Workplaces, which account for so much of our waking lives, receive nothing like enough attention in fiction. Or rather, certain kinds of workplaces go ignored. Back in the day, David Lodge told us more about the life of the campus lecturer than I, for one, needed to know. Thanks to the detective novel industry, we all boast an impressive knowledge of a pathologist's working routine. Ian McEwan gave us a day-in-the-life of a brain surgeon. But how many of us have any idea what a quantity surveyor, or a housing officer, actually does?
