My first job out of school was at Qualcomm. The lunch options are actually pretty great (Mexican/Indian/Afghan/Thai/Chinese/French/Donut Touch/whatever you wan

My first job out of school was at Qualcomm. The lunch options are actually pretty great (Mexican/Indian/Afghan/Thai/Chinese/French/Donut Touch/whatever you want) in Sorrento Valley, and it's located next to a beautiful canyon. The problem is that it's profoundly isolated from the rest of the city, and there's reasonable way to get there and back other than driving in heavy traffic. Basically, although it's in the City of San Diego, it's not remotely in anything resembling a city and it's not near anything remotely resembling a social life. I lived in La Jolla near the beach— also beautiful, but also boring by design. Any youth and energy (other than drunks in lifted trucks) was a half-hour drive away, which also meant I couldn't drink. I also didn't love my work at Qualcomm and couldn't find another job in a more-reasonable location. I biked to work there, but that meant biking on the 5, which felt extremely unsustainable— the only other bike commuter I ran into was an older guy who had been rear-ended by a drunk on a similar route. There was no practical way to commute on transit— just an infrequent commuter train down an enormous mesa from the office.