4 ms·

Can you afford a sabbatical? The term has roots in "seven", just like Sabbath, so with 14 years in the industry, you've skipped one. I think a solid half-year

Can you afford a sabbatical? The term has roots in "seven", just like Sabbath, so with 14 years in the industry, you've skipped one. I think a solid half-year off every seven to ten years is an excellent practice for intellectually demanding labor. What makes it a sabbatical is that it's a change of pace which furthers your career. I'd love to take a sabbatical and just work on building stuff, personally: from soldering, to designing boards, probing them, writing firmware, I'm a rank amateur, and I'd love to level up for awhile, while free of the burden of justifying my salary in the process. It could be painting, there's a popular author who wrote a book about the connection between painting and hacking, can't remember his name but his stuff gets posted here all the time. What it isn't, is a vacation, or a convalescence. It sounds like you haven't hit "can't work", just "sucks to work", which is a blessing. If you can't afford it, that's understandable, there are ways to get some of the benefit from a new job, but "relieved of the burden of delivering value" is an important factor. I've known people who pushed "sucks to work" until it became "can't work", and they don't all make it back to the profession, a bit less than half in fact. Whatever you do, I urge you to take burnout seriously, because at the limit it's a serious medical condition which can cripple or kill you.

deepzn 4y ago
great info, I didn't know the origins behind the word. Thanks.
consp 4y ago
> Can you afford a sabbatical? I would definitely not want to have no income for half a year (or more). Especially considering the current economic downturn. It would probably stress me out even more.
- papito 4y ago
  I don't know. I just lost my job and I have fewer savings than I wanted (six months just about), and I am feeling phenomenal. I started finally working on my own long-neglected passion projects, and I feel excited about coding again. Started drinking way less, stopped stress-eating, etc. Granted I was planning on doing this anyway (just a bit ahead of schedule for me), I needed to be ejected from the hamster wheel by force to acknowledge that it was the job and not me. Then next year I will start looking again, but I will be way more picky. A job that you hate can wreck you.
  - samatman 4y ago
    If you're anything like me, this will have enduring positive benefits on both your personal happiness and lifetime earnings. A sabbatical is an investment in yourself, and by definition not a cheap one. Although depending on who you are and what you want to do with it, it doesn't have to come 100% out of one's own pocket. A great sabbatical would be teaching children, or underrepresented adults. That will affray expenses, and gets you in on a group buy for health insurance, for those of us stuck with that problem. Still, it's not available to everyone, I don't want to dismiss that. I'd like to see it possible for more of us. This is not an industry which is short of wealth, and a nonprofit which helps match mid-career software people with sabbatical opportunities, scholarships, and so on, would be a welcome addition to the landscape.
micromacrofoot 4y ago
A sabbatical sounds outrageously stressful to me. I'd immediately have significantly worse health insurance, I wouldn't be contributing to retirement, all the while I'd be draining away my safety net.
- papito 4y ago
  That depends on what you do with that. You can also look at this as an investment in yourself that will substantially increase your income later. If you have something to show for it after you sabbatical, you can actually win long term.
  - micromacrofoot 4y ago
    > If you have something to show for it after you sabbatical this is also a terrifying concept: what if I don't?
    - papito 4y ago
      It's entirely possible that you take a long break from work and find that you don't want to do anything. That means that you burned out completely. Just say that in an interview - that you needed to take a serious mental break, recharge, find your new orbit, and decide what you wanted to do next. If you look for a job a bit later, it's actually easier than looking for it right after when you find yourself unemployed ;)
- adamsmith143 4y ago
  If you're a software engineer that has been working for 7+ years and don't have enough savings to survive 6 months off work or are so behind on retirement savings that this would seriously impact your future I think you should work seriously on getting your finances in order.
  - jofer 4y ago
    It's less that and more that you're not maximizing retirement savings at that point, which is something that stresses a lot of folks out. Also, even within software, I can't imagine trying to find a job with a 6-month gap on my resume. I'm not in the bay area, and even working remotely, competition is brutal. A gap on your resume is a great reason to get immediately rejected by wherever you're applying to. Not all of us are in the niches of software where jobs are easy to come by. Not everything is web dev.
cweill 4y ago
> Hackers and painters http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html
ygghr 4y ago
I think a sabbatical is a great suggestion. It's length depends on a balance of your financial situation and bank balance addiction and goals.
maerF0x0 4y ago
> Sabbath Some context for the fun of it. Sabbath is the 7th day of rest that the God of Genesis took -- yes even God found rest to at least be good (if not needed). He also prescribed for the jewish people of the Old testament seven sacred feasts, which could be multiday if not weeklong festivities and breaks from work. Then there was the Sabbatical you mentioned -- One year off in 7 to rest the land and labor. Furthermore there was "Jubilee" -- a special sabbatical year every 7th sabbatical that went even further :) Seems like ancient people (if not God) deeply understood the need for rest!
kilroy123 4y ago
This is what I did. Took 2 1/2 years and didn't write a line of code for two of those years. I simply fucked off and traveled the world. Half the time I didn't even know what day of the week it was. It was glorious and it cured my burn out.
- thesuitonym 4y ago
  How do you live without an income for so long?
  - kilroy123 4y ago
    By being single with no children and working in tech.
- hirvi74 4y ago
  How much did you forget in that time span? Did you have to relearn a bunch, and did it come back faster the second time? I feel like I forget so much about programming on a daily basis that I would probably have to re-earn a CS degree if I took 3 months off lol.
  - Too 4y ago
    Forgetting is not a problem. Given all the churn in the js world lately it feels like I’m re-earning a CS degree every 3 months anyway. Skipping 3 years you wouldn’t miss anything, just read up on the latest and you are good to go. If you are lucky, the PR you submitted to some sleeping library, months ago, might have finally been accepted when you get back.
  - kilroy123 4y ago
    Yes, absolutely. It's been a rocky road getting back. I'd say after a year and a half I'm about 85% back to where I was before.
noveltyaccount 4y ago
This. I'm on one now and it is incredible. I'm in my early forties and was a senior software dev manager at a big co. I've been doing stuff around the house like yard work, tinkering with a raspberry pi, metal and woodworking, etc. My general disposition is much sunnier. I'm sleeping and eating better. Making time for fitness without it feeling like a chore. And importantly, I have space to think about work--what I like and don't--so that when I go back, I can be intentional about my next move. Rather than just climbing the ladder that's in front of me.

deepzn 4y ago

great info, I didn't know the origins behind the word. Thanks.

consp 4y ago

> Can you afford a sabbatical? I would definitely not want to have no income for half a year (or more). Especially considering the current economic downturn. It would probably stress me out even more.

papito 4y ago
I don't know. I just lost my job and I have fewer savings than I wanted (six months just about), and I am feeling phenomenal. I started finally working on my own long-neglected passion projects, and I feel excited about coding again. Started drinking way less, stopped stress-eating, etc. Granted I was planning on doing this anyway (just a bit ahead of schedule for me), I needed to be ejected from the hamster wheel by force to acknowledge that it was the job and not me. Then next year I will start looking again, but I will be way more picky. A job that you hate can wreck you.
- samatman 4y ago
  If you're anything like me, this will have enduring positive benefits on both your personal happiness and lifetime earnings. A sabbatical is an investment in yourself, and by definition not a cheap one. Although depending on who you are and what you want to do with it, it doesn't have to come 100% out of one's own pocket. A great sabbatical would be teaching children, or underrepresented adults. That will affray expenses, and gets you in on a group buy for health insurance, for those of us stuck with that problem. Still, it's not available to everyone, I don't want to dismiss that. I'd like to see it possible for more of us. This is not an industry which is short of wealth, and a nonprofit which helps match mid-career software people with sabbatical opportunities, scholarships, and so on, would be a welcome addition to the landscape.

micromacrofoot 4y ago

A sabbatical sounds outrageously stressful to me. I'd immediately have significantly worse health insurance, I wouldn't be contributing to retirement, all the while I'd be draining away my safety net.

papito 4y ago
That depends on what you do with that. You can also look at this as an investment in yourself that will substantially increase your income later. If you have something to show for it after you sabbatical, you can actually win long term.
- micromacrofoot 4y ago
  > If you have something to show for it after you sabbatical this is also a terrifying concept: what if I don't?
  - papito 4y ago
    It's entirely possible that you take a long break from work and find that you don't want to do anything. That means that you burned out completely. Just say that in an interview - that you needed to take a serious mental break, recharge, find your new orbit, and decide what you wanted to do next. If you look for a job a bit later, it's actually easier than looking for it right after when you find yourself unemployed ;)
adamsmith143 4y ago
If you're a software engineer that has been working for 7+ years and don't have enough savings to survive 6 months off work or are so behind on retirement savings that this would seriously impact your future I think you should work seriously on getting your finances in order.
- jofer 4y ago
  It's less that and more that you're not maximizing retirement savings at that point, which is something that stresses a lot of folks out. Also, even within software, I can't imagine trying to find a job with a 6-month gap on my resume. I'm not in the bay area, and even working remotely, competition is brutal. A gap on your resume is a great reason to get immediately rejected by wherever you're applying to. Not all of us are in the niches of software where jobs are easy to come by. Not everything is web dev.

cweill 4y ago

> Hackers and painters http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html

ygghr 4y ago

I think a sabbatical is a great suggestion. It's length depends on a balance of your financial situation and bank balance addiction and goals.

maerF0x0 4y ago

> Sabbath Some context for the fun of it. Sabbath is the 7th day of rest that the God of Genesis took -- yes even God found rest to at least be good (if not needed). He also prescribed for the jewish people of the Old testament seven sacred feasts, which could be multiday if not weeklong festivities and breaks from work. Then there was the Sabbatical you mentioned -- One year off in 7 to rest the land and labor. Furthermore there was "Jubilee" -- a special sabbatical year every 7th sabbatical that went even further :) Seems like ancient people (if not God) deeply understood the need for rest!

kilroy123 4y ago

This is what I did. Took 2 1/2 years and didn't write a line of code for two of those years. I simply fucked off and traveled the world. Half the time I didn't even know what day of the week it was. It was glorious and it cured my burn out.

thesuitonym 4y ago
How do you live without an income for so long?
- kilroy123 4y ago
  By being single with no children and working in tech.
hirvi74 4y ago
How much did you forget in that time span? Did you have to relearn a bunch, and did it come back faster the second time? I feel like I forget so much about programming on a daily basis that I would probably have to re-earn a CS degree if I took 3 months off lol.
- Too 4y ago
  Forgetting is not a problem. Given all the churn in the js world lately it feels like I’m re-earning a CS degree every 3 months anyway. Skipping 3 years you wouldn’t miss anything, just read up on the latest and you are good to go. If you are lucky, the PR you submitted to some sleeping library, months ago, might have finally been accepted when you get back.
- kilroy123 4y ago
  Yes, absolutely. It's been a rocky road getting back. I'd say after a year and a half I'm about 85% back to where I was before.

noveltyaccount 4y ago

This. I'm on one now and it is incredible. I'm in my early forties and was a senior software dev manager at a big co. I've been doing stuff around the house like yard work, tinkering with a raspberry pi, metal and woodworking, etc. My general disposition is much sunnier. I'm sleeping and eating better. Making time for fitness without it feeling like a chore. And importantly, I have space to think about work--what I like and don't--so that when I go back, I can be intentional about my next move. Rather than just climbing the ladder that's in front of me.