
The surprising benefits of a mid-career break - FuNe
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20160325-the-surprising-benefits-of-a-mid-career-break
======
Noumenon72
I never had a career, but I took a break anyway after 14 years as a plastics
factory worker. Mine stretched to 2.5 years since I could afford it. I'm now
in my second month as a junior Java developer. This makes more sense than the
sabbatical, since I had no skills or connections to get stale.

I have to say the benefits really did make me a better deal as an employee. I
basically went from someone who did things because he had to, just fitting
everything in around work, to someone who pursued his own goals. Now that I'm
back at work, I don't constantly lose sleep till I have to rush to work at the
last minute; I schedule things so I don't have to, and I got my sleep habits
under control. I don't bike to work just because I need some way to keep from
getting fat; I sought out active, fun hobbies I can still engage in, like ice
skating. I don't beat myself up all the time for being lazy; I have my own
strategies now for getting myself to put in time on the right projects and not
let things slip away. I also used to have trouble just getting basic things
done like phone calls and finding a tailor; with my time off, I got things
done and gained confidence that I could get any errand done.

I also feel so much more independent now. Google Maps plus free time to
explore means I found so many wilderness sites and activities. Internet
reading about joints plus time to work on the exercises mean any ache or pain
that comes up is something I can solve. Compared to the time I tore a back
muscle falling into a railcar, when all I could do is try to reduce the
activities that caused me nerve damage and hope I got better, I'm so much
better equipped to take care of my own health.

tl;dr Having full responsibility for yourself is great. I did a lot of things
it would have been too late for in retirement, and the best part is the habits
I learned when I had time are now ingrained enough I can do them even while
working full time.

~~~
adrianratnapala
Are you also getting paid more in your new job? If so, how much of the change
in your life is due to this. E.g. you might be able to buy time with money
when previously you just had to rush.

~~~
valleyer
It's a shame that we have built a society where time is something you have to
buy instead of a plentiful resource that everyone shares in. (I suppose you
could say the same for food, shelter, and clean water.)

~~~
Chris2048
Except in this case, it means a salaried worker who guarantees a certain
amount of labor for a certain amount of pay, "buying" back their labor
commitment by returning some of that salary.

Why is it a shame that food, shelter and clean water have to be bought? They
are cheap (well, shelter can differ) isn't that enough?

~~~
adrianratnapala
It can mean that, but I primarily meant other things: you can buy back your
time by hiring a house cleaner, or eating out more often, or buying labour
saving gadgets, and probably in various other ways.

------
hliyan
In 2013, I quit a 10-year job in the HFT/trading systems industry and went to
work for small non-profit that developed web/mobile systems for humanitarian
and human rights agencies. One of the best the things I ever did. What came
out of it:

1\. Completely upgraded my outdated skill set - from C++/Oracle to
ES6/React/Redux/Node.js etc.

2\. Completed a life-long dream of writing a full length science fiction novel
(not yet published, sadly)

3\. Developed computational psychology model (pet interest) that might one day
be the basis of a paper

4\. Learned proper leadership skills, public speaking skills and people
management skills

5\. Much better health - exercised, got plenty of leisure time (worked only
30hrs/week)

6\. Networked through pro-bono consulting

It was financially punishing for me, but ultimately it was more than worth it.
Last year I returned to the industry full time (a different industry this
time). The additional skills/experience in the resume opened up a lot more
higher level opportunities that I would never have been able to pursue 3 years
ago. Right now I'm in a management level position doing exactly the kind of
work I want to do, and I doubt if I'll ever have to worry about finding a
job...

By the way, for anyone who asks, those 2 years were easily the happiest in my
life.

Edit: cons: be ready to be poorer!

~~~
mailshanx
That sounds amazing! I would love to know which industry you returned to, how
the exactly the experiences you had in the break contributed to finding higher
level opportunities, and the impact on personal finances...

~~~
hliyan
1\. The food services industry

2\. My previous job was 10 years of mostly proprietary tech. Had no time to
pursue other things seriously. Dealing with the newer technologies in a
production setting (in the non-profit) helped more than any other learning
process would have. Also, going from a small fish in a very big corporate pond
to a big fish in a very small pond meant having to take a lot more
responsibilities for product, delivery, strategy and HR. It was like a mini
skill incubator. I also had enough time to do some serious consulting work,
which opened up a lot of opportunities.

3\. Quite bad. Savings are quite low currently. My living standard is still
somewhat lower than my peers. But opportunities within the next 2-5 years are
huge. Had I remained in my old industry, I'd have been a technological fossil
by the time I'm 40 (I'm 37 now).

------
neolefty
I took 5 years off of programming, to go with my family to China, where my
wife could pursue her ESL career. I taught high school part-time and was a
house-husband. We came back this summer, about 3 months ago. I'm 45 and
managed to find decent employment.

I was pretty nervous about coming back to software development, but it turned
out fine. I'm not very ambitious career-wise, but I can support my family. I'm
doing web development (there was some catching up to do!) and servers & ops on
AWS, which I was able to jump right back into. Linux hasn't changed much!

I tried to find work in the US from China, but nobody took me very seriously,
so I came back in late April, interviewed in a few places, partly while on a
road trip, got 3 offers in 3 different cities, on a spectrum of interesting to
well-paid, and all ethical, and accepted one in June (the middle one --
reasonably well-paid, reasonably interesting, in a low-cost-of-living
location).

It helped having support of people in the US (my parents, who gave me a home
base, and friends in various cities who I could stay with) and being not-very-
ambitious -- I'm happy to just be a software engineer / ops guy. I don't need
to be very high up the food chain. Companies seem hungry for people who are
professional and skilled and get along with people.

I definitely sacrificed something professionally by spending those 5 years in
China. It was an expensive sojourn. But I am happy we did it. We were very
lucky to (1) all be healthy, (2) have enough money saved to make the leap,
even though we knew it would be temporary, and (3) have at least one of us
employable in the US (me, the programmer) and abroad (my wife, the ESL
teacher). It was a monetary loss for sure! But I learned a lot about life and
not worrying about every little detail, and it was an experience that strongly
shaped our three children, both for better and for worse. And I think it
helped bring the US and China together a little, on a personal level, in the
friends that we made and the things we learned.

~~~
foota
Can I ask how you feel it negatively impacted your children?

~~~
emodendroket
I'm not the OP but I'm guessing that being uprooted from one country to the
other, and back, is somewhat challenging for a child's social development.

~~~
danpat
I went through this - it definitely affected me, but I wouldn't call it a
negative.

It wasn't so much the living away from home (we were overseas for 2 years when
I was 10 years old) it was the return - the shocking disparity between how I
now saw the world, and how my peers (who were frozen in time in my memory) saw
things. It forever separated me from them in ways they could not understand.

In hindsight, it was one of the best things my parents did for me - compared
to most of my home-grown peers, I adapted faster to new situations and had
little difficulty adapting to life as an independent adult - in my opinion,
thanks to the expanded perspective I gained when I was younger.

YMMV, but IMO, calling it "challenging for a child's social development"
implies a negative, but it really depends on what your goals for that child's
development are. It's certainly an experience I'd like to repeat for my own
children if I can make it happen.

~~~
microcolonel
This study also suggests that it could also depend on whether or not the child
is extraverted.
[https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-98-6-980.pdf](https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-98-6-980.pdf)

I've seen other research with similar findings. Having moved cities/provinces
three times in my childhood (granted within one country) I have to say that it
doesn't seem it was tough on me, but I know people who say they wish they
hadn't been moved so much. Another part of it for me is that I really like
where I ended up; and importantly, I gained all of my social skills after
moving to my final childhood municipality, so I associate it with social
success.

~~~
neolefty
Yes! Thank you for linking that.

Our children's experience was very much tied to their extraversion. The most
extraverted is doing the best, and the least extraverted has had the biggest
net negative outcome, in my opinion.

------
wallace_f
I'm currently on a trip around the world, going over 1 year at the moment and
loving life, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I've met countless 20-somethings doing the same, and a surprising number of
mid-career professionals, and they're all European.

I have yet to meet a single person in almost 2 years of international travel
that is from the US and was willing to take a break in their career.

I hope this American culture shifts towards Europe in the future. Americans
are left out of this experience and cultural exchange, and seen as choosing to
rather stay at home to toil over their bank accounts. The professional and
personal benefits are more than adding 1 more year of your working life will
ever get you, and besides, I want to see the change because I have a vested
interest in finding a job when I come back.

~~~
mdorazio
The vast, _vast_ majority of Americans simply cannot afford to take extended
time off to travel internationally, and of those who can, the current job
market is such that for those that return, the prospects outside of the tech
industry are not good. Employers here generally do not look favorably on large
employment gaps, and the social safety net is pretty sparse if you come back
and need time to get situated again. Comparing European workers and American
workers in this context is not very fair - the situations for each are quite
different.

~~~
hackuser
I think your other points are good, but I disagree here:

> The vast, vast majority of Americans simply cannot afford to take extended
> time off to travel internationally

It can be done very economically; students with almost no money do it, staying
in hostels, taking trains, etc. I know one guy who worked his way through, at
least to some extent. If you have kids and a mortgage, that's a different
story.

~~~
hiram112
It's actually very possible for Americans if they plan correctly. From what
I've seen, only the salaries near London approach anything close to the
typical six figure rates seen in the US.

It should be pretty easy for any developer in the US to sock away several
hundred thousand dollars by mid 30s. I did it.

Simply continuing to live as I always have, regardless of raises, has made the
most difference. Granted, children and marriage are two things that I'm very
unlikely to do anytime soon, as I feel it is simply too risky in the US as a
man.

But yes there is something in our culture that impedes travel and long
vacations like this. I have visited many places off the beaten path, and one
thing I've noticed is that Europeans (especially Germans) really seem to get
around the world - they prioritize it, while in the US I've only recently
taken my first vacation in many years where I did not bring my work alone with
me. I think the lack of job stability really makes Americans feel anxious
about employment. One can lose their job here and be out the door in 30
minutes, no warning. There is absolutely no safety net for males in US
society, and one trip to the ER without health insurance can screw you over
financially.

But like I said, salaries in the US seem really high, so it can certainly be
done. In fact, I prefer this to the EU system as I am in full control of my
life, and by saving more money that isn't taxed as much, it's possible to
retire far earlier than engineers in the EU or elsewhere.

~~~
CalRobert
"... to the typical six figure rates seen in the US."

You need to get your news from more than one source. HN is not a
representative sample. I can't overstate this.

I can tell you that having lived in the US and Europe it is MUCH easier to
travel as a European resident:

* 21 days of vacation every year, by law, that people actually use. 6 weeks for some places, like Germany (how do you think it is they travel so much??) In the US if you get vacation it's common to be shamed by your coworkers and bosses if you use more than a few days. A friend of mine works for a company with "unlimited vacation". He just visited Morocco and Portugal for a few weeks and was chided by colleagues for it. He is an incredibly talented and in-demand engineer, though, so he can tell them to shove it. Most people cannot.

* You can leave your job and not be stuck with terrible health insurance (Obamacare is a start, but when you're a footloose 20 something what the hell good is a plan that costs $150 a month and has a $6000 deductible?)

* If you have student loans at all, they're generally quite small.

* The social safety net is stronger; jobseeker's allowance, the dole, etc. are not as hard to qualify for as unemployment is in the US. Think to yourself - in the US, the worst possible consequence of taking a vacation is that you'll be sleeping in gutters after you get back and your boss fires you to set an example. In much of Europe you collect benefit (modest, but still something) and live with roommates.

* Cars - it's a lot harder to save when you're basically forced to spend $250-$600 a month for basic transportation. You might point out that there are alternatives, and there are, but in the US it means paying a TON for rent in order to live in one of the few nice neighbourhoods in the country.

* Most of all, not everyone is a developer. Perhaps people who make $30k a year should be able to take some time off, even for a modest vacation near home, without being in abject terror of seeing their lives ruined for it?

~~~
vonmoltke
> * Cars - it's a lot harder to save when you're basically forced to spend
> $250-$600 a month for basic transportation. You might point out that there
> are alternatives, and there are, but in the US it means paying a TON for
> rent in order to live in one of the few nice neighbourhoods in the country.

As a soon-to-be resident of the NYC metro area, I was shocked to discover that
the monthly costs of those alternatives effectively added up to a car payment.

~~~
dredmorbius
Perhaps the car payment, but consider: fuel, depreciation cost (almost always
overlooked), insurance, parking, and maintenance.

If you can live without a dedicated car (taxi, Uber, car-share, rentals), it's
often a surprisingly affordable option. The critical loss is in the
flexibility of auto-based transport, though again, that hinges greatly on the
alternatives offered by the location.

Humans existed without cars for nearly 200,000 years.

~~~
vonmoltke
> Perhaps the car payment, but consider: fuel, depreciation cost (almost
> always overlooked), insurance, parking, and maintenance.

Well, depreciation is irrelevant if I consider the entire car payment a sunk
cost. Anything I get for selling the car is a bonus. Otherwise yes, there are
additional costs.

> If you can live without a dedicated car (taxi, Uber, car-share, rentals),
> it's often a surprisingly affordable option.

That is the part that hinges on location and the trade-off between
transportation costs and domicile costs.

> Humans existed without cars for nearly 200,000 years.

Humans existed without _cities_ for about 197,000 of those years, but I'd
rather not go back to that.

------
davidhyde
Get on the property ladder before you take your sabbatical.

I recently took an 18 month sabbatical from my banking software development
job and it was well worth the risk. I had been working for 11 years. I ended
up getting my old job back when I returned because I did not leave on bad
terms. I probably would not have if I had stayed there any longer as work and
London life was turning me into an angry selfish person in general.

My only regret is that I didn't buy a flat or house just before I took the
break. Whilst employers are more than open to the idea of a long sabbatical in
my industry, lenders are not. Right now I am earning just as much as I used to
but I am struggling to get a home loan despite having an excellent credit
rating. They see that hole in your work history and it gives them the jitters.
I should have bought a place and rented it out before I went traveling.

~~~
ptero
In the US I often see well paid friends struggle financially after buying a
house (I do live in a high cost area in the US). And most landlords (again,
US) will accept a bank statement with 12-14 months rent in lieu of a salary
check. You can prepay 12 months to avoid any questions whatsoever.

I would personally avoid buying a house before jumping off as that would
occupy my mind instead of freeing it. My 2c.

~~~
davidhyde
Right now, in London and if you have a 15% deposit, its cheaper to buy a place
than to rent from month to month so I guess it depends where you live. I
always thought it was better to keep my savings liquid for startup capital but
I found myself going back to work because I did not like spending it on rent.
I figured that I would continue my project at a slower pace in the evenings
and weekends and cover my expenses in the meantime. This is not a good recipe
for swiftly setting up a startup.

~~~
ptero
Good to know. One difference may be buying a flat in a multi-family building,
so the costs of major repairs (roofs and such) is shared and can be handled by
a management company for a fixed monthly cost / subcontracted / insured
against. That (I think) makes total cost easily predictable.

My observations are from US where more than one family I know bought a house
(old house, expensive because of the good school district, which is why they
bought it), assumed low maintenance costs, then got hit with some sizeable
repairs (as the house is old). Not trying to generalize, that's just what I
saw.

------
stephengillie
> _One of Smith’s clients pointed out to their manager how much money they
> could save in the budget for that year by not having to pay their salary,
> yet not sacrificing the investment they had made in training them over the
> years._

When an organization can operate without your presence for over 300 days, your
role may not be very necessary.

The surprising costs of a mid-career break involve falling far enough behind
industry trends and methods, that it would be faster to train a new person
than retrain you. The article is very optimistic about the rate of change in
any workplace, and also an employer's willingness to support this kind of
extended vacation.

~~~
HillRat
>The surprising costs of a mid-career break involve falling far enough behind
industry trends and methods, that it would be faster to train a new person
than retrain you.

In programming -- and, I think, perhaps in most industries -- more people fall
behind in learning _because_ of their job than because they're out of the
daily grind. Any large-scale enterprise is chock-full of devs who have plenty
of experience developing inside Websphere, Liferay, Sitecore and so on, but
who haven't had the time between work, family and sleep to gain knowledge and
experience in SPA development, CI, CD, microservices, and so on, let alone
more outre topics like ML or NLP. Giving knowledge workers the opportunity to
sabbatical out and build new expertise would benefit both them and their
employers.

~~~
adrianN
Except if their employers need people maintaining the legacy systems using the
legacy technology. Then having people there who know nothing else is highly
beneficial, since they're unlikely to quit.

------
raleighm
I’m a few months into a mid-career break. I’m exercising, playing with kids,
writing, studying, and sleeping (8 hours/night!). I’m also depleting savings,
but not as quickly as I projected. Now that I have time, I fix broken things
rather than replace them. I take time to research things really well before
purchasing, so make few mistakes and get good deals. Each dollar I spend is a
few minutes sooner that I need to return to employment (if the projects I’m
tinkering with aren’t yet revenue-generating), which motivates frugality.

We lowered our costs significantly right before I left work. We moved to a
small but adequate house in the far suburbs. My mortgage is about one-eight
the mortgage of peers in my profession at my level, even when I include the
rent I pay now for a tiny personal office nearby.

Chen, featured in the article, was one inspiration to take the plunge. I found
his LinkedIn CV, which describes that period: “Father and Husband, Sabbatical,
September 2011 - August 2012. We took a year off from our life in Boston and
lived on a remote island in Norway just north of the Arctic Circle.” I liked
that. Ideally I emerge from this period with a sustainable business of my own,
but even if I return to working for others, as long as I have an interesting,
compelling story about what I was up to during my time off, and how it made me
better - which I will - I doubt the period will cost me much (if anything) in
interview terms, and it may benefit me.

Glad to read the experiences of others here who did this and didn’t regret it.
If there are people who took time off and did regret it or have advice about
how (not) to spend the time, would love to read that too.

~~~
varjag
> I found his LinkedIn CV, which describes that period: “Father and Husband,
> Sabbatical, September 2011 - August 2012. We took a year off from our life
> in Boston and lived on a remote island in Norway just north of the Arctic
> Circle.”

Honestly it sounds more along the lines of a usual stay at home dad, the
location notwithstanding. The only reason they moved there was wife's origin
and offer of employment.

If you reverse the genders it happens all the time, just that no one would
call that 'sabbatical'.

~~~
wolfgke
> If you reverse the genders it happens all the time, just that no one would
> call that 'sabbatical'.

Because a sabbatical means that _for a limited time_ you will do something
different that you always wanted to do and go back to the job afterwards. Not
cultivating a new hobby which will distract you from your job for the next,
say, 15 years.

~~~
varjag
That would be a lot more convincing if his sabbatical wasn't around the in-
laws. There's nothing wrong with paternity leave, maybe that's a stigma on
resume in the States though?

------
siquick
I took a 1 year career break in 2011, travelled around Asia, learnt some new
life and professional skills and got an excellent new job in Australia (I'm
British) via sponsorship.

Im convinced that I got the job because my energy and enthusiasm levels were
completely reset after my time away from working.

In August this year I left that job and I've been living in Thailand for the
last 2.5 months, and already I feel completely reset and ready for new
challenges.

The most important part of a career break is to use the time wiseley to either
work on yourself, or work on your skills, or both. If you just sit around on
your backside playing XBox and doing the same shit you did while you were
working, then you're probably not going to benefit from it.

Yes this path may not be available to friends who went down the
family/mortgage path but they have benefits in their life which I don't have.
Different people, different priorities I guess.

------
pfarnsworth
I did this a few years ago, taking 1 year off. I was a bit nervous being in my
40s, but it did such immense help for me, I recommend it for anyone who is
willing to work hard during their time off. I pivoted from enterprise software
to backend development for various online companies and I'm very, very happy.

------
gh1
While a sabbatical year might be very beneficial for the person taking it (for
the multitude of reasons mentioned in the article), it can be detrimental for
the organization. For example, if the person taking the sabbatical is in
charge of (or playing a lead role in) a project that is time sensitive, then
this is a big setback for the project. Similarly, if the person is mentoring
someone else (who is dependent in some way on his presence), then taking a
sabbatical is unfair to that mentee.

This is why it is important to plan the sabbatical year so that it is
personally beneficial and also not detrimental to the organization and its
people.

~~~
Frogolocalypse
I'd say that it is just as important to an organization to learn how to deal
with people leaving. It's better to have someone leaving under good terms than
bad, and if you're totally reliant upon a single person doing a single role,
you're not displaying too much 'organizing' in your organization.

------
whenwillitstop
Can anyone in this thread speak to how it would impact a software engineers
career in the USA? I've considered doing this for a while, just afraid to give
up all I've worked for

------
k__
I worked 7 years for one company and had the feeling it wouldn't go anywhere.

So I quit and went Funemployed for 1.5 years. Doing some game development etc.

Went self-employed afterwards and got to work from home and make much more
money.

I learned much and even tried to finish my masters degree, but the new job
prevented me from getting the thesis done, haha. But maybe next year.

------
ryandrake
Oh, another "Isn't it cool that people can quit their jobs to go do
$EXPENSIVE_THING" humblebrag article! File this along with the "Exploring
Africa in my custom jeep" and "Traveling the country in a solar powered van I
built" pieces. Unfortunately, this option is not available to the 99.99% of
readers who need to pay their mortgages, health insurance, child care
expenses, student loan payments, and other realities of normal life.

If you're one of those lucky enough to be able to just jaunt off to a faraway
land for a "career break" then congratulations! But these articles claiming
it's something that you, the reader, can do, are pretty silly.

~~~
maxaf
Just for the hell of it I went over to my wife and proposed taking a
sabbatical. She raised an eyebrow: "Are you high? Man up & do what needs to be
done!"

Seriously though, until universal basic income is a thing, those of us who
must work for a living will continue to work for a living. This is capitalism
in action.

~~~
hackits
Can only talk about my wife and our situation. We both work, but all ways make
sure that either partner can hold a full time job and pay all our commitments.
This goes for car loan, mortgage, shopping. It takes the stress of either
partner that they can just take 6 to 12 months off when things get really
tough.

------
eslaught
It sounds like lots of people here have taken breaks, but have any of you
taken actual sabbaticals (i.e. with explicit employer permission and with the
intention of coming back afterwards)? How did you negotiate it and how did it
go for you?

~~~
sokoloff
We have a program that grants a short (4 week) sabbatical every 5 years. You
can add an additional 2 weeks of PTO to get to a 6 week break.

It's not an academic's typical sabbatical, but it's a nice perk to disconnect
as well as force us to not be excessively dependent on a long-time veteran for
daily ops.

To your last question, it's a company perk, so wasn't negotiated; my first one
went very well; I caught up on some hobbies that I'd let slide and did some
fun travel and am looking forward to my second one.

~~~
nordify
> We have a program that grants a short (4 week) sabbatical every 5 years. You
> can add an additional 2 weeks of PTO to get to a 6 week break.

That's not a sabbatical, that's a normal summer vacation in Europe :)

------
oriel
I did this last year by accident, after a layoff from a high intensity but
failing startup. Easily one of the most productive, eye opening, bucket list
kicking experiences of my life. I ended up doing 6 months, traveling, starting
a company, got CELTA certified, met a woman who turned my perspective on
dating upsidedown, and generally was much happier.

Oddly though, all of my personal coding projects went almost immediately into
the bin. I didn't have the motivation to push them when I was employed and
lost _all_ motivation when I didn't touch the field on a daily basis.

------
JamieAtBud
A consultant that just started working for our company wrote this post a few
days ago: "He who dares"... Why moving from a corporate to a start-up could be
the best move you ever make… Might be of interest
[http://blog.thisisbud.com/he-who-dares-why-moving-from-a-
cor...](http://blog.thisisbud.com/he-who-dares-why-moving-from-a-corporate-to-
a-start-up-could-be-the-best-move-you-ever-make/)

------
jczhang
Question for all you guys who took a break (ie travel for 1 yr+) and came back
to another job. How did you show in your resume?

~~~
dagw
My resume just looks something like:

    
    
      Job A: 2007-2009
      Job B: 2010-2014
      ...etc
    

No one ever asks.

------
arvinsim
As much as the break and benefits itself seem alluring, most of the world
can't afford this kind of lull in their careers. This applies to both work-
oriented countries like Japan and USA as well as third world countries.

------
personjerry
Did BBC just clickbait me?

------
andrewclunn
Non-white people do this too. They just call it being laid off. The holistic,
"I just feel so fulfilled!" crap just irks me at some visceral level that I
can't fully explain. There's just something so entitled and lazy about this
way of existing.

~~~
terrywilcox
You sound like you need a sabbatical.

