“While he was engaged with it the slogger gently patted his head.”
“Dyson piled up the points, criticising a culture that celebrates the effortlessly brilliant rather than the determined slogger.”
“Gore, on the other hand, is a drone, a slogger, a guy who just doesn't understand how the new, entrepreneurial, highly liquid, exit-strategy economy works.”
slog
(chiefly Britain and Canada) A long, tedious walk, or session of work.