[banditorfv]

What's most important to you? Career advancement? Personal safety? Doing Important Work?

[Joesred]

Originally posted by -Jrabbit
What's most important to you? Career advancement? Personal safety? Doing Important Work? Originally posted by Kuciwalker
My understanding is that the first and last items on the list are pretty much the same, and very negatively correlated with the middle item. Not exactly, but sort of.

Career advancement = what the Administration values
Important work = what I value

Needless to say, these are different things; if they weren't, either I'd be going to Iraq or the Administration would be spending our money on Darfur. They do overlap -- in China and India, for example -- but China = more Asia (a no-no) and, bizarrely, there are no India jobs for me on the list.

Also, while important and/or career-enhancing work is oftten dangerous, dangerous work need not necessarily be either important or career-enhancing (see West Africa).

I'd say it's important work first, career advancement second, and personal safety third, with the proviso that I won't go anyplace so dangerous that they won't let my wife come with me (that rules out Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi, and Pakistan, among other places).

[Doctor-CTAC]

A reasonable analysis, EST. The problem with the Jerusaleem job, though, is precisely that I'll learn Arabic -- and thus be an obvious choice for other Arabic speaking posts in the future, most of which are no fun at all. I'm agnostic on the question of whether I actually want to "enhance" my career prospects that way.

Still, Mrs. Firefly and I went over the list together today, and it's vying for the top slot (along with Sarajevo).

[OEMCHEAPSOFTDOWNLOAD]

You're blowing it.