Ask HN: Is it a bad time to take a sabbatical?
A tech employee (PM) at a startup with 2 years as a PM and about 10 years as a dev. Have been continuously working for those 12 years without a good break and I fear I might be on the verge of burnout. I’m looking for advice on the best approach to taking a sabbatical. The economy is what scares me. I don’t want a 4 month sabbatical to turn into a 12 month break. Is it a good time and how would you approach it? We have a dual income home and we will break even on a monthly basis if one of us takes a sabbatical. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
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[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 133 ms ] threadRebuilt my kitchen (manual work, accomplishments, yay!), visited some cool places, reconnected with old friends.
Didn’t think about work for _weeks_, at least.
Even though there’s nothing good in the horizon, yet, and, quite honestly, the money is drying up, I’m glad I took that break.
Would have been pretty miserable by now.
Burn out is not worth it.
I took a sabbatical April of 22, thinking I would take 3 months off, it took a full year before I felt like I was ready to go back to work. Taking off was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I’ve spent more time with my family, been able to pursue some hobbies I previously didn’t have time for, and have cultivated stronger relationships because I’ve been able to spend time with people I care for. In short, do it. You won’t regret it.
I feel like it's a bit like the stock market. You can't predict it, and timing the market may not be helpful. If you need a break - you need a break. If we imagine a graph, the damage from burnout will at some point exceed the damage of taking a break and not immediately finding a new job.
Might not be super helpful, but mental health quote I read recently was: if you're strong enough to leave, you're strong enough to find your way again afterwards.
Who is to say that a break in the form of a sabbatical is the only way to improve OP's mental health? What about other time off, changing the structure of the work-week, changing how time is spent outside of work, therapy, etc?
> if you're strong enough to leave, you're strong enough to find your way again afterwards
This may be true about OP's individual effort, but it is a separate question whether that amount of effort (or _any_ amount of effort) will be enough to land a job in a bearish market.
OP being a PM will probably have a harder time of course, but IMO there’s no point having a job if you’re miserable.
OP never described his job in that way, just that they felt burnt out. Furthermore, OP is not talking about quitting and looking for a new job, they want to to take time off, which is a different question.
If OP is in an abusive situation or is in physical danger I would agree they should quit. Otherwise I think evaluating options to make the current situation work or looking for a new position while continuing to work would be better options.
The first months were amazing, I felt great even started coding again for fun. The last six months, even without working have almost undone all that refreshed feeling and given me a refreshed hatered of corporate America.
LLC is good for legitimacy but is it supposed to look good on a resume or something?
Edit: Specifically curious if the LLC is supposed to fill-in as legit taxable paid work in-event-of-emergency or just gap-filler
Maybe you just did self study, but you did it as RealWork™ that your future employer will understand because they want SeriousPeople. It just allows you to drive the conversation the way you want to in a more controlled way. You could say Sole Proprietorship or Self Study, but I've found having an LLC is more receptive.
Don’t forget to just take a lot of regular vacation time, especially if your company is one of those “unlimited” shops. Until you get a nastygram from HR I would just take whatever time you want off and don’t worry about using too much of it. Typically as long as you don’t exceed about 2 or 3 weeks at a time you’re fine.
If your employer doesn’t give you at least 20 days plus holidays, shop around for employers.
If your employer has separate sick days, don’t forget to “randomly” use those in a realistic fashion.
I’m also generally in favor of a sabbatical. Don’t quit your job, asked for extended unpaid leave. I think they’d hold your position for you as long as your leave isn’t a huge amount of time, hiring a new employee takes a lot of money and time.
Another idea is to apply for companies that have 4 day 32-hour work weeks.
I think it depends on the stage of the startup, and how much of a key employee you are to it. Can they afford to have you away for that long? Do they have a PTO accrual policy? Have you been making use of it? Do you have at least 6 months of savings for bills / rent should you not have a job? Also consider the expenditures you'll have while taking the sabbatical with half the household income.
A strategy I used to do was that I took unpaid PTO when I wanted time off to let the PTO accrue, then took all of it at once when it maxed out (when that happened, I was on PTO for a month and half) after finishing a major project that took a year to complete. The PTO would also increase in value as I got raises over time.
The company wised up and stopped letting people do unpaid PTO if you had PTO to use because of me.
Even if it's unpaid leave, they still have to pay for your benefits while you're away I think.
Going on the face value of what your original post says, it sounds like a very risky thing to do. PMs are going to have a significantly more difficult time getting a job than an engineer I think.
I think that's UTO :-)
In some places, "PTO" stands for "Personal Time Off". In those places, there can be paid PTO and unpaid PTO.
OP said he was a dev for 10 years and recently switched over to being a PM. If PMs suddenly became less hirable than developers, perhaps he could switch back?
I also started out as a developer, got into product and then project manager, so I'm crossing my fingers, hoping that I can fall back on my "base" of software development if things go south.
Not for a job in tech in this current economy.
Another option is look for another job, with a starting date set in the future.
Q. Are you in an at-will employment jurisdiction? Or do you have more rights?
Are you sure you're not really just done with a stagnant business and ready for something fresh? Have you been considering the opportunity cost of staying at a single startup for 12 years? It's generally a 1-year vesting cliff for a reason...
As far as if it's a good time for a sabbatical in terms of the economy/job market, I have nothing sufficiently informed to contribute.
Having survived through all the tech downturns from 2000 onward, I would say: If you think your job is reasonably secure, don't even think about leaving it right now. Slow down a bit, maybe coast some and see if your mental health improves, take a week here and a week there of sick time, but don't let go of the life boat!
If you think burnout is bad, try having to send out hundreds of resumes and get one or two responses. That sucks. It sucks doubly when you are doing it at 11AM on a Tuesday because you're unemployed. Don't voluntarily do this to yourself.
Your advice is good and fits most sizes and I would like to present the flip side of the coin: 10 years in the game is a lot credential wise and I think could be an opportunity to refit at sea and decide a new course.
It really depends on what risk OP and partner are comfortable with.
Thanks everyone here for their inputs.
Maybe start with a two-three possibly four week vacation totally unplugged and see if that helps you.
However, you need to take a step back and look at the forest rather than the trees with respect to the demands being made of you (and that you say 'yes' to). These can be family demands, work demands etc... They build and build causing stress eventually leading to burnout and possibly depression. Also a question to ask yourself is "are these demands asked of me aligned with my values?". Many times we are living the lives of other people and not our own. So you experience an emotional dissonance.
You also have to let go of the things you cannot control. You can't control the economy, you can't even control your job or necessarily the fate of your startup itself. If you stay, your company could implode. Since you have two incomes and can make some sacrifices maybe things will be ok.
Also while you are on sabbatical or vacation or just in general you probably need to learn some stress management skills. I would take up mindfulness meditation and see what that brings you. Connect with the present. Explore your mind body connection. The people really into meditation say it works so may as well give it a serious try.
Clearly something has to change and that could be something a simple as your perspective.
Also I'm not really writing to you here, but rather as a note to myself.
My only advice is: structure the sabbatical in some way. Give yourself some OKRs. Doesn't matter what they are. If you don't you'll find yourself at the start of the last month wondering where the time went (and, in my case, extending another few months).
Second piece of advice: set up a job to return to before you take the break. Once you leave the company/organization, regardless of the terms, it's much more difficult to line up roles. Lining up a role is never a guarantee, of course, but it's better than waiting until the last month and trying to get rehired.
Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34971129 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27238018
I'm thinking that since finances and such are pushing me to the end of my rope my only option is menial work for the time being. I think I am depressed. Even if I got another screen and passed I don't know if I'd be capable of the work any longer. It's all hideously demoralizing and it's as if there's no light at the end of the tunnel. I was at a reasonably large company for five years previous, I guess there's only so much that can do in a zero-sum situation like now.
But again, I'm not sure if you'd have worse luck getting any sort of interview for an IC position at least. If burnout at work is that much of a concern and you're confident it makes less sense to go with "keep the job." But I certainly would have regretted leaving (if I had any control over the matter), knowing the job search has now turned into its own job for me, a mentally exhausting unpaid job with no guarantee of positive prospects and an endless stream of employers that reject you every week for no identifiable reason.
Something I didn’t fully recognize when I was burnt out: burnout is a personal emotional issue. At that time I (mistakenly) considered emotions a bug and not a feature.
So whatever direction you decide to go on the sabbatical, I highly recommend endeavoring to discover some emotional support and growth.
Online talk therapy has helped me greatly, but mostly the book I wish I had back then is “The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living”
https://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Trap-Struggling-Start-Livin...
If you are a straight white man now is absolutely a terrible time to go on a sabbatical. The DEI initiatives in tech are in full swing, and I'm personally familiar with many many cases where those applicants are summarily rejected without any consideration whatsoever.