What makes a job worth doing? What makes it meaningful? In this ongoing, inductive study, Teresa Cardador and I examine these questions by studying police officers, entrepreneurs, and nurse practitioners. Our preliminary results suggest that while the potential sources or “bases” of meaningful work are similar across occupational groups, the unique nature of each occupation shapes whether and how these “bases” are accessed. In particular, social roles, public images, and identities each influence strands in the webs of work-related meaningfulness woven by individuals within each occupation. Our findings provide cross-level insights to the largely individualistic (or, at times, exclusively society-level) views that often dominate extant treatments of work meaning, and suggest new areas for research and practice in this area.