I first encountered the idea of regular sabbaticals from Stefan Sagmeister[1].
The theory goes: why save all of your time-off for retirement, when you're likely to be too old to really enjoy that time? Instead, Sagmeister says, work for a few years and then take some time off—up to a year—now, while you're still fairly young and capable of doing worthwhile things with that time.
The idea is still immensely appealing, but so difficult to pursue here in the United States. Mostly because we still believe that working every waking hour of every day of every month is the only way to get ahead and succeed.
I'm glad Matt not only finally found the time to get away, but that his overseers at Google are letting him do it. How many of us could do the same?
Sometimes I think we need to switch the order of work and retirement. After you finish high school, you should be given a decent lump sum, along with a good monthly income, and told to go have fun.
This is when you party and travel, and take up things like surfing, biking, climbing, hang gliding, hiking, and so on...the things that work better when you have a young body that can do stupid fun dangerous things and maybe survive.
You get to do this until, say, 40, and then it is time to go to work, or to go to college and then go to work.
Basically, "Logan's Run" except Carrousel gives you a job instead of death.
While many people struggle to get time off, I think a big part of it is that people feel guilty when they take time off, even if their employers allow it.
Do you honestly believe people in the caliber of Matt Cutts, Jeff Dean or Simon Peyton Jones, etc would suffer any negative career consequences whatsoever even if they took a year or two off?
Many of the larger companies in the US are actually quite generous with family leave (Google has 3 months paid vacation for dads and 6 months for moms, although it might be the outlier here, it is by far the most family-friendly workplace I've seen), but it is the overachiever mentality that prevents people from taking the time off even if their employers allow them to.
Sure, you will probably not promote that year if you take 3 months off, but its a matter of priorities. I've consistently taken 6 weeks off a year since I started working 8 years ago, even though my allotted vacation time for the first few years was two weeks. I don't believe my career has suffered as a result of that.
Reminds me of the controversial Cadillac commercial: "Other countries: they work, they stroll home, they stop by the cafe, ... They take August off. Off. Why aren't you like that? Why aren't we like that? "
Now, I'm not endorsing this viewpoint---nor am I american---I'm just pointing out that there is a subset of Americans to whom this is a legitimate viewpoint (and that group is large enough that this is a legitimately viable advertisement appealing to their values and life choices).
And despite some folks' collective horror at this commercial (it was mildly---and intentionally, I would guess--- controversial), this is how most of my friend group (and me) live our lives. Sure we would never drive a Cadillac, but we mostly just spend all our time working. I can't think of a single friend who didn't blink at upending their entire life and moving to a new city just for an incremental career move. And it's super strange to my few European friends who value taking August off. Off.
I can sympathize with people who want that level of comfort and vacation. But then I notice my own decisions: I could easily have studied and lived in Europe (and I still could), and yet I have chosen not to. Mostly because of work.
Maybe with a little more time off you'd get something more like a Ferrari or Porsche? :-) You need to take some time off to get some creative juices flowing. It just seems like some sort of empty existence, you work for the sake of working more?
Take a bit of time off and you'll see it's not so bad.
Of course, was a joke. But there will always be more work that we can possibly do. You are never really done in a successful business. So I feel sad that he made these sacrifices at the expense of his family life. The saddest part is that the code he wrote will probably be a distant memory in 20-30 years.
If you have a tolerance for risk, you can do it without the riches and fame of a Matt Cutts.
You also have to have a tolerance for that nagging feeling in your head that you are not being productive, while your peers are getting ahead in their careers.
I took a year off in my twenties to backpack, after I'd been out of college and working for six years. I had some trouble finding a job when I came back to work again, but it wasn't too bad. I fell behind some of my peers that worked the whole time, but I don't regret my experiences.
Again, now in my late thirties I took another year off to pursue a business venture that is high risk. Again, strictly financially speaking, I should have stayed with my previous employer. What I'm doing only makes sense if you think about life as a series of experiences, and not strictly about getting the highest corporate title (or most money) possible before death.
I'm not wealthy enough to stop working. A lot of people would say that what I'm doing is irresponsible. But you only have one life.
As a side note, the way the tax system works here in the states, working every other year, from June to June, would probably put you in a better position with respect to taxes, than working from January to December every other year.
good... he always speaks as if he owns google. He may be knowledgeable but equally arrogant. Google promotes sites with adwords budget and punishes small players who dont have enough budget.
I hope they make him force retire.
is this really something worth blogging about? around here - you guessed it, not US - such behavior is not unusual and you don't have to tell the whole world that you'll be off work while you're off work.
He's a well known person in many circles, an active HN-er, and a kind of a go-to person for SEO/spam issues. It's interesting and relevant information for many of us.
Yeah sure it is, it's on his personal blog anyways and a fairly well known person.
That being said, I don't quite understand the reason it was posted here (considering the personal nature of the post) but I'll agree and appreciate that it spurred a nice discussion on a topic that, to me at least, is very interesting.
The theory goes: why save all of your time-off for retirement, when you're likely to be too old to really enjoy that time? Instead, Sagmeister says, work for a few years and then take some time off—up to a year—now, while you're still fairly young and capable of doing worthwhile things with that time.
The idea is still immensely appealing, but so difficult to pursue here in the United States. Mostly because we still believe that working every waking hour of every day of every month is the only way to get ahead and succeed.
I'm glad Matt not only finally found the time to get away, but that his overseers at Google are letting him do it. How many of us could do the same?
1. http://www.sagmeisterwalsh.com/answers/category/sabbaticals/