Just FYI: below is my attributes for an ideal job. Note that SKILLs below are the skills that I have, but some of them I would want to continue to use and others I wouldn't. Might be useful to have this on-hand if you need to evaluate what careers or job paths you want to pursue. positive negative -------- -------- SKILL: Assisting/Helping People SKILL: Visual Basic SKILL: Linux/UNIX SKILL: VMS SKILL: Scripting Languages SKILL: Macrosoft SKILL: Scientific Programming SKILL: Repetitive/Unchallenging Tasks SKILL: Optimizing Code SKILL: COBOL ENVIRON: Office or Open (Not Cubical) SKILL: User Interface Design ENVIRON: One Work Site ENVIRON: Too Much Glare/Light ENVIRON: Use My Ergonomic Equipment ENVIRON: Common Lab Area ENVIRON: Indoors ENVIRON: Pair Programming/ Test-Driven Dev/Agile Dev. LOCATION: Public Transit LOCATION: Move out of the Bay Area LOCATION: Bicycle to Work LOCATION: Drive to work LOCATION: Under 1 Hour Commute or LOCATION: Over 2 Hour Commute telecommuting 3 days per week RESP: Responsive Management RESP: Managing People RESP: Small Teams RESP: Being Micro-Managed INTERESTS: Speech Recognition INTERESTS: Computer-Aided Engineering INTERESTS: Embedded Programming INTERESTS: Machine Learning or Statistics or Collaborative Filtering or Data Mining INTERESTS: Financial Software VALUE: Casual Dress VALUE: Pep Rallies VALUE: Either No Deadlines or VALUE: Only Individual Projects Well-Defined Deadlines VALUE: Time to Find Best Technical VALUE: Competition Solution VALUE: Keep Professional Distance VALUE: Management Plan for Deadlines & Set Milestones & Pace VALUE: Working in a Team PEOPLE: Bicyclists PEOPLE: Other Vegetarians MONEY: 401K MONEY: Medical Coverage MONEY: Vision/Optical MONEY: Gym Discount MONEY: Dental