Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea
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@Dashrender said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
@scottalanmiller said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
@Carnival-Boy said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
Yeah, which is basically what Dash says - a sabbatical costs the company money. But in a lot of cases, they will recover those costs because the employee will return refreshed and motivated and thus more productive.
I'm pretty much exactly mid-career. I've done 23 years, I've got 23 years to go. I could really do with a break. I'm feeling a bit stale. I may just need to change jobs, but a break to consider what kind of new job I want would be awesome.
Sadly, as already mentioned, mortgages, loans and kids get in the way.
Two kids, two mortgages.... worked for 26 years... I know how it is.
You know how it is... I have to laugh at that - I'm not sure when your income spiked to the 1% or better level, but that just puts you on a different level. And once at that level, the need for a mortgage is completely personal choice, not need - and that can be said for a much lower number than an income level of 1% (meaning your income could be at the 2% or higher level).
I was very poor until 2006 with only a brief burst of high income in 2000-2001 when I was managing at OilNavigator and IBM. I worked for peanuts before and after that. Way below industry averages. And I started in 1989. And I had a mortgage after 2003. I definitely know how it is. For several years we had to live on me making $5K a year and my wife pulling in the bulk of our income working the front desk at a hotel overnight.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
@Dashrender said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
@scottalanmiller said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
@Dashrender said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
@RamblingBiped said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
I think I would rather receive full payment and save/invest those funds myself over the 4+ years. I'm more interested in employers that would allow you to take an entire year off and have your job waiting after the fact. Letting my employer keep that portion of my salary is like overpaying your taxes in the attempt to get a larger refund; you're effectively losing income.
This is the real problem fr any company. Keeping your job open a year from now. So they have to hire a temp to do your job for a year... That will likely cost them more than just your cost to the company.
Most companies need the capacity to have someone do your job when taking normal vacations anyway. If they can cover one, they can cover the other. Typically. It's a rare company that would not just absorb this. The other option, of course, is you saving up yourself and then quitting. That hurts the company far more, in most cases. Unless they were hoping that you would leave anyway.
I think if this is something that you can't absorb, you have other problems or are a super tiny company of just a few people. And even there, only management or key workers would be truly impactful.
Of course I can't speak for most companies, only mine own. When I'm on vacation, they put off projects and changes. They even put off minor issues until I return. There is backup available in the form of a consulting company that can send people in to work on pretty much anything that is requested. I suppose my company could in fact survive that way for a whole year, but I'm not sure they'd be very happy about it. I'm guessing that they would call those people in enough to get the costs to be the same as my cost to the company (including all the non salary costs) during that year, if not significantly more.
If they are handling it well and putting off projects, likely the cost would be lower. How much more painful would it be if you burned out and quit or found a different job? Or had a baby and took extended leave? Or a family medical emergency?
If you leaving isn't crippling, then neither is having the temp handle things.
I don't consider myself irreplaceable, I'm certainly not. But being gone a whole year? Why do I want to hire in a temp for a year, one I'll have to train, etc (costs money) and they will be at minimum slow at the job for several months while they learn it.
If a company is going to go through that, why not just keep them after they hired them and make you go find another job?
I understand the "they like you, they feel you bring value to the company" idea, I understand what you're saying about maternity leave (but isn't that only 3-4 months in the US max?), but those things only go so far.
I want to love the idea that many full time longer employment type companies (meaning companies that typically have an employee stay with them for 10+ years, so I'm not talking BK or McDs here) have this type of plan - a year long sabbatical - but I'm really trying to see how the company deals with it. I guess I'm not altruistic enough for this situation, I don't expect companies to just take it on the chin.
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@Dashrender said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
I don't consider myself irreplaceable, I'm certainly not. But being gone a whole year? Why do I want to hire in a temp for a year, one I'll have to train, etc (costs money) and they will be at minimum slow at the job for several months while they learn it.
If the issue is that YOU don't want to take a year off, that's a totally different issue than if it is crippling for your employer.
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@Dashrender said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
If a company is going to go through that, why not just keep them after they hired them and make you go find another job?
If that's a real fear, why haven't they done that already?
But honestly, this is one of the reasons why MSPs carry a lot of advantage over one man shops. They can have people take vacations, go on sabbatical, move up the ladder, learn new things and so forth without requiring that everything get shaken up and starting over.
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Speaking of vacations - I wonder how most people do vacations?
A vacation for me is getting the heck out of dodge and, as the saying goes, sucking the marrow out of life. For example, my up coming trip to Europe will be fly to the UK, visit 3-4 cities outside of London, driving an average of 4 hrs a day (mostly middle, southern UK) then 4 days in London for a convention (most of which will be spent on my feet for 18-24 hours a day), then to Dublin to rent a car to drive to the west coast (4+ hours) spend one night there, then drive back, fly to Amsterdam, visit the sites for 3 days (this will be the relaxing part), then fly to Berlin, another 2 days seeing sites, Fly/train to Hamburg, 2 days site seeing, then home.
This will not be a very relaxing trip, so when I return to work, I won't be revitalized as they say.
So in a case like this, having a whole year to do that trip instead, that would be awesome, and likely I would return revitalized because I was able to slow down and do more of a Scott type trip.
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@Dashrender said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
I understand the "they like you, they feel you bring value to the company" idea, I understand what you're saying about maternity leave (but isn't that only 3-4 months in the US max?), but those things only go so far.
I've definitely worked places with 9 months of maternity in the US. Rare, of course, but they exist.
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@Dashrender said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
I guess I'm not altruistic enough for this situation, I don't expect companies to just take it on the chin.
Any company with a good vacation plan pretty much deals with it already. In the financial industry it is so common as to be nearly standard and sometimes actually expected. My dad's time at Eastman Kodak it was a common thing for his colleagues to do. While living in Nicaragua I hung out with some mid-career American couple that was doing it from their US jobs.
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@Dashrender said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
Speaking of vacations - I wonder how most people do vacations?
I save them up so that they really count. I need enough time to really check out. I went for 20 years with my only break being my honeymoon (ten days) and then I took two months off straight. It was glorious.
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@Dashrender said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
This will not be a very relaxing trip, so when I return to work, I won't be revitalized as they say.
So in a case like this, having a whole year to do that trip instead, that would be awesome, and likely I would return revitalized because I was able to slow down and do more of a Scott type trip.
Busy doesn't preclude relaxing. We did our whirlwind trip in 2012 which was six weeks moving to a different location every two days (with one five day day stay in Piemonte towards the end.) It was rough and exhausting... but mentally it was totally refreshing. It was truly a vacation. Not "relaxing", but that wasn't the idea. It was "refreshing." It allowed me to recharge.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
@Dashrender said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
I understand the "they like you, they feel you bring value to the company" idea, I understand what you're saying about maternity leave (but isn't that only 3-4 months in the US max?), but those things only go so far.
I've definitely worked places with 9 months of maternity in the US. Rare, of course, but they exist.
And there are places that give $30k+ bonuses to every employee, they exist, but are not relevant to the conversation.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
@Dashrender said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
This will not be a very relaxing trip, so when I return to work, I won't be revitalized as they say.
So in a case like this, having a whole year to do that trip instead, that would be awesome, and likely I would return revitalized because I was able to slow down and do more of a Scott type trip.
Busy doesn't preclude relaxing. We did our whirlwind trip in 2012 which was six weeks moving to a different location every two days (with one five day day stay in Piemonte towards the end.) It was rough and exhausting... but mentally it was totally refreshing. It was truly a vacation. Not "relaxing", but that wasn't the idea. It was "refreshing." It allowed me to recharge.
I guess I don't feel recharged personally unless there is long stretches of chill time. You said you had 5 days near the end so that would qualify in my case.
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@Dashrender said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
@scottalanmiller said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
@Dashrender said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
I understand the "they like you, they feel you bring value to the company" idea, I understand what you're saying about maternity leave (but isn't that only 3-4 months in the US max?), but those things only go so far.
I've definitely worked places with 9 months of maternity in the US. Rare, of course, but they exist.
And there are places that give $30k+ bonuses to every employee, they exist, but are not relevant to the conversation.
Basically it sounds like... good, healthy companies and good vacation and maternity plans go together. Coincidence? Maybe taking care of employees helps you earn the money to do so. And abusing them lowers performance making it harder to make money.
Certainly not the only factor, but if the question is "can companies absorb this" the answer is, I think, generally yes. The bigger question should be "can they afford NOT to do things like this?"
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I just don't see a short term vacation vs a sabbatical being the same at all. Most companies can survive a two week vacation. As I said, all projects on hold, no changes, just worry about the day to day during that time. Of course I'm talking the SMB here, not big companies that generally have larger staffs in each departments.
I suppose larger companies could handle it easier, they just dump a little more load on everyone else in the team, but smaller companies, single man IT shops, it will be a much larger strain on them.
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@Dashrender said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
I suppose larger companies could handle it easier, they just dump a little more load on everyone else in the team, but smaller companies, single man IT shops, it will be a much larger strain on them.
They plan for the necessary load to handle their environment from the beginning and don't try to make individuals carry the capacity of a team.
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@Dashrender said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
Of course I'm talking the SMB here, not big companies that generally have larger staffs in each departments.
http://www.smbitjournal.com/2013/02/the-smallest-it-department/
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@Dashrender said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
I just don't see a short term vacation vs a sabbatical being the same at all. Most companies can survive a two week vacation. As I said, all projects on hold, no changes, just worry about the day to day during that time.
I honestly no of no company like this.... that can go with zero IT for even two weeks. Oh sure, they might get lucky but it's not a way to plan to operate.
Find me a company that doesn't need outside support available for those two weeks, and I'll show you a company doing nothing (or the really rare one that has no computer dependency.)
And how many tiny companies with only one staffer do "projects" at all? And how many of them? I know a lot of SMBs and year or longer delays because of management alone is not uncommon.
But again... how long would these delays be if you quit?
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I took 18 months off after my last job ended. It was glorious. Only got paid for 6 of them though, had to dip into the investment account. But for a few months there i didnt even have a clock. I unplugged my alarm clock, turned the one on my oven to wrong, and hid the one on my computer.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
I honestly no of no company like this.... that can go with zero IT for even two weeks. Oh sure, they might get lucky but it's not a way to plan to operate.
They have coverage, just not onsite coverage for that two weeks.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
And how many tiny companies with only one staffer do "projects" at all? And how many of them? I know a lot of SMBs and year or longer delays because of management alone is not uncommon.
But again... how long would these delays be if you quit?
I agree the projects, that I tossed on the pile aren't that many/big, but they wouldn't be zero over the life of the tech, sure may be years between.
But even the day to day stuff, can't print, can't get on the network, my mouse is dead, etc.
Most companies with a single IT person will have a MSP as their backup, which is our case.
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@momurda said in Is a Mid Career Sabbatical a Good Idea:
I took 18 months off after my last job ended. It was glorious. Only got paid for 6 of them though, had to dip into the investment account. But for a few months there i didnt even have a clock. I unplugged my alarm clock, turned the one on my oven to wrong, and hid the one on my computer.
To each there own, a complete lack of a schedule annoys me, but I'm glad it worked for you.
