This is Bronwen's career tab near the end of Tuesday's working day.

In the left part is her job title, hourly rate and the hours and days that she is expected to work. Naturally, the lower the job, the smaller the hourly rate. If Bronwen works for the full 6 hours, she should be paid §126. If, however, she was 30 minutes late for work, she would only be paid §115. This makes a change from the flat rate that previous careers paid. A sim could turn up for work for just half of the day and be paid as if they had arrived exactly on time. This means that if a sim lives quite a bit out from the town centre, it pays to get to the carpool the moment it arrives if they want to put in a full day at work.

On the right of this image is the work performance meter. Performance for this job is currently being affected by her mood, which does not appear to be too brilliant right now due to having become stressed, and her guitar skill, which appears to be excellent. Given a few more working days and a promotion should be likely.

The work performance meter shows how good or bad a sim's promotion chances are. If a sim is seriously late for work or leaves early, then it can take a hit. If it gets too low, then a sim can be demoted or fired. Mood is important and having a lot of positive moodlets is a good thing when it comes to the working day. If it gets to the top of the bar, then the sim is likely to get promoted at the end of the working day.

Performance can also be affected by a work-based opportunity, which if performed correctly can give a positive hit.

Opportunities pop up from time to time. They can come as a phonecall or just pop up while a sim is at work. A sim can accept three different opportunities at one time, but only one from each field. These fields are Career, Skill and Special. They all have in common that it involves the sim doing something and going somewhere to complete it. The 10,000 point Lifetime Happiness Reward of "Opportunistic" means they get greater rewards and bonuses for finishing opportunities. At this time, though, neither Bronwen or Jonah have enough Lifetime Happiness Points to afford it even if they were interested.

Career Opportunities vary depending upon the career and the specific level. A common theme is that a sim is recommended by their boss to read a book, which will improve a sim's job performance and their relationship with the boss. If this is accepted, the book will appear in the sim's inventory. It could be resold afterwards as it does not serve much purpose. Other ones include visiting other locations. This could be to drop off military paperwork at City Hall or helping the gang carry out a crime.

Bronwen has been offered a career opportunity by her boss to read a book. If she does this, her job performance and relationship with her boss will take a positive hit. She accepted it.

Skill Opportunities often come from telephone calls. To name a few, it might be a request for a plate of cookies to go the school's bake sale, someone might want their TV repairing, the local police station might want a certain fish as a mascot or the bistro might need the plumbing sorting out. These usually come with a financial reward and involve visiting someone or somewhere, although it can only usually be done during certain hours.

Bronwen got a telephone call offering her a skill opportunity to improve her guitar skill with the reward of a new composition. Again, she accepted it.

Special Opportunities sometimes involve social events and the sim being there or nearby when they are triggered. These include grill-offs in the park, chess tournaments and Amateur Olympics at the stadium. It pays to read the newspaper regularly to find out where these events are as there is usually a time restriction on these ones.

Even children and teens can have opportunities come their way.

Like wishes, sims can turn refuse opportunities or change their minds and cancel already accepted opportunities in hope of a better one coming up, or just not being bothered. There is no penalty for failure. The Sims 3 is more positive in that respect.

While Jonah & Bronwen were at work, I looked around town and found quite a bit going on.

Cycl0n3 Sw0rd was in the park using his laptop. Xander and Bessie Clavell were in the park. Simis Bachelor was waiting outside the Supermarket for Bella who had gone inside. Cornelia Goth and Emma Hatch were sat outside the bookstore. Vita Alto was working out in the gym and Agnes Crumplebottom was at Le Petit Shark Pool Center talking on her cellphone.

Seeing what they are up to does make you wonder how their lives would be progressing with that human touch. We will be looking at that in the next part, which is another of the major differences between The Sims 3 and previous versions. For now, though, we are going back to Jonah and Bronwen.