Shhh. She's working. Sleeping on the job is a requirement for the handful of writers hired by a travel website to test room amenities at China's leading hotels. Believe it or not, snooze button-hitting isn't even the easiest job out there. Imagine if your couch potato tendencies could earn you a living. How about your unique passion for luxury vacations. Most of us consider ourselves pros at napping and looking at cute pictures of kittens, but we don't expect to get paid for it. Maybe we should...

By Jenna Goudreau

Can where you hang your hat shape the size of your salary? In short: Absolutely. U.S. job markets vary drastically by region, state and municipality. Women, who earn between 70 and 80 cents for every dollar earned by men, may be especially impacted by the place they call home.

To uncover the U.S. cities where women earn the most, ForbesWoman analyzed data from the 2010 American Community Survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, using the average earnings for full-time, year-round female workers in the largest metro areas in the nation. Where are the best-paying cities for women?

In Pictures: The Top 20 Best-Paying Cities For Women

At No. 1, San Jose, Calif., tops the list. Women in this West Coast city earn an average of $67,052 annually for full-time work. That's more than twice as much as the worst-paying city for women-McAllen, Tex.-where women earn a mean of just $31,287 each year

The top industries in San Jose are manufacturing; professional, scientific and management services; and education and

By Nellie Akalp for GalTime.com

You can do it! Turn your passion into a PROFIT. Is your New Year's resolution to start a business? Is your dream to be your own boss? Do you have a passion you'd love to turn into profit?

If so, do you know your next step? After all, a resolution isn't much without implementation. And deciding to start a business is one of the biggest resolutions out there.

After working with countless entrepreneurs over the years, there are some essential lessons I've learned from some of the most successful small business leaders out there. Here are 5 tips for turning passion into profit:

1. It's not just about you

You've heard the saying, "Do what you love and the money will follow." That's not exactly the case. Yes, passion is important. But in order to turn your passion into a profitable business, you've got to fill a need that others are looking for. Think about this for a moment. The market isn't necessarily concerned if you are fulfilling a lifelong dream. Customers spend money on products and

By Jenna Goudreau

Looking for a career change or new direction in 2012? You may want to start here.

Jobs expert Laurence Shatkin, Ph.D., author of Best Jobs for the 21st Century, provides a rare look at the jobs that women feel most satisfied and successful in. He compiled a top-10 list based on women's high satisfaction levels, from the National Survey of College Graduates conducted by the Census Bureau; median annual earnings for salaried workers, from the Department of Labor (DOL); and the job outlook through 2018, based on projections from the DOL. The results may surprise you.

In Pictures: The Best Jobs For Women In 2012

At No. 1, post-secondary teachers top the list. Not only do women report very high satisfaction rates in the job, median annual earnings range from $59,000 (for foreign language and literature teachers) to $94,000 (for law teachers), well above the average household income in the U.S. Furthermore, the field is expected to grow by 15% and features an average of

Tips for making any job betterPhoto: ThinkstockBy Dan Buettner

To write his book, Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way, Dan Buettner teamed with psychologists and scientists to seek out the world's happiest people. We asked him to apply the lessons he's learned to the search for workaday bliss-whether you've already found your dream job or you're still dreaming:

RELATED: Your Brilliant (Next) Career...And How to Find It

1. Get away from the grind: Studies show that leisure time can mitigate job-related stress, reduce the risk of depression, and improve self-esteem. No wonder, then, that Denmark, where employers are required to give five to six weeks of paid time off each year, is one of the happiest places on Earth. Contrast that with the United States, where the average American worker receives only about 16 paid vacation days each year-and more than a third of us don't even take them all. The first rule: Never leave vacation days on the table. Even if you don't have the money to splurge on an exotic trip, a "staycation"

If you thought cheerleaders were just bubbleheads or mean girls, think again. Some of America’s most successful women, such as journalist Katie Couric and actress Meryl Streep, were once cheerleaders. Believe it or not, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wielded pompoms for her Brooklyn high school back in the 1940s. Nicole Lauchaire, V.P. of Corporate Marketing at Varsity Brands, Inc,. the umbrella organization for high school and college cheerleading nationwide, points out, “If you can get 80,000 people to their feet screaming 'Win!' for your team, you are definitely a leader.”

When Lauchaire was recently invited to co-host the televised national high school cheerleading championships for ESPN, a job well out of her comfort zone, she drew on her experience as a cheerleader. “I was terrified, but I thought of all the things I had done over the years that had made me nervous: my first high school game, my first college game, the first time I taught a group of 1000

Photo: ThinkstockThe political strategist explains how detours and shortcomings can get you where you want to go.

RELATED: Take Control of Your Career and Your Life

I stood up to authority.
At 12 I was an assistant softball coach. Telling my mom why I had to bench my sister taught me I could make tough decisions for the greater good.

RELATED: Teach Your Children to Give

I was fiscally irresponsible.
In my 20s, I'd blow all my money on a Eurail pass and return broke but happy. I learned the only way to save was to put my credit cards in the freezer and pour water over them.

RELATED: Microcredit: The Financial Revolution

I ran my mouth.
My mom once bought me a cassette player so I'd shut up and listen to some music. If she'd lived to see me on TV, she'd see that worked.

RELATED: A Word to Parents

I failed.
In 2000 I achieved my dream of managing a presidential campaign-Al Gore's. Though I really believed he could make a difference, the job was stressful and thankless. A few months after we lost, I

Kristin Richmond and Kirsten Tobey, the founders of Revolution Foods, a privately held company that creates nutritious and tasty breakfasts, lunches, and snacks for schools, were pleased when undercover blogger "Mrs. Q" recently shed light on the dismal choices found in most cafeterias. However, what Mrs. Q failed to offer, they point out, is solutions. Over the last five years, that is exactly what their business has been doing, school by school, student by student.

Revolution Foods began as a joint grad school project at the U.C. Berkeley School of Business. Tobey, a former schoolteacher, and Richmond, a Wall Street drop-out who started a school for kids with special needs in Nairobi, had idealistic goals: to provide healthy, delicious school lunches to kids with the greatest economic need-and to do so for less than $3 per meal (which is about what the government will reimburse schools for under their free and reduced-cost lunch program). From the beginning, critics said it