Puzzle of rising total collected by worker (6)
I believe the answer is:
bemuse
'puzzle' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'rising total collected by worker' is the wordplay.
'rising' says the letters should be written backwards (going up in a down clue).
'total' becomes 'sum' ('sum' can be a synonym of 'total').
'collected by' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'worker' becomes 'bee' (I've seen this before).
'sum' written backwards gives 'mus'.
'mus' placed within 'bee' is 'BEMUSE'.
'of' is the link.
(Other definitions for bemuse that I've seen before include "Confound" , "Puzzle, make confused" , "Cause puzzlement" , "Muddle or stupefy" , "Nonplus" .)