Comments on: Fantasy Open Thread: Would You Take a Mid-Career Sabbatical?

By: anonymous for now

anonymous for now — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 01:11:19 +0000

In reply to Anonymous. I work at a large law firm in the PNW and both staff and lawyers get a two month sabbatical after a certain number of years, and we can add a month of vacation to make it three months. I took mine a couple of years ago to travel and it was amazing.

By: Anon

Anon — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 22:50:07 +0000

A billion percent yes, to a sabbatical. I would be fine with 4 weeks up to 12 weeks. I would do some volunteering, lots of travel around the world, a mindfulness type retreat, some sort of skill/learning retreat. This would be amazing.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 22:20:15 +0000

My large law firm actually has a sabbatical program for equity partners–it’s 3 months and you can take one after you’ve been equity for I think 5 years? I’d do it in a heartbeat. I wish they’d institute something similar for associates/salaried partners, even if it’s just for a month. I could seriously use it.

By: Anon

Anon — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 20:59:31 +0000

I was applying to an NGO that offered a 4 or 6 week paid sabbatical after 5 years at the company. I would LOVE to do something like that.

I wouldn’t want to do the quit my job / sell my hypothetical house and travel in a van for 6 months type of sabbatical, but something like the 4-6 weeks offered by this NGO would be amazing. My cousin’s company is similar, so she recently last year she took a 4 week sabbatical and went on a few trips. She and her husband are mid 40s, child free by choice and are both very high earners, but they work long hours and only really take about 2 weeks off a year (during which they take awesome trips); she used her sabbatical to travel with friends, to visit her family in Asia, and then she and her husband took a 1 week trip together.

Ideally I’ll have kids in 5 years, so a sabbatical would certainly look different for me, but would ideally still involve traveling.

By: LawDawg

LawDawg — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 20:51:26 +0000

I took a sabbatical after my first 10 years in the work force (almost 30 years ago). I was stressed at my job and looking for a new one. While looking, I realized that I liked my job, but needed a break. It was a small company and I approached my supervisor with the idea. I framed it as a maternity leave without the baby. I took off for a summer and did volunteer work a few times a week (Habitat for Humanity building, animal shelter, Planned Parenthood) and the other time I went on bike rides or bought food at the farmers market and figured out how to cook it. It was glorious and I came back to my job refreshed and having offloaded some things that I should not have been doing anymore. I also continued to do some of the volunteer things. Once I got started, I figured out how to continue to do the things that were important to me.

By: Senior Attorney

Senior Attorney — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 19:47:13 +0000

I have a friend whose company offers a 3 month sabbatical after a certain number of years, and she did an actual trip around the world, with different friends meeting her in different places. And yes, it was as awesome as you are imagining.