Just a comment on a statement Miguel made earlier -- and similar ones I've seen in other on-line forums:
The best jobs I've ever had were demanding and stressful. There were deadlines and figurative mountains to be moved. There was the (scientific) method involved in figuring out why something wasn't working, discussing as part of a team how best to fix it, and then testing that solution before it was sent out into the wild. Or changing the perception (and, therefore, the future) of a work group which had been neglected by its previous supervisor; that required a combination of technical ability, marketing, using business logic and psychology, and so on, to raise the profile of the group and confirm its value to the organization. At times both jobs were hectic enough to skip meals or cancel vacation or to require either staying late many nights in a row or working from home. Sometimes there were contentious debates about what to do and unreasonable pressure exercised by managers who had no idea what was involved in fixing the problem. People, being people, threw unpredictability into the mix, too.something a little bit more stable, yet not too demanding/stressful
I have a family friend who is an Emergency Department nurse. EDs sometimes get slammed and patients present seemingly-insurmountable issues on their own schedules. Our friend thrives on it.
What makes all of those jobs great is being part of a team with a common defined goal and the authority to do what needed to be done, and an eventual plateau or resting place (whether that was two days or two months in).
One of the jobs I listed above got to the point where lunch was eaten at my desk pretty much every day (selected at the cafeteria by picking the line that moved fastest that day) and staffing cuts systematically removed the help (not the task list, which kept getting longer, or the bureaucracy; just the help) and it became unsustainable. I burned out. Same job description -- but it became a never-ending grind without support -- my HSSJ.
Maybe I'm misinterpreting statements like Miguel's, but it seems like many people want the Dilbert-esque job with good pay and few deadlines or measurable deliverables. I feel the real challenges -- and the real pay and career possibilities and, indeed, the real opportunities for personal growth -- may not come in a job that requires a defined set of tasks for 40 hours a week, after which you go home, completely disengaged. Maybe "demanding" and "stressful" are not bad things -- as long as those attributes are not waterboarding you at your desk daily.