue Water, White Water http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Water-White-ebook/dp/B0068A9HQE/ref=tmm_kin_title_0


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## strath (Dec 31, 2012)

Among other things in my life I've been a mental health worker, a teacher, and even a construction worker. I've had my exciting moments.

I cannot watch a movie or read a book about any of them. If i do it for a living - I don't want to do it as a hobby. I've never seen a book or movie about psychiatric hospitals that have a shred of reality about them except maybe 'One Flew Over the...' and my experiences there make things like 'The Exorcist' a bore. I love the small victories i have as a teacher but I want to leave them in the classroom. A building site is dirt, dust, and sweat. and I know architechs - Ayn Rand may have had it about artistic integrity but most architechs never live in their own buildings and it shows. Think about the place you live - ever seen a square angle or fought it out with the plumbing?

For those of you that can read about your jobs - well, I admire you. 'Can't do it myself.


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## pjmorse (Dec 7, 2012)

Greg Clarkin said:


> His books _Basket Case_, with reporter Jack Tagger, and _Lucky You_, with reporter, Tom Krome, are absolutely spot on in capturing the day-to-day drudgery of some reporting jobs. He also nails the absurdity of some newspapers in this cost-cutting environment newspapers are locked into these days. Very, very funny books.


Patron Saint Carl's Basket Case, all the way. I've edited for some "new media" sites that aren't all that different, except that some new media sites might outdo the newspapers when it comes to the speed of cost-cutting. (Oh, the glory days of the dot-com era ...)


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## dkrauss (Oct 13, 2012)

Well, I was in the military as both enlisted and officer, was a crime-scene certified special agent, and also did counterterrorism analysis and field work (and, no, I'm not making any of this up), so there's a few books out there. About the only author who got the CT/CI analyst right was Le Carre; about the only one who got investigators right was John Sanford, at least the early Lucas Davenport. Right now I'm reading _River of Darkness _ by Rennie Airth. It's a police procedural set in the 1920's, and it's pretty good.


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## SpearsII (Jan 16, 2010)

I am in the group of ex-military readers. As a trained sniper I feel my profession has been particularly abused. There is just a huge mythology about sniping that has been created (even in the military itself). I know it's not a novel, but Marky Mark's movie "Shooter" had me when he started pulling the charging handle on a semi-auto rifle like it was a bolt action rifle. Most books are not as bad but the snipers almost never miss. In reality, snipers are so valuable because the they know what to do when the _do_ miss. That, and we are not all country kids who grew up hunting rabbits and squirrels. We did not all know how to shoot before we could walk.


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## Steverino (Jan 5, 2011)

The more jobs you've had, the easier it is to find books about yourself. 

One of my favorites was _Zenith Angle_ (featuring research astronomers).



Carl Sagan's _Contact_ was a trip -- a book about astronomers written by an astronomer:


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Andrew McCoy said:


> ...I can't think of an intrinsically duller job than being an actuary, sitting in an office at Insurance HQ, Inc, drawing up L tables.* But it is also one of the highest paid jobs you can have. I bet the competition to get such a job can be vicious, even murderous.
> 
> * Here's a challenge: Think of a duller job description than that! Hell, even undertakers, beneficiaries of the actuary's L tables, must have more exciting jobs.


I started as a coder at Farmers Insurance in 1997. I had a degree and I worked my way up to claims representative, but let me tell you, coders have it worse than actuaries. Glorified clerks, we each specialized in one transaction and performed it over and over again. Like balancing your checkbook over and over all day. At least actuaries are looking at a bigger picture and doing some analysis...


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