Some rethinking needed

On a happy note to start this new week, feeling refreshed and looking forward to the newly-assigned DFM - Day For Myself!

For the past week I've been thinking of where I should be heading towards. Clearly the current work has not provided me with the kind of satisfaction I'm craving for, with many pieces of hands-on work done by our consultants. I'd like to be involved and doing some of the "dirt work", enough for me to gain some domain expertise and knowledge. Thus, this inspiration to rethink what I want to achieve out of my career. But should we be tied to various factors:
- Pay;
- Time needed for another switch;
- Flexi-hours;
- Amount of time on the job;
- Passion and interest?

Tough question to be answered, but which needs to be tackled soon.

Poor WW had to handle an incident and as a result, stayed over in office on Friday night and went home only at 4 plus pm the day after. Similarly, those folks in our IT department had to stay very late (I don't know if they stayed overnight as well) and had to go 36 hours without sleep on the same day to handle a system outage. Having a fire-fighting job is damn tough and requires more than just wits and spontanity. It needs perseverence, determination and such resolve to go beyond oneself to tackle problems and have that clear mind even when going without sleep for hours. I wonder how companies reward such hard work, and if the rewards commensurated.