[UMATURLIN]

I'm an electrical engineer/Senior Level Patent Examiner. Basically I'm an engineer with some legal training (I passed the patent bar, but I am NOT a lawyer). Working as a federal employee, I work at home, set my own hours, and get plenty of vacation. Likewise I have to work 80 hours every two weeks, but I can work them any way I want, for example 80 hours one week, and none the next. This helps a lot if you plan on training. For example I'm putting in a couple hours a day training in the morning in various arts, and an additional hour or two during the day. Right now there is a federal mandate to have 50% of the government workforce to work at home, so many of these flexibile benefits are not unique to my agency.

Strangely enough as we are on a quota, its a white collar job but we get paid overtime or work comp time (work extra hours for vacation use) when I turn in work over my quota, which helps a lot for when I go on extended training trips overseas. If one is looking for flexibility for martial arts, I would strongly recomend the government if you have a technical degree. They're doing massive amounts of hiring due to about 1/3-1/2 of the workforce retiring in the next few years and and big on providing educational opportunites and some agencies pay quite well.

On a side note, as federal employee's we have a pension, and a 401k like plan and even qualify for social security. Whether that cash will be there for the pension/SS is anyone's guess though