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For anyone interested, as someone that currently works 75%: At my last career change, I applied for a full time position, but asked if the employer would consi

For anyone interested, as someone that currently works 75%: At my last career change, I applied for a full time position, but asked if the employer would consider hiring me at 75%, with a matching reduction in salary. I work full time days, but am not paid to work Fridays plus a full week each quarter. Pros: the time off itself has been brilliant; I spend that extra time learning computer vision programming in Go, and took a part time class to become a certified master gardener (massively recommended, best $150 I ever spent(1)); it also leaves time for recreational fishing, hiking and hunting. Cons: It's a strain on my career, it's not just that I work less, but the fact that I'm gone as much as I am has somewhat limited which tasks I'm able to take on properly; it's also, at least for myself, psychologically problematic since I lead a team and the rest of the team is full time. All-in-all, I think the career drawback is by far outweighed by both the quality of life and skills I've gained; I'm not sure if it's sustainable as the company grows from a small startup to a more regular company. For now, I'm very much enjoying working part time. (1) http://mg.missouri.edu/ http://mg.missouri.edu/

erikb 9y ago
I did that as well for some time. Consider not taking a whole day off, but but taking off two hours here and two hours there. This way you seem much more available but may actually be even more flexible in how to spend your free time. Of course that requires a lot more flexibility on your part. But the payout in time and career success is worth it.
richdougherty 9y ago
I did this too for about 5 years, except I took 2 weeks off each quarter. I learned Scala, programming language theory, did papers on finance and logic, etc. The job I have now is based on some of the open source work I did during that period. When I took time off to work on interesting stuff I found I was more practical and sensible in my main job. When I designed solutions I was very business focused. I didn't need to use the latest tech or do novel work, since I could do that in my own time. The day off each week kept me fresh and interested without needing to get that from my main job.

erikb 9y ago

I did that as well for some time. Consider not taking a whole day off, but but taking off two hours here and two hours there. This way you seem much more available but may actually be even more flexible in how to spend your free time. Of course that requires a lot more flexibility on your part. But the payout in time and career success is worth it.

richdougherty 9y ago

I did this too for about 5 years, except I took 2 weeks off each quarter. I learned Scala, programming language theory, did papers on finance and logic, etc. The job I have now is based on some of the open source work I did during that period. When I took time off to work on interesting stuff I found I was more practical and sensible in my main job. When I designed solutions I was very business focused. I didn't need to use the latest tech or do novel work, since I could do that in my own time. The day off each week kept me fresh and interested without needing to get that from my main job.