I was going to point out maslow's hierarchy of needs, but Spehro beat me to it. It essentially says that once your basic needs are met, you have a desire to fulfill "self actualization" - a sense of creation, fulfillment - ie, you are being your best "self". The current job allows you to meet your needs, but it is limiting your self actualization. What you seem to be saying is that the lower paying job would be more fulfilling. You also suggest that your basic needs would still be met, though you might have to compromise your current standard of living, you'd still have a roof, food, friends, and the means to live a reasonably healthy life. If that's so, then it appears that you would be better off as a whole moving to the lower paying position, which, in reality, meets more of your needs than the higher paying position. However, your job should not be your life, and you may actually be in a stronger position if you don't try to make your job fulfill all your needs. Diversify a bit - otherwise when you lose your job you lose more than mere financial support, you also lose your creative outlet. I know people who work boring day jobs, but spend their free time doing incredibly creative work, collaborating with others, teaching, etc. They use work as a way to meet their basic needs and free them to pursue other interests outside of work. As an engineer, however, you are in a lucky group - people who can puruse their dream and often support themselves through it. If you create your passion during the free time your better paying job gives you, and use the extra money to fuel your 'hobby' side of life, you may well find that with a little tweaking it can become the means to support your basic needs as well. But we can only give you more information and ideas. You'll still need to decide what you should do, and I believe that you're best off sitting down and deciding what/where you want to be in 5 years. Imagine the ideal situation, and then figure out the path that will take you there. You may find that neither of these companies is actually on the way to your destination. Alternately, you may find they are both on the way, and so the decision is arbitrary. But thinking ahead is probably going to give you more direction than a simple pro/con list. Hope this gives you a little more to think about, and good luck! -Adam On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 2:49 PM, Jens Konig wrote: > > Hi all, > > I can`t say that i`m totally disgusted with my job, i work on my area of > expertise (embedded sw and hw developer) but the enviroment and the kind of > products i`m working on are not motivational for me. However, at the moment > i earn a good pay. > > These days i receive a invite to come back to work in my old job, wich > doesn`t pay so good (actually 70% of my actual salary) but where i used to > have a good enviroment of work, where i could develop products with high > level of complexity and high aggregate value and have more life quality. > > I haven't made up my mind at all yet, actually i`m so indecisive that i`m > doing a list with advantages and disadvantages of each one. I`m single, live > alone, have no kids and i can have support of my parents if I need. One > could say that this is the moment to make changes and doing wath is best for > me, but money also matters. > > I would like to know your opinion about this. > -- > View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/Job-satisfaction-or-money--tp28504683p28504683.html > Sent from the PIC - [OT] mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > > -- > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > -- http://chiphacker.com/ - EE Q&A site -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist