Why aren't Rails model attributes accessible using symbols instead of strings?

The Hash returned when you call #attributes on a AR instance has string keys, which is why a symbol as an index into the hash doesn't work in your case. There is a subclass of Hash called HashWithIndifferentAccess which automatically converts symbol indexes into strings.

Quite often in Rails you'll encounter HashWithIndifferentAccess instances. A perfect example is the params variable you access in your controller and view code.

Try using work_effort.attributes.with_indifferent_access[key]

Really it is just doing the same thing that you are, but it does it behind the scenes.

You can overwrite the attributes method with your own.

Open your WorkEffort class

class WorkEffort
  def attributes
    super.symbolize_keys
  end
end

then when you call work_effort.attributes, you will have symbolized keys in the hash.