There are a million reasons why a job isn’t right for you. But what we didn’t see over and over was talk of pay. That’s not to say that it isn’t important; we wouldn’t do our jobs if we didn’t get paid. A 2018 study of over 4,000 full-time workers in several countries found that, when asked what they believe is the most important factor in workplace happiness, most people say compensation. Yet it also found that those who were actually happy with their jobs rated the meaningfulness of their work as the biggest reason, followed by flexible hours and ability to work remotely. For happy people, compensation came in third.When it comes to our careers, we really do want a fairy-tale romance. LinkedIn recently found that 81% of working professionals believe it’s important to be very or mostly happy at their job . But about 25% surveyed said they were unhappy or, at best, ambivalent.