10 ms·

I would love to see sabbaticals become more the norm, but I see a few problems with this particular plan and other problems with how they are generally implemen

by jawns 3y ago

I would love to see sabbaticals become more the norm, but I see a few problems with this particular plan and other problems with how they are generally implemented. For this specific plan, it asks a 35-year-old to agree to work an additional year in their 60s for 3 months' sabbatical in their 30s. That's a pretty bad deal, not only because of the imbalance between what you gain and what you sacrifice, but also because there are so many unknowns about your ability to work in your 60s. And how do you really enforce something like that? But in general, one major problem with sabbaticals is that they are almost always tied to your employer and require you to rack up multiple years of experience to qualify for them. But the trend over the past several generations is toward greater job mobility. It is relatively rare for Gen X and Gen Y workers to have stayed with one employer for decades, as many of their parents may have done. Job hopping is often the best way to increase one's compensation, and the loyalty that used to be shown between employers/employees has largely dissipated. Thus, many people's only realistic chance at a sabbatical is to do an unofficial one by taking some time off between jobs -- but this has its own problems. Since health insurance and many other benefits in the US are tied to employment, it can be extremely costly to not be constantly employed.

liquidpele 3y ago
> It is relatively rare for Gen X and Gen Y workers to have stayed with one employer for decades, as many of their parents may have done. I’ve seen more people take them in between jobs than during, which works fine within the job hopping expectations that companies have created.
- elicash 3y ago
  Yes, "fun-employment" is essentially the new sabbatical.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    You'll probably find that "fun-employment" as a term is mostly used by people who were collecting a very nice paycheck and don't have a lot of serious responsibilities.
    - elicash 3y ago
      Half-right. In my experience, it's often younger folks out of school, with no kids, who make low wages and live with their parents. It's folks for whom unemployment insurance is a great benefit, assuming they were at their previous job long enough to collect it.
      - ghaff 3y ago
        That's probably another category for whom employment seems like sort of an optional activity at least for a bit. I admit I hear it--at least in my circles--from decently-paid tech workers who are ready to take some time off,
- deprecative 3y ago
  I see folks take them when they're laid off because it takes so long for folks to get a job offer.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    The/one problem is it's not predictable. It might take a year. You might get an offer next week. When I was a month between jobs in the dot-com aftermath, it would have been nice to have known that I'd have something like 6 weeks between jobs. But, of course, at the time it could have been either a very long time or I'd better take whatever was on offer.
- ljm 3y ago
  It's only really an option if you've been paid handsomely enough to rack up some savings beforehand though, and being able to take 6 months or a year out of work entirely at your own expense isn't an opportunity affordable to everyone. I managed a month and it wasn't enough. Not a chance I could have managed much more than that though without eating into my emergency funds and becoming anxious. Voluntarily taking unpaid time off is a massive luxury.
ketzo 3y ago
As far as enforcement goes, I think that "raising the retirement age" would basically be "raising the age where you can draw on government benefits." So it's not that you would be ""forced"" to work an extra year, but you won't have benefits for an extra year. Which, y'know, is still pretty bad depending on your situation.
devit 3y ago
You might be dead before 60.
Aurornis 3y ago
> And how do you really enforce something like that? Retirement age refers to when you're eligible for government retirement benefits. The proposal is to let people draw their retirement benefits early, basically. Practically speaking, drawing 3 months of expenses at age 35 might be equivalent to something like drawing 1 year of expenses at age 65, assuming the money is invested. You'd have to do the math to see the real numbers, but that's essentially what the author is proposing. Time value of money.
- qsort 3y ago
  The root cause is that retirement is not something the government should be doing in the first place. It should be your individual responsibility to save, and your individual choice what to do with that money. There exist very safe financial instruments like target-date funds that would be perfectly up to the task, with only a tiny bit of regulation on top. None of these problems exist in that world. Naturally, in countries that implement compulsory pension schemes, it's also not something you can easily remove: lots of people depend on government pensions and/or have planned their lives around them, it would be an unmitigated disaster to just say "we aren't doing this any longer".
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - datadrivenangel 3y ago
    Social security was implemented so that old people wouldn't be destitute and literally dying of hunger or lack of care.
  - shortcake27 3y ago
    Right, so I guess in your eyes the only people who should be allowed to retire are the ones who can afford it? I guess this is along the same lines of the only wealthy people are entitled to education and healthcare. Anyway, you’re wrong with regards to removing pension schemes. Look at Australia with compulsory superannuation. The government forces people to save up enough money to put them over a threshold where they won’t be entitled to a pension. Thankfully, this is fully paid for by employers. The UK is going the same way but sadly more of a user-pays type scenario. Not difficult at all and only takes about 50 years before the majority of the population is ineligible for whatever pension still exists, but it is still there for people who fall through the cracks. No need to remove the pension at all - just price out the wealthy.
ghaff 3y ago
The other issue with implementing sabbaticals is that it's really hard to do so retroactively at a large company that already has a lot of long-term employees. Now you have a bunch of people who suddenly get a benefit at the same time at least somewhat at the expense of everyone else. And, as you say, like defined benefit pensions, they're inherently designed for at least relative long-termers. But, yeah, it's hard to take a big chunk of time off otherwise. Unless you hit it big, it's risky to say I'm not going to even job hunt for 6 months. COBRA (and the Exchanges) does cover health insurance in the US to some degree but you're still taking a financial hit if you're without a job for a year--very possibly at a point in life when your financial needs are greatest.
brtkdotse 3y ago
Am I reading this comment correctly - don’t US workers get pensions that aren’t tied to their employers?
- dhg72 3y ago
  Nope!
- sbradford26 3y ago
  Pensions if a person gets them which is rare (in the US) is typically tied to their company or the government if they were employed by the government.
- ghaff 3y ago
  "Pensions" in the US generally refer to defined-benefit pensions, i.e. you worked here 10 years with a terminal salary of $100K so you get $X/month starting at age 65 (or whatever). In general, private sector companies have switched to defined-contribution schemes like 401Ks, which are tied to an employer but can be (and generally should be) rolled over to IRAs when you leave the company. Social Security is something else again that comes from the government but isn't usually called a pension.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- kayodelycaon 3y ago
  Nope. My dad worked for a company for most of his life. They dropped pensions during his tenure and he got nothing.
  - PopAlongKid 3y ago
    That's odd. Usually an employee is vested after five years. That means that even if they leave before "retirement" age (defined by the employer), they still get an annuity based on their vesting. When a company eliminates pensions, it applies to new hires and perhaps future contributions but does not retroactively eliminate benefits already accrued.
shortcake27 3y ago
The tail is wagging the dog. You claim “unofficial” sabbaticals are problematic because in the US health insurance and pension are tied to your employer. But the problem isn’t the sabbatical, it’s the way things are done in the US. I’m from Australia, I quit my job last year due to burnout. Regardless of whether I choose to return to work or not, I get free public healthcare, private healthcare if I pay for it, and a guaranteed government funded pension once I reach retirement age. The US needs to fix the problem, not the symptom.
grecy 3y ago
> I would love to see sabbaticals become more the norm Just take your own, you don't need anyone's permission. Save for a few years and you'll have enough money to take a year or two off (my ratio is 2 years work for 1.5 years of freedom). Quit your job and do what you want with your life - I drive around the world having massive adventures. When you get back just find another job - it's not hard, and the gap in your resume is extremely easy to explain - learning languages, self-reliance, health, research, side passion projects etc. etc. Sure, I'm not at Director level or working at FAANG like some of the guys I studied Software Engineering with, but they've been going to work every single day for the last 20 years since we graduated, I only sat at a desk for 6 of those years, otherwise I've been driving around the world hiking, surfing, snowboarding, poking lava with a stick, climbing 20,000 ft volcanoes, etc. etc. [1] Do what you want with your life, don't let someone else dictate it to you. [1] https://www.youtube.com/theroadchoseme https://www.youtube.com/theroadchoseme
- earthling8118 3y ago
  I think you have a vastly different experience than some of us. It has not once been easy to find a job in this field for me. I assume you've been in the industry for much longer and have been able to experience that. But there are many of us that got into this line of work much later and have had to deal with differing circumstances. Instead there are bottom of the barrel positions with comparatively low pay and high demands and you're expected to be grateful for such an opportunity as it squeezes the life out of you.
  - grecy 3y ago
    Not at all, I had only been in the industry for 2 years the first time I took 2 years off.. then did another 4 years at a desk and took many years off. One of my secrets is being willing to relocate to really random and fun locations around the world - i.e. I moved to the Yukon where it was -40 for a few months every year. Every day was an adventure, and I got paid to live/work there. Don't settle for good enough, go find something that enables the life you want to live.
glimshe 3y ago
As someone considering a sabbatical, let's clarify one thing. Yes, health benefits are tied to the employer and getting health insurance privately (or through CORBA) is expensive, but wages are higher in the US. You can buy health insurance, and if you time things right you can get "Obamacare" which won't make your premiums too high. It's possible to save money on a tech salary in the US for staying a few months, or even a year, on a sabbatical. Maybe it will cost you 100K or so for a year in an average city in the US, assuming a family of 3 and no other income, a third of that being health costs. But it's possible to save 100K to do that. Hey, we're asking for the entirety of society to work to provide us a ton of services/products (even beyond healthcare) while we're resting, so that shouldn't be so surprising, right? One thing that I read a lot on HN are arguments talking about how having to pay for health insurance makes things impossible, as if people didn't have other expenses. For most people, rent is more expensive than health insurance, so are we going to say we can't go on sabbaticals because we don't have public housing? I understand that it's not easy to deal with private health insurance, but millions of self employed people in the US do exactly that, some of them with top notch (and expensive) health insurance. In a country with public healthcare, you don't need to save the healthcare part. But you still need to save for all other expenses - rent, childcare, bills, transportation, books etc. So maybe it would cost half as much to go on a Sabbatical in other places, but in general tech wages in "other places" aren't nearly as high as in the US. So in the end it is kind of the same.
- earthling8118 3y ago
  No, it wouldn't be only half as cheap if healthcare was taken care of. For many of us it'd be significantly more. I just got quoted for COBRA recently and it was more than double my current monthly expenses. That wasn't even for a family plan but rather for an individual one. And it isn't like it paid for 100% of medical care anyway. Luckily I was able to secure a job and got a much more reasonable rate instead.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    >I was able to secure a job and got a much more reasonable rate instead Sure. It's going to be a lot cheaper if someone else is picking up the majority of the tab. Leaving aside some tax effects and a small administrative fee, COBRA is basically priced at your contribution plus your employer's contribution to a group insurance plan. When I've looked it's not been much different from a comparable plan on the exchanges.
milespj 3y ago
It's not necessarily a bad deal because the benefit of being able to do the sabbatical while young has its own benefit. You can see more places and enjoy different types of experiences. And there is no guarantee you will live that long or be physically able to do the things you may want to do when younger. So it could be worth the trade off.

by jawns 3y ago

liquidpele 3y ago

> It is relatively rare for Gen X and Gen Y workers to have stayed with one employer for decades, as many of their parents may have done. I’ve seen more people take them in between jobs than during, which works fine within the job hopping expectations that companies have created.

elicash 3y ago
Yes, "fun-employment" is essentially the new sabbatical.
- ghaff 3y ago
  You'll probably find that "fun-employment" as a term is mostly used by people who were collecting a very nice paycheck and don't have a lot of serious responsibilities.
  - elicash 3y ago
    Half-right. In my experience, it's often younger folks out of school, with no kids, who make low wages and live with their parents. It's folks for whom unemployment insurance is a great benefit, assuming they were at their previous job long enough to collect it.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      That's probably another category for whom employment seems like sort of an optional activity at least for a bit. I admit I hear it--at least in my circles--from decently-paid tech workers who are ready to take some time off,
deprecative 3y ago
I see folks take them when they're laid off because it takes so long for folks to get a job offer.
- ghaff 3y ago
  The/one problem is it's not predictable. It might take a year. You might get an offer next week. When I was a month between jobs in the dot-com aftermath, it would have been nice to have known that I'd have something like 6 weeks between jobs. But, of course, at the time it could have been either a very long time or I'd better take whatever was on offer.
ljm 3y ago
It's only really an option if you've been paid handsomely enough to rack up some savings beforehand though, and being able to take 6 months or a year out of work entirely at your own expense isn't an opportunity affordable to everyone. I managed a month and it wasn't enough. Not a chance I could have managed much more than that though without eating into my emergency funds and becoming anxious. Voluntarily taking unpaid time off is a massive luxury.

ketzo 3y ago

As far as enforcement goes, I think that "raising the retirement age" would basically be "raising the age where you can draw on government benefits." So it's not that you would be ""forced"" to work an extra year, but you won't have benefits for an extra year. Which, y'know, is still pretty bad depending on your situation.

devit 3y ago

You might be dead before 60.

Aurornis 3y ago

> And how do you really enforce something like that? Retirement age refers to when you're eligible for government retirement benefits. The proposal is to let people draw their retirement benefits early, basically. Practically speaking, drawing 3 months of expenses at age 35 might be equivalent to something like drawing 1 year of expenses at age 65, assuming the money is invested. You'd have to do the math to see the real numbers, but that's essentially what the author is proposing. Time value of money.

qsort 3y ago
The root cause is that retirement is not something the government should be doing in the first place. It should be your individual responsibility to save, and your individual choice what to do with that money. There exist very safe financial instruments like target-date funds that would be perfectly up to the task, with only a tiny bit of regulation on top. None of these problems exist in that world. Naturally, in countries that implement compulsory pension schemes, it's also not something you can easily remove: lots of people depend on government pensions and/or have planned their lives around them, it would be an unmitigated disaster to just say "we aren't doing this any longer".
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- datadrivenangel 3y ago
  Social security was implemented so that old people wouldn't be destitute and literally dying of hunger or lack of care.
- shortcake27 3y ago
  Right, so I guess in your eyes the only people who should be allowed to retire are the ones who can afford it? I guess this is along the same lines of the only wealthy people are entitled to education and healthcare. Anyway, you’re wrong with regards to removing pension schemes. Look at Australia with compulsory superannuation. The government forces people to save up enough money to put them over a threshold where they won’t be entitled to a pension. Thankfully, this is fully paid for by employers. The UK is going the same way but sadly more of a user-pays type scenario. Not difficult at all and only takes about 50 years before the majority of the population is ineligible for whatever pension still exists, but it is still there for people who fall through the cracks. No need to remove the pension at all - just price out the wealthy.

ghaff 3y ago

The other issue with implementing sabbaticals is that it's really hard to do so retroactively at a large company that already has a lot of long-term employees. Now you have a bunch of people who suddenly get a benefit at the same time at least somewhat at the expense of everyone else. And, as you say, like defined benefit pensions, they're inherently designed for at least relative long-termers. But, yeah, it's hard to take a big chunk of time off otherwise. Unless you hit it big, it's risky to say I'm not going to even job hunt for 6 months. COBRA (and the Exchanges) does cover health insurance in the US to some degree but you're still taking a financial hit if you're without a job for a year--very possibly at a point in life when your financial needs are greatest.

brtkdotse 3y ago

Am I reading this comment correctly - don’t US workers get pensions that aren’t tied to their employers?

dhg72 3y ago
Nope!
sbradford26 3y ago
Pensions if a person gets them which is rare (in the US) is typically tied to their company or the government if they were employed by the government.
ghaff 3y ago
"Pensions" in the US generally refer to defined-benefit pensions, i.e. you worked here 10 years with a terminal salary of $100K so you get $X/month starting at age 65 (or whatever). In general, private sector companies have switched to defined-contribution schemes like 401Ks, which are tied to an employer but can be (and generally should be) rolled over to IRAs when you leave the company. Social Security is something else again that comes from the government but isn't usually called a pension.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
kayodelycaon 3y ago
Nope. My dad worked for a company for most of his life. They dropped pensions during his tenure and he got nothing.
- PopAlongKid 3y ago
  That's odd. Usually an employee is vested after five years. That means that even if they leave before "retirement" age (defined by the employer), they still get an annuity based on their vesting. When a company eliminates pensions, it applies to new hires and perhaps future contributions but does not retroactively eliminate benefits already accrued.

shortcake27 3y ago

The tail is wagging the dog. You claim “unofficial” sabbaticals are problematic because in the US health insurance and pension are tied to your employer. But the problem isn’t the sabbatical, it’s the way things are done in the US. I’m from Australia, I quit my job last year due to burnout. Regardless of whether I choose to return to work or not, I get free public healthcare, private healthcare if I pay for it, and a guaranteed government funded pension once I reach retirement age. The US needs to fix the problem, not the symptom.

grecy 3y ago

> I would love to see sabbaticals become more the norm Just take your own, you don't need anyone's permission. Save for a few years and you'll have enough money to take a year or two off (my ratio is 2 years work for 1.5 years of freedom). Quit your job and do what you want with your life - I drive around the world having massive adventures. When you get back just find another job - it's not hard, and the gap in your resume is extremely easy to explain - learning languages, self-reliance, health, research, side passion projects etc. etc. Sure, I'm not at Director level or working at FAANG like some of the guys I studied Software Engineering with, but they've been going to work every single day for the last 20 years since we graduated, I only sat at a desk for 6 of those years, otherwise I've been driving around the world hiking, surfing, snowboarding, poking lava with a stick, climbing 20,000 ft volcanoes, etc. etc. [1] Do what you want with your life, don't let someone else dictate it to you. [1] https://www.youtube.com/theroadchoseme https://www.youtube.com/theroadchoseme

earthling8118 3y ago
I think you have a vastly different experience than some of us. It has not once been easy to find a job in this field for me. I assume you've been in the industry for much longer and have been able to experience that. But there are many of us that got into this line of work much later and have had to deal with differing circumstances. Instead there are bottom of the barrel positions with comparatively low pay and high demands and you're expected to be grateful for such an opportunity as it squeezes the life out of you.
- grecy 3y ago
  Not at all, I had only been in the industry for 2 years the first time I took 2 years off.. then did another 4 years at a desk and took many years off. One of my secrets is being willing to relocate to really random and fun locations around the world - i.e. I moved to the Yukon where it was -40 for a few months every year. Every day was an adventure, and I got paid to live/work there. Don't settle for good enough, go find something that enables the life you want to live.

glimshe 3y ago

As someone considering a sabbatical, let's clarify one thing. Yes, health benefits are tied to the employer and getting health insurance privately (or through CORBA) is expensive, but wages are higher in the US. You can buy health insurance, and if you time things right you can get "Obamacare" which won't make your premiums too high. It's possible to save money on a tech salary in the US for staying a few months, or even a year, on a sabbatical. Maybe it will cost you 100K or so for a year in an average city in the US, assuming a family of 3 and no other income, a third of that being health costs. But it's possible to save 100K to do that. Hey, we're asking for the entirety of society to work to provide us a ton of services/products (even beyond healthcare) while we're resting, so that shouldn't be so surprising, right? One thing that I read a lot on HN are arguments talking about how having to pay for health insurance makes things impossible, as if people didn't have other expenses. For most people, rent is more expensive than health insurance, so are we going to say we can't go on sabbaticals because we don't have public housing? I understand that it's not easy to deal with private health insurance, but millions of self employed people in the US do exactly that, some of them with top notch (and expensive) health insurance. In a country with public healthcare, you don't need to save the healthcare part. But you still need to save for all other expenses - rent, childcare, bills, transportation, books etc. So maybe it would cost half as much to go on a Sabbatical in other places, but in general tech wages in "other places" aren't nearly as high as in the US. So in the end it is kind of the same.

earthling8118 3y ago
No, it wouldn't be only half as cheap if healthcare was taken care of. For many of us it'd be significantly more. I just got quoted for COBRA recently and it was more than double my current monthly expenses. That wasn't even for a family plan but rather for an individual one. And it isn't like it paid for 100% of medical care anyway. Luckily I was able to secure a job and got a much more reasonable rate instead.
- ghaff 3y ago
  >I was able to secure a job and got a much more reasonable rate instead Sure. It's going to be a lot cheaper if someone else is picking up the majority of the tab. Leaving aside some tax effects and a small administrative fee, COBRA is basically priced at your contribution plus your employer's contribution to a group insurance plan. When I've looked it's not been much different from a comparable plan on the exchanges.

milespj 3y ago

It's not necessarily a bad deal because the benefit of being able to do the sabbatical while young has its own benefit. You can see more places and enjoy different types of experiences. And there is no guarantee you will live that long or be physically able to do the things you may want to do when younger. So it could be worth the trade off.