Imagine you have a bunch of charges in a line, repelling each other. Now, if you were to push one, it would push the next, would push the next... so all of your charges get a little push. In a circuit, the last charge in the line is now pushed up against the first charge, like balls in a tube. Now, all of the charges act like a gear almost. Gears do work, so the charge line must also do work. You could measure the energy of a gear this way too, but it would be pretty silly.
In reality, electrons move through metal as an ideal gas practically, and the root mean squared velocity of the charges is much higher than the actual 'current' read at an anmeter would suggest. Their gaslike properties are apparent in the thermal properties of materials as well. RF guys like Spirit will be more inclined to think of the EM waves propagating through the material of the circuit, and how they are transmitted and absorbed through the medium surrounding it; signifigantly more useful in practice! Guys like Paradox will see them as ways to make pretty arcs and MOT themselves. Chemists will see them as a means for bonding. Opticians don't see them.
There are so many ways to look at electrons, and all of them are right and wrong. None of us will probably ever see the full big picture.